What Does Psalm 118:23 Mean?
This comes from the LORD; it is a wonder in our eyes.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.THE KEY
The rejected stone’s reversal is the LORD’s work, and what your eyes call marvellous is the sight of that reversal.
THE MEANING
What once seemed unfit for a place now stands before you as something that has come to be from the LORD. The verse holds the event and your perception together: its wonder is visible in your eyes now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A thing rejected as unfit has no place in what comes next.
THE ROOT
נִפְלָאת
niflaʾat
GROWS FROM
פלא
פלא (palaʾ): be extraordinary or wonderful; exceed ordinary understanding.
English can make “marvellous” sound like a reaction added by the viewer. Hebrew ties it to פלא (palaʾ, to be extraordinary), a root that also names a wonder and the act of doing wondrously; the verse binds the event’s unusual quality to what the eyes perceive.
ALSO GROWS
peleʾ: Wonder; an extraordinary thing.
פֶּלֶא
The same root names wonder as a thing, not only as a response to what is seen.
hifliʾ: Do wondrously; perform a wonder.
הִפְלִיא
This verb form connects the marvelous sight to an act that brings wonder about.
niflaʾot: Wonders; marvelous deeds.
נִפְלָאוֹת
The plural form shows the same root naming extraordinary events as well as this singular marvel.
הָיְתָה
hayetah
GROWS FROM
היה
היה (hayah): be, become, happen.
The Hebrew verb הָיְתָה (hayetah, was or came to be) gives “the LORD’s doing” the sense of what has come to be from the LORD. Its root היה (hayah, be or become) holds the event and its source together.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: Be; become; happen.
הָיָה
This is the root’s basic verb form, showing the sense carried by the verse’s form.
yihyeh: Will be; will become.
יִהְיֶה
The same root in a future form keeps being and becoming within one word family.
עֵינֵינוּ
ʿênênû
GROWS FROM
עין
עין (ʿayin): eye; spring or source.
The Hebrew says “in our eyes” with עֵינֵינוּ (ʿênênû, our eyes). The noun עַיִן (ʿayin, eye) also names a spring, letting the wonder echo as something that wells into sight, a possibility carried by the Hebrew word itself.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; also a spring or source.
עַיִן
The same Hebrew noun can name both the organ of sight and a spring.
ʿeynayim: Eyes.
עֵינַיִם
This dual form makes explicit the plural sense present in “our eyes.”
maʿyan: Spring; fountain.
מַעְיָן
This word for a spring shares the עין consonants and echoes the image of something welling up.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD’s work exceeds ordinary expectation, seeing it becomes an encounter with wonder.
Who is like you among the mighty ones, O LORD? Who is like you, majestic in being set apart, awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders?You are the God who makes wonders; you make known your strength among the peoples.And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; aligned and true are your ways, King of the nations.THE THREAD
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.The builders’ refusal gives the reversal its concrete shape: a rejected stone becomes the head of the corner. Verse 23 calls that turn the LORD’s doing and locates its marvel in the eyes that now see it.
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