What Does Psalm 118:29 Mean?
O extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages.
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
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.THE KEY
The verse turns thanksgiving from a response to good circumstances into recognition of goodness and faithful love that remain.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s goodness is true for you now, and his faithful love does not run out when your circumstances shift. Giving thanks names what remains steady underneath each changing moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a hard season means the LORD’s faithful love has run out.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
chasdo
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful love, steadfast kindness, and loyalty within a relationship.
Chesed is relational, loyal love: it carries steadfast kindness, not only pardon. The verse says this faithful love endures; its constancy belongs to the relationship, not to any single season.
ALSO GROWS
chasid: A faithful or devout one
חָסִיד
This related form describes someone characterized by faithfulness, showing that chesed is more than a passing feeling.
chasidim: Faithful or devout ones
חֲסִידִים
The plural carries that same quality into a community of people marked by faithful love.
הוֹדוּ
hodu from yadah
GROWS FROM
ידה
Acknowledge, praise, or give thanks.
“extend your hands in thanks” in this verse is hodu from yadah. Yadah makes thanks an act of recognition: the goodness is named, not earned or generated by the one giving thanks. The verse’s opening is an acknowledgment of what remains true.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving or praise
תּוֹדָה
This noun gives thanks a name, linking the verse’s call to a wider language of acknowledgment.
Yehudah: Judah; a name associated with praise
יְהוּדָה
The name comes from the same praise root, showing praise as both an act and a name that carries its nature.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s goodness and faithful love remain steady across changing circumstances and generations.
For the LORD is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages, and his steadiness holds from generation to generation.From afar the LORD appeared to me, saying, I have loved you with a love of the ages. Therefore with faithful love I have drawn you.Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.THE THREAD
Surely goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life, and I settle in the house of the LORD for the length of days.The word rendered “mercy” is chesed, the same faithful love named here as enduring. Psalm 23 makes that love personal and near: it follows you through every day.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us