What Does Psalm 119:131 Mean?
I open my mouth and pant, for I long for your commands.
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
I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments.THE KEY
The speaker’s longing for God’s commandments takes the shape of a body opening its mouth and panting for them.
THE MEANING
Your mouth opens; you pant for God’s commandments. The verse gives desire a bodily urgency, directed toward God’s instruction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine instruction can be approached only as obligation; here, the speaker craves it with physical urgency.
THE ROOT
וָאֶשְׁאָפָה
va’esha’afah
GROWS FROM
שׁ־א־ף
sha’af
To pant or gasp; also to pursue eagerly, with force.
“pant” in this verse is va’esha’afah. This verb gives longing the urgency of panting. Elsewhere its force describes people who swallow others up, so the appetite it names can consume; here, its object is God’s commandments.
ALSO GROWS
sha’afu: A plural form of the verb, rendered “swallow me up” in the KJV.
שָׁאֲפוּ
It shows the pursuing force this root can carry; here that force is directed toward God’s commandments.
hasho’afim: Those described as swallowing up the needy, in the KJV rendering.
הַשֹּׁאֲפִים
The same root can name a predatory appetite, giving the speaker’s panting for instruction a vivid and different direction.
לְמִצְוֹתֶיךָ
lemitzvotecha
GROWS FROM
צ־ו־ה
tsavah
To command, charge, or direct.
“commands” in this verse is lemitzvotecha. The word for commandments grows from a root of command and charge. Here that charge is something the speaker longs for, turning direction into the object of urgent desire.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: A command or instruction given.
מִצְוָה
This is the singular form related to the word translated “commandments” in the verse.
tsav: A direct command or precept, from the same root.
צַו
It shows the root’s sense of directing, the very thing the speaker longs to receive.
THE PATTERN
Desire for God’s direction can take the form of bodily appetite, not merely abstract agreement.
But his delight is in the instruction of the LORD; and over his instruction he murmurs day and night.And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.THE THREAD
I delight myself in your commands, which I love.It uses the same Hebrew word for “commandments,” מִצְוֹת (mitzvot, commandments), from צוה (tsavah, command or charge), and places it beside delight and love. The panting in this verse gives that attachment a bodily form.
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