What Does Psalm 119:140 Mean?
Your word is refined through and through, and your servant loves it.
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
Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.THE KEY
The word called “pure” is pictured as metal refined by fire, its purity is what remains after the dross is gone.
THE MEANING
The word meeting you is refined, free of dross; its purity bears the trace of refining. The servant loves it because its nature is trustworthy. Here, love answers a word whose integrity holds under the fire.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Purity does not mean untouched or untested; this word carries the sense of what remains after refining.
THE ROOT
צְרוּפָה
tserufah
GROWS FROM
צָרַף
To smelt or refine metal, separating it from dross.
“refined through and through” in this verse is tserufah. The word translated “pure” comes from צָרַף (tsaraph), “to refine.” Hebrew presents this utterance as more than spotless: it is like metal passed through heat until what remains is clean and trustworthy, giving the servant’s love its reason.
ALSO GROWS
tsaruf: Refined or tested metal.
צָרוּף
Psalm 12:6 uses this form for silver tried in a furnace, making the refining image in “pure” explicit.
mitsraf: A refining pot or crucible.
מִצְרָף
The word names the vessel where metal is refined, showing that this root holds both the process and the place of refining.
THE PATTERN
What is refined into truth becomes both refuge and a force that sets life apart.
The words of the LORD are clean words, as silver refined in a furnace of the ground, filtered seven times.Every word of God is refined. He is a shield to those who shelter in him.Set them apart through your truth; your word is truth.THE THREAD
The words of the LORD are clean words, as silver refined in a furnace of the ground, filtered seven times.The same root, צָרַף (tsaraph), appears in “tried” as silver refined in a furnace. Psalm 12:6 makes the image visible: the servant loves an utterance whose purity has the character of what survives refining.
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