What Does Psalm 119:68 Mean?
You are good, and you do good; teach me your statutes.
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
Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.THE KEY
The verse moves from goodness as God’s nature to goodness as God’s action, then asks to be taught the pattern that holds both together.
THE MEANING
You encounter God as both good and actively doing good; goodness here is not detached from action. The request to be taught God’s statutes places instruction within that goodness, as something that shapes how you understand and move through life.
THE ROOT
טוֹב
tov
GROWS FROM
טוב
Good, beneficial, or pleasant.
The verse pairs טוֹב (tov, good) with מֵיטִיב (metiv, doing good or benefiting). Metiv comes from יטב (yatav, be good or do well), a related-sounding root rather than a branch of טוב; the echo lets goodness move from what God is to what God does.
ALSO GROWS
tuv: Goodness, welfare, or benefit.
טוּב
It carries goodness as something experienced, which fits the verse’s move from God’s character to God’s beneficial action.
tovah: Goodness or a good thing.
טוֹבָה
It shows the same root naming goodness as something that can take form and be received.
לַמְּדֵנִי
lammedeni
GROWS FROM
למד
Learn or become versed in; in the intensive form, teach.
The root למד (lamad, learn or teach) holds both sides of instruction together. The request is not just for information about statutes; it asks to enter the same process of learning that the root names.
ALSO GROWS
lamad: Learn or study.
לָמַד
The same root used for teaching also names the learner’s activity.
talmid: Learner or disciple.
תַּלְמִיד
The word for a learner grows from the root for teaching, joining instruction to the one being formed by it.
חֻקֶּיךָ
chuqqecha
GROWS FROM
חקק
Cut, carve, or inscribe.
The root חקק (chaqaq, carve or inscribe) gives statutes the image of something marked out or engraved. To be taught these statutes is to become acquainted with an inscribed pattern, not merely to hear a list of rules.
ALSO GROWS
choq: A statute, prescribed portion, or boundary.
חֹק
It connects instruction with a defined shape or measure.
chuqqah: An ordinance or prescribed practice.
חֻקָּה
It carries the engraved pattern into an ongoing way of ordering life.
THE PATTERN
God’s goodness is disclosed both in God’s character and in the good that flows from God.
Good and straight is the LORD. Therefore he aims those who miss the mark down the way.Who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers had never perceived, so that he might bend you low and test you, to do you good at your latter end;Every good giving and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting and no shadow cast by turning.THE THREAD
And Moses called all Israel, and said to them, Hear and respond, O Israel, to the statutes and the judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that you may learn them, and guard them, and do them.The root למד (lamad, learn or teach) appears in Psalm 119:68 as “teach” and here as “learn.” The shared root links being taught with becoming a learner who keeps and does what is learned.
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