What Does Psalm 121:6 Mean?
The sun does not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
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
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.THE KEY
By pairing sun and moon, the verse places both halves of time inside the same protection.
THE MEANING
This promise reaches you across the full daily cycle. The sun cannot strike you by day, and the moon cannot strike you at night; the keeping holds when one light gives way to the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The day may be guarded while the night lies outside that care.
THE ROOT
יָרֵחַ
yārēaḥ
GROWS FROM
ירח
y-r-ḥ
The moon and its month-cycle
Hebrew uses יָרֵחַ (yārēaḥ, moon) and יֶרַח (yeraḥ, month) from this word family. The nighttime light is also a marker of counted time, so alongside the day the verse names protection through the cycle’s turning.
ALSO GROWS
yārēaḥ: Moon
יָרֵחַ
This is the verse’s night light; its word family also keeps the cycle of time in view.
yeraḥ: Month
יֶרַח
The moon’s word family names a month, connecting night with a larger measure of time.
יַכֶּכָּה
yakkekha
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
Strike, hit, smite
The root נכה (nākhāh, strike or hit) presents the threat as a blow that could land, not a vague unease. Its branches name both the blow and the act of striking, while this verse says the sun and moon do not land that impact.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: Blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
This branch shows that the root’s strike can name an actual injury or affliction, the impact held back here.
hikkāh: He struck
הִכָּה
This verbal form names the striking act itself, which the verse denies to the sun and moon.
THE PATTERN
God’s protection holds across alternating kinds of exposure, from daytime heat to nighttime danger.
You do not fear the dread of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.They shall not hunger or thirst, and neither the scorching wind nor the sun shall strike them, for the one who has compassion on them shall lead them, and beside springs of waters he shall guide them.They do not hunger any longer, nor thirst any longer; nor does the sun fall upon them, nor any burning heat.THE THREAD
They shall not hunger or thirst, and neither the scorching wind nor the sun shall strike them, for the one who has compassion on them shall lead them, and beside springs of waters he shall guide them.Isaiah uses the same נכה (nākhāh, “strike/smite”) root when it says the sun will not smite; the same blow named here is blocked there amid heat and thirst. Psalm 121 widens that protection from the sun’s day to the moon’s night.
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