What Does Psalm 122:4 Mean?
There the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, a witness for Israel, to extend their hands to the name of the LORD.
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
Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD.THE KEY
Israel’s tribes ascend together in public praise, and that praise is already woven into Judah’s name.
THE MEANING
You see the tribes rise together toward the LORD’s testimony and give thanks to the LORD’s name, the nature revealed in the LORD. Their thanks is shared acknowledgment, making the gathering itself a witness. The verse holds ascent, belonging, and praise in one act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that thanksgiving is only a private feeling: here it is a shared act of acknowledging the LORD’s nature.
THE ROOT
לְהוֹדוֹת
lehodot
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ה
y-d-h
Acknowledge, praise, or confess.
“extend their hands” in this verse is lehodot. The word for giving thanks carries the wider sense of openly acknowledging and praising. Its root is also linked in Genesis to Judah’s name, so praise is present both in the tribes’ gathering and in the name of one of the tribes.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving, praise, and, in some contexts, a thanksgiving offering.
תּוֹדָה
It shows that thanks can be expressed as public praise, not only felt inwardly.
Yehudah: Judah, whose name Leah connects with praising the LORD.
יְהוּדָה
Judah is one of the tribes named in the verse, and its name echoes the praise they gather to offer.
עָלוּ
ʿālû
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ה
ʿ-l-h
Rise, go up, ascend.
“go up” in this verse is ʿālû. The tribes’ movement is literally upward: this is an ascent toward a shared gathering. The same root appears in words for ascent and for an offering that rises, giving the pilgrimage a movement toward the LORD as well as a destination.
ALSO GROWS
aliyah: An ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
It keeps the physical movement in view: the tribes rise together toward the gathering.
olah: An offering associated with rising or ascending.
עֹלָה
It echoes the verse’s upward movement in a word for an offering that rises.
עֵדוּת
ʿēdût
GROWS FROM
ע־ו־ד
ʿ-w-d
Bear witness, testify.
The tribes ascend toward Israel’s testimony, a shared witness or charge. The gathering is oriented around what Israel bears witness to together, rather than being only a collection of separate journeys.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēd: A witness.
עֵד
It makes the testimony concrete: someone or something bears witness.
heʿid: Testified or bore witness.
הֵעִיד
It shows the root as an act of bearing witness, which gives depth to Israel’s shared testimony.
THE PATTERN
Gathering toward the LORD turns individual movement into shared praise.
Three times in a year all your males shall be seen before the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, at the feast of unsoured bread, at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of booths. They shall not be seen before the face of the LORD empty.Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with a clamor of praise; lift your hands to him, and bless his nature.So that with one passion and one mouth you may give weight to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now I will extend my hands to the LORD. Therefore she called his name Judah, Praise, and she stood from bearing.The root of “give thanks” echoes in יְהוּדָה (Yehudah, Judah), whose name Leah links to praising the LORD. Psalm 122 brings the tribes, including Judah, together in the very act of praise carried in that name.
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