What Does Psalm 124:6 Mean?
Let the LORD be blessed, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
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
Blessed be the LORD, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.THE KEY
The LORD’s blessing appears as a refusal to place us in the jaws that would tear us apart.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s blessing is concrete here: you are not handed over as food to what would consume you. The verse holds the threat in view while naming that it does not possess you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being threatened does not mean you have already been abandoned to what threatens you.
THE ROOT
נְתָנָנוּ
netananu
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
The Hebrew says the LORD has not given or placed us as prey. The root makes the danger concrete: we are not transferred into the predators’ possession.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift; something given.
מַתָּנָה
This form shows the root’s sense of transfer into another’s hands.
netunim: People set apart or assigned to another’s service.
נְתוּנִים
This form makes clear that natan can describe being placed under someone’s charge, the very transfer this verse says does not happen.
טֶרֶף
teref
GROWS FROM
טרף
ṭ-r-p
Tear, tear away.
“as prey” in this verse is teref. The word for prey is rooted in tearing. The teeth are not a decorative image: they complete the word’s picture of being seized and torn apart.
ALSO GROWS
ṭaraph: To tear or seize as prey.
טָרַף
The verb exposes the violence contained in the noun for prey.
terefah: Something torn or mangled.
טְרֵפָה
This related form keeps the image focused on what the teeth would do.
בָּרוּךְ
barukh
GROWS FROM
ברך
b-r-k
Bless; the same root also names the knee.
“be blessed” in this verse is barukh. The same root links blessing with the knee and the bodily posture of bending. Here, blessing is spoken as the LORD’s refusal to hand people over to their attackers.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: The knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
This shared root gives blessing a bodily image of bending.
berakhah: A blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This form echoes the opening word and ties blessing to the verse’s concrete deliverance.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance is revealed when people are not surrendered to the force that means to consume them.
And the LORD delivered Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the lip of the sea.He snatches me from my strong enemy and from my haters, for they are too firm for me.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
Do not give me into the throat of those who press me narrow; for false witnesses rise up against me, and breathe out violence.The Hebrew of both verses uses the root נתן (natan), meaning give, set, or place. Psalm 27:12 voices the fear of being handed over; Psalm 124:6 names the relief that this transfer does not happen.
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