What Does Psalm 13:5 Mean?
But I have leaned my full weight upon your faithful love; my heart leaps in your deliverance.
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
But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.THE KEY
The heart rejoices in deliverance while trusting in faithful love, before the verse says anything has changed.
THE MEANING
Trust rests in faithful love, and the heart already turns toward joy in deliverance. The verse holds that joy alongside the need for deliverance; it does not wait for the need to disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that joy must wait until trouble is over: here rejoicing and the need for deliverance stand together.
THE ROOT
בָּטַחְתִּי
batachti
GROWS FROM
בטח
b-ṭ-ḥ
To trust, feel secure, or take refuge.
“leaned my full weight upon” in this verse is batachti. The word belongs to a family where trust and security share the same seed. Here trust is more than an idea about God: it is the heart finding refuge in faithful love.
ALSO GROWS
betach: security; safely
בֶּטַח
Its sense of security shows the settled quality of the trust expressed in the verse.
mivtach: refuge; confidence
מִבְטָח
This branch makes trust feel like shelter: the heart has somewhere to rest while it awaits deliverance.
בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ
bi-yeshu'atekha
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
To deliver, rescue, or bring help.
This is deliverance as movement out of constriction and toward spaciousness. The heart’s joy is already located within that deliverance, even as the verse still names its need.
ALSO GROWS
yeshaʿ: deliverance; rescue
יֵשַׁע
This noun shares the root’s language of being brought out, clarifying what the heart rejoices in.
moshiaʿ: deliverer; one who rescues
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This branch names the one who brings deliverance, keeping the verse’s joy connected to its source.
חַסְדְּךָ
chasdekha
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
To show faithful love or act with loyal kindness.
Alongside mercy, chesed carries the sense of faithful love that holds steady in relationship. The verse places trust in that durable love and joy in deliverance side by side.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: faithful love; loyal kindness
חֶסֶד
This is the quality in which the speaker trusts: a love that remains dependable.
chasid: faithful; loyal
חָסִיד
This related word describes one marked by loyalty, echoing the steadfast character of the love named here.
THE PATTERN
A heart can rejoice in deliverance while trust rests in faithful love, before visible change is described.
For our heart rejoices in him, because we have leaned our weight upon his set-apart nature.Yet I will leap in the LORD; I will dance in the God of my deliverance.And may the God of hope fill you with all joy and wholeness in leaning your full weight, so that you may overflow in hope through the power of the Set-Apart Breath.THE THREAD
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.Isaiah joins the same two roots: בטח (batach, trust) and ישׁע (y-sh-ʿ, deliver). Psalm 13:5 places trust and rejoicing in deliverance together; Isaiah makes their connection explicit in one breath.
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