What Does Psalm 135:10 Mean?
He strikes many nations and kills strong kings.
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
Who smote great nations, and slew mighty kings;THE KEY
The Hebrew for “mighty” shares a root with “bone” and “substance,” giving royal strength a bodily solidity even as the verse names the kings’ deaths.
THE MEANING
This line speaks of the LORD striking nations and killing kings whom it calls mighty. It holds human power at the scale of whole peoples and rulers, then names its limit without softening the violence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A nation’s scale or a king’s strength can make power seem immune to judgment. The verse names both as vulnerable to the LORD’s force.
THE ROOT
עֲצוּמִים
ʿaṣûmîm
GROWS FROM
עצם
ʿ-ṣ-m
To be strong, mighty, or numerous; the same root family also carries the sense of bone or substance.
“strong” in this verse is ʿaṣûmîm. The Hebrew word for “mighty” shares a root with עֶצֶם (ʿeṣem, bone; substance) and עֹצֶם (ʿōṣem, strength). The verse gives the kings’ power a concrete solidity, then says that even this force ends in death.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeṣem: Bone; substance; self.
עֶצֶם
The word for bone carries a sense of what is substantial, linking the kings’ might to something bodily and solid.
ʿōṣem: Strength; might.
עֹצֶם
This branch names strength directly, grounding the verse’s description in force rather than royal status alone.
הִכָּה
hikkāh
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
To strike or hit; in this verb, to smite or strike down.
“strikes” in this verse is hikkāh. The root carries the direct force of striking. Its noun branch מַכָּה (makkāh, a blow or plague) keeps that physical impact in view as the verse moves from nations struck to kings killed.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: Blow; wound; plague.
מַכָּה
This noun preserves the impact of the root, echoing the forceful action the verse describes.
makkēh: One who strikes; a striker.
מַכֵּה
This form names the agent of a blow, making the root’s action explicit.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts the LORD’s authority reaching political powers that appear too large or too strong to withstand it.
Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea; his chosen third officers have sunk in the Sea of Reeds.He sets the princes into nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as emptiness.And at once the messenger of the LORD struck him, because he did not give God the weight, and he was eaten by worms and breathed out his last.THE THREAD
To him who strikes great kings, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.The word translated “smote” here and in Psalm 136:17 comes from נכה (n-k-h, to strike). Psalm 136 sets that blow beside חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love), said to endure for ever; both claims sit together while the violence remains in view.
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