What Does Psalm 135:13 Mean?
Your nature, O LORD, stands for the ages; your remembrance, O LORD, from generation to generation.
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
Thy name, O LORD, endureth for ever; and thy memorial, O LORD, throughout all generations.THE KEY
The LORD’s name is more than a label preserved by time; it is a nature carried forward through remembrance.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s nature remains present through every age, and remembrance carries that name from one generation to the next. As you encounter the name now, it points to a living character that still reaches you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a name is only a label whose meaning disappears with the past; here, remembrance carries the named nature across generations.
THE ROOT
זִכְרְךָ
zikhrəkha
GROWS FROM
זכר
Remember, call to mind, bring to remembrance.
The verse pairs this remembrance with shem (שֵׁם, shem, name as nature): the LORD’s nature is carried forward as it is remembered. “Memorial” can sound like a monument, but זכר (z-k-r; zakar, remember) points to the act of remembering that keeps the named nature present across generations.
ALSO GROWS
zāḵar: Remember, recall.
זָכַר
This verb shares the seed of “memorial,” showing that what endures is actively remembered.
zikkārôn: A remembrance or memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
This related form names a remembrance that can be carried forward, joining the LORD’s nature to the generations that remember.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s name endures across time as remembrance carries it from one generation to the next.
God also said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name for the ages, and this is my remembrance to all generations.Yea, in the way of your judgments, O LORD, we have stretched taut toward you. The craving of our living soul is for your name, and for the remembrance of you.And his faithful love is for those in awe of him, from generation to generation.THE THREAD
God also said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name for the ages, and this is my remembrance to all generations.Exodus 3:15 joins the LORD’s name and memorial across all generations, as this psalm does. “Memorial” comes from זכר (z-k-r; zakar, remember), so the shared root reveals remembrance as the way the named nature is carried forward.
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