What Does Psalm 135:6 Mean?
Whatever the LORD delights in, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the depths.
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
Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.THE KEY
The verse joins desire to action and names no realm, visible or hidden, as outside its scope.
THE MEANING
What the LORD desires takes effect across every domain named here: heaven, earth, seas, and even the depths. The verse holds the visible and the hidden within the reach of that action now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the depths lie beyond the LORD’s reach: the verse explicitly includes “all deep places.”
THE ROOT
חָפֵץ
chafets
GROWS FROM
ח־פ־ץ
ḥ-p-ṣ
To desire, delight in, or take pleasure in.
“Whatever the LORD delights in” in this verse is chafets. The word behind “pleased” carries the sense of desire and delight. Here it is joined to עָשָׂה (asah, “did”), so what is desired is also done; the verse then carries that action across heaven, earth, seas, and the depths.
ALSO GROWS
chephets: Desire, delight, pleasure; also a matter or thing desired.
חֵפֶץ
The related noun shows that the root can name both the act of desiring and what is desired.
chephtsi: My desire or pleasure.
חֶפְצִי
Isaiah 46:10 uses this form in “I will do all my pleasure,” joining the same root to action.
עָשָׂה
asah
GROWS FROM
ע־שׂ־ה
ʿ-ś-h
To do, make, or bring about.
“did” in this verse is asah. This verb makes the line concrete: desire is paired with something done. Beside the verse’s sweep of places, it presents action extending through every domain named.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: A deed, work, or act.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The noun makes the root’s action visible as something accomplished.
ʿoseh: One who does or makes.
עֹשֶׂה
This form names the agent of the action, echoing the verse’s “that did he.”
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s desire takes effect across the full span of creation, from heaven to the depths.
But our God is in the heavens, and he does whatever he delights in.Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.In him we also have been allotted an inheritance, marked out beforehand according to the aim of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.THE THREAD
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.Isaiah uses חֶפְצִי (chephtsi, “my pleasure”), from the same ח־פ־ץ root rendered “pleased” here, and links it to doing: “I will do all my pleasure.” That shared root presents desire as enacted purpose, beside the Psalm’s sweep from heaven to the depths.
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