What Does Psalm 135:8 Mean?
He strikes the firstborn of Egypt, from humankind to beast.
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 the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast.THE KEY
By naming the firstborn of both humans and beasts, the verse identifies the first yield of Egypt’s households and herds as the target of one undivided blow.
THE MEANING
You encounter divine action here as lethal judgment: the firstborn are struck, human and animal. The line names no protected category among the lives it describes, and leaves the deaths exposed without explanation or softening.
THE ROOT
לְמַכֵּה
le-makkeh
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike or hit.
“strikes” in this verse is le-makkeh. The verb names a blow, not an abstract change. Its word family includes a word for a blow or plague, keeping the verse’s violence direct and physical.
ALSO GROWS
nakah: To strike or smite.
נָכָה
It is the verb’s basic action, making the force of “smote” explicit.
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The noun carries the same root into the result of striking.
בְּכוֹרֵי
bekhorei
GROWS FROM
בכר
To be first or bring forth first.
The root binds firstborn status to the first yield. The phrase “both of man and beast” extends that ordering across human families and animal herds.
ALSO GROWS
bekhorah: Birthright or firstborn status.
בְּכוֹרָה
It shows that “firstborn” carries a place of primacy as well as birth order.
bikkurim: Firstfruits.
בִּכּוּרִים
It connects the firstborn with the first yield brought forth.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
מ־צ־ר
m-ts-r
Narrowness or constriction; Mitzrayim carries the image of the two narrows.
The name carries an image of constriction as well as naming Egypt. Here that name is attached to actual deaths across human and animal life; the image does not make the violence symbolic.
ALSO GROWS
metzar: A narrow place, strait, or distress.
מֵצַר
It brings the sense of confinement inside the name’s image of constriction.
Mitzrayim: Egypt; read here as the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
It lets the verse’s place name carry the added image of constriction.
THE PATTERN
The firstborn judgment is remembered as reaching across households and herds, while Passover marks a boundary between death and preservation.
And it came to be that at midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the Great House who settled on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the pit, and all the firstborn of the cattle.He struck every firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.By trust he made the passover and the pouring of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch them.THE THREAD
To him who strikes Egypt in their firstborn, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.The Hebrew verb for “smote” belongs to the same strike-root as the verb in Psalm 135:8, tying the lines through the action itself. The refrain names enduring faithful love beside the firstborn’s death, leaving that troubling conjunction visible.
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