What Does Psalm 136:10 Mean?
To him who strikes Egypt in their firstborn, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.
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
To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever:THE KEY
The verse places the killing of Egypt’s firstborn beneath a claim of enduring faithful love, holding lethal judgment inside its covenant language.
THE MEANING
The line confronts you with Egypt’s firstborn being struck and with the claim that God’s faithful love endures. It leaves the deaths visible inside the refrain; neither the violence nor the claim is explained away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that divine mercy always means protection from harm: here, the refrain of faithful love follows a blow that kills the firstborn.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
ḥasdô
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
Faithful love, steadfast kindness, or loyal care.
“for his faithful love reaches to the ages” in this verse is ḥasdô. The verse’s “mercy” names enduring faithful love. The refrain asserts that this love endures even as the same line names a lethal blow; the root deepens the claim without making the violence smaller.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsad: To act with faithful love or kindness.
חָסַד
The verb form gives the root an action: faithful love is something enacted, sharpening the force of the refrain.
ḥāsîd: A faithful or loyal person.
חָסִיד
This describes one marked by the same quality of loyal care, showing how the root can name both the love and the one who embodies it.
בִּבְכוֹרֵיהֶם
bivḵôrêhem
GROWS FROM
בכר
b-k-r
To be firstborn or to bring forth first; the first to ripen.
This root names both the firstborn and the first produce, marking what arrives first. Here it specifies the target of the blow: Egypt’s firstborn, not an unnamed abstraction called Egypt.
ALSO GROWS
bĕḵôr: Firstborn.
בְּכוֹר
This is the singular form of the word in the verse and keeps the focus on the firstborn as the direct target.
bikkûrîm: Firstfruits, the first produce of a harvest.
בִּכּוּרִים
The shared root links firstborn and firstfruits as what emerges first, extending the verse’s language beyond birth to the first yield.
THE PATTERN
Scripture keeps enduring goodness beside severe judgment, letting both claims remain in view.
And shakes Pharaoh and his army off into the Sea of Reeds, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.It is by the faithful love of the LORD that we are not used up, for his compassions do not run out.See, then, the kindness and the severing of God. Toward those who fell there is severing, but toward you there is kindness, if you stay in it. Otherwise you also will be cut out.THE THREAD
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.Both verses name the target as the firstborn. Exodus states the reach of the blow; the psalm places the same killing inside its refrain of enduring faithful love, making the tension impossible to blur.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us