What Does Psalm 136:20 Mean?
And Og, king of Bashan, 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
And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for ever:THE KEY
The verse places Og’s defeat beside the refrain of enduring faithful love, leaving the violence and the claim of goodness together in view.
THE MEANING
The verse names Og, king of Bashan, and places the refrain of God’s faithful love directly after him. Read now, the line leaves the violent setting and its claim of enduring love side by side, without explaining the tension away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the assumption that the language of faithful love appears only beside gentle events: its refrain follows the naming of a defeated king.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
ḥesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
ḥ-s-d
To show loyal kindness; steadfast care within a relationship.
“for his faithful love reaches to the ages” in this verse is ḥesed. The English “mercy” can carry compassion, while חֶסֶד (ḥesed, faithful love) also carries loyalty held over time. Here that quality is named beside Og’s defeat, reaching into the verse’s violent setting.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsad: To show loyal kindness.
חָסַד
This verb expresses the root as an action, giving the refrain a sense of continuing relational care rather than a passing feeling.
ḥāsîd: Faithful, loyal one.
חָסִיד
This related word describes someone by the same quality of loyalty that the refrain says endures.
THE PATTERN
Faithful love is described as reaching beyond a single moment into generations and ages.
For the LORD is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages, and his steadiness holds from generation to generation.Extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his faithful love endures for the ages.And his faithful love is for those in awe of him, from generation to generation.THE THREAD
Who remembers us in our low place, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.The same refrain that follows the naming of Og also follows the line about God remembering us in our low estate. חֶסֶד (ḥesed, faithful love) binds the defeat of a king and remembrance of the diminished within one refrain, without making the first gentle.
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