What Does Psalm 136:25 Mean?
Who gives bread to all flesh, 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
Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever.THE KEY
The verse makes ordinary nourishment the visible form of enduring faithful love.
THE MEANING
The care named here reaches the body’s need: food is given to every kind of flesh. His mercy is faithful love, meeting life in the ordinary act of being fed; its endurance reaches through every age.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that bodily provision is spiritually insignificant: the verse names feeding as an expression of enduring faithful love.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
ḥ-s-d
To act with faithful loyalty and kindness.
“for his faithful love reaches to the ages” in this verse is chesed. The word carries more than a feeling of pity: it names faithful love that shows itself through care. Here, feeding belongs to that same language of loyalty, so ordinary provision becomes a sign of enduring love.
ALSO GROWS
chasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
This branch describes someone characterized by the loyalty held in chesed, linking the verse’s care to a dependable relationship.
chasad: To act loyally or show steadfast kindness.
חָסַד
The verb makes chesed active: the food given to all flesh is faithful love expressed in action.
נֹתֵן
noten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“gives” in this verse is noten. Noten is a participle, presenting the giving as ongoing. The same root forms the word for a gift, so the verse holds the act of giving and what is received in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb at the heart of the verse: food reaches all flesh through an act of giving.
mattan: A gift.
מַתָּן
This related noun shows how the root names both giving and what is given; nourishment arrives as a gift of faithful care.
THE PATTERN
Faithful care becomes visible in provision that reaches embodied life.
All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in its season.Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?THE THREAD
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in its season.The Hebrew word for “givest” here shares the root נתן (n-t-n) with “giveth” in Psalm 136:25. Both verses join giving and food, opening the picture of faithful love as provision that keeps arriving.
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