What Does Psalm 136:26 Mean?
O extend your hands in thanks to the God of the heavens, 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
O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever.THE KEY
The final thanks rests on God’s enduring faithful love, the constant beneath every changing circumstance.
THE MEANING
You give thanks to the God of the heavens because his faithful love holds through the ages. The verse gives this present moment a ground for gratitude that does not depend on whether circumstances feel settled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine love can be exhausted by what is happening now: the verse grounds its endurance in faithful love itself.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful, loyal love expressed through steadfast care.
“for his faithful love reaches to the ages” in this verse is chesed. The KJV’s “mercy” carries the deeper texture of חֶסֶד (chesed): faithful love and loyal care that keeps its bond. The refrain joins this love to the ages, making gratitude answer to a nature that persists rather than a passing mood.
ALSO GROWS
chasad: To show kindness or faithful care.
חָסַד
The related verb presents faithful love as something enacted; here it is the enduring ground for thanks.
chasid: A faithful or loyal one.
חָסִיד
This related word describes one characterized by loyal care, echoing the steadfast quality of the love named in the verse.
הוֹדוּ
hodu
GROWS FROM
ידה
To acknowledge, praise, or give thanks.
“extend your hands in thanks” in this verse is hodu. The command translated “give thanks” is הוֹדוּ (hodu), from יָדָה (yadah), a verb of acknowledgment and praise. Thanksgiving here is more than a private feeling: it openly names the goodness toward which the psalm keeps pointing.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving or praise.
תּוֹדָה
This noun makes the act of giving thanks into a named expression of acknowledgment.
Yehudah: Judah; associated with “I will praise.”
יְהוּדָה
The name Judah is linked with praise in Genesis 29:35, showing how this word family can make acknowledgment part of a name.
THE PATTERN
Gratitude rests on faithful love whose duration exceeds the present moment.
O extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages.From afar the LORD appeared to me, saying, I have loved you with a love of the ages. Therefore with faithful love I have drawn you.For I am leaning my full weight upon this, that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor rulers, nor powers, nor things standing here, nor things about to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.THE THREAD
O extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his faithful love reaches to the ages.Psalm 136:1 opens with the same refrain, and this closing verse returns to it while naming God as “the God of heaven.” Both verses rest their thanks on חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love), framing the whole psalm with the same enduring love.
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