What Does Psalm 138:8 Mean?
The LORD finishes what concerns me; your faithful love, O LORD, endures for the ages; do not let the works of your hands drop.
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
The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.THE KEY
In Hebrew, “forsake not” is a plea that God’s hands not slacken, echoing the hands whose work he brings to completion.
THE MEANING
The LORD is bringing the work that concerns you to completion, and his faithful love endures through every age. The closing plea pictures his hands still holding their work: the maker is asked not to let those hands slacken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an unfinished part of your life proves you have been abandoned: the verse places completion in the LORD’s hands and names his faithful love as enduring.
THE ROOT
יִגְמֹר
yigmor
GROWS FROM
גמר
To finish or bring to completion.
“finishes” in this verse is yigmor. The Hebrew is an active verb: the LORD completes what concerns you. Psalm 57:2 uses this same root for what God “performeth,” showing that the work is still being carried toward its end.
ALSO GROWS
gamar: To finish or complete.
גָּמַר
This verb names the completion the verse attributes to the LORD.
gomer: Completing; bringing to completion.
גֹּמֵר
This form appears in Psalm 57:2, where God is the one “that performeth all things for me.”
חַסְדְּךָ
chasdekha
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful love expressed as loyal kindness.
The verse pairs completion with חֶסֶד (chesed), faithful love, and says it endures לעולם (le’olam), through the ages. A related branch, חָסִיד (chasid), describes a faithful or devoted person: this love is marked by steadfast loyalty.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love; loyal kindness.
חֶסֶד
It names the enduring quality that accompanies the LORD’s completing work.
chasid: Faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
This related form shows the root’s connection to enduring loyalty.
אַל־תֶּרֶף
al-teref
GROWS FROM
רפה
To loosen, slacken, or let drop.
“do not let drop” in this verse is al-teref. The Hebrew plea carries the image of hands slackening or letting go. Because it stands beside “the works of thine own hands,” the verse links not abandoning the work with keeping the maker’s hands from dropping it.
ALSO GROWS
harpu: Release; let go; slacken.
הַרְפּוּ
This form in Psalm 46:10 opens “Be still” as a call to release one’s grip.
heref: Let go; leave off.
הֶרֶף
This form in Deuteronomy 9:14 makes the same root’s sense of loosening or letting go audible.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s faithful love carries the work concerning a person toward completion.
I call out to God Most High, to God who completes all things for me.Being confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
I call out to God Most High, to God who completes all things for me.Psalm 57:2 uses the same root גמר (gamar, bring to completion) for what God “performeth” for the speaker. It opens Psalm 138:8 as a recurring image: the work concerning you remains with the One completing it.
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