What Does Psalm 144:3 Mean?
LORD, what is humankind, that you perceive him? Or the son of man, that you reckon him?
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
LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!THE KEY
The verse’s wonder is that the ground-being is known by encounter and held in deliberate consideration.
THE MEANING
You are named as adam, the ground-being, and the verse holds your earthiness beside God’s knowing and deliberate regard. Its paired verbs show that you are both known and considered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Your smallness makes you beneath notice; this verse places the human being within God’s knowing and consideration.
THE ROOT
יָדַע
yadaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
to know or perceive by encounter
“perceive” in this verse is yadaʿ. The verse uses yadaʿ for knowing a person directly. Paired with the next verb, this knowing becomes one face of God’s deliberate attention to the human being.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: knowledge
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root names the knowing at the center of the verse.
yodeaʿ: one who knows
יֹדֵעַ
This form keeps the focus on a knower in relation to someone known.
חָשַׁב
ḥashav
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-sh-v
to think, reckon, or consider
“reckon” in this verse is ḥashav. The second verb carries the sense of weighing or considering someone. The verse pairs knowing by encounter with holding a person in thought, giving God’s attention both intimacy and deliberateness.
ALSO GROWS
maḥashavah: thought, plan
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This branch shows the root’s reach into what is held in the mind.
ḥeshbon: account, reckoning
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch echoes the verse’s language of taking account of the human being.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
the human, linked with אֲדָמָה (adamah), ground or soil
“humankind” in this verse is adam. Adam carries the ground in its name: the human being is earth-linked and creaturely. The verse lets that earthiness stand alongside God’s knowing and consideration.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This branch makes the name’s bond to the earth explicit.
adom: red, ruddy
אָדֹם
The shared consonants link the human name with the language of earth’s color.
THE PATTERN
Divine regard reaches finite human life through specific knowing and attention.
What is a frail one that you remember him, and the son of man that you visit him?To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, you probe me, and you perceive me.But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not shrink, for you surpass many sparrows.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, you probe me, and you perceive me.Psalm 144:3 uses yadaʿ (יָדַע), meaning to know or perceive by encounter; Psalm 139:1 uses that same root for knowing the speaker after searching. The shared root opens the verse’s wonder as personal knowing, directed toward the one being considered.
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