What Does Psalm 145:15 Mean?
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in its season.
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 eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.THE KEY
The word translated “wait” carries expectant hope: all eyes are turned toward the one who gives food in its season.
THE MEANING
You are part of the “all” whose attention turns toward God, and food comes from him in its time. The verse holds your looking and your receiving together in a rhythm of expectation and provision.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Having to wait does not mean you are forgotten; the verse holds waiting and giving together, each in its season.
THE ROOT
יְשַׂבֵּרוּ
yesabberu
GROWS FROM
שׂבר
sabar
to wait for, hope, or expect
“look to” in this verse is yesabberu. This is expectant waiting: all eyes are directed toward someone from whom provision is expected. English “wait” can sound passive, while the Hebrew also carries the sense of hope.
ALSO GROWS
sivri: my hope, my expectation
שִׂבְרִי
Psalm 119:116 uses this noun from the same root, showing that the verse’s waiting can also be named as hope.
sivro: his hope, his expectation
שִׂבְרוֹ
Psalm 146:5 uses this form for hope in the LORD, echoing the direction of the eyes in this verse.
נוֹתֵן
noten
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
to give, set, or place
“give” in this verse is noten. The same root can describe giving and setting something in place. Here, provision is not abstract: food is given to them in its fitting time.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root makes the giving in the verse visible as provision received.
nittan: was given, was set
נִתַּן
This passive form carries the root’s sense of something placed or given, fitting the verse’s picture of provision arriving in season.
THE PATTERN
Living creatures look beyond themselves for sustenance, and provision meets them in the time appointed for it.
All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.Who prepares for the raven its catch? When its young ones cry out to God, they wander for want of food.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
All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.Psalm 104:27 uses the same שׂבר (sabar, wait expectantly) verb and repeats the giving of food in due season. It places this verse in a wider rhythm of living things looking toward provision.
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