What Does Psalm 145:16 Mean?
You open your hand and fill every living thing with delight.
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
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.THE KEY
The hand satisfies by opening: the Hebrew root פתח (p-t-ḥ) also forms words for an entrance and a key.
THE MEANING
You are among the living things met by an open hand; satisfaction comes as provision is released toward life. The verse places desire within the reach of an ongoing opening.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that having need means you are outside the reach of provision: the verse names every living thing as a recipient.
THE ROOT
פּוֹתֵחַ
pōtēaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
to open
“open” in this verse is pōtēaḥ. The verb is a participle, picturing an ongoing opening. Its root also forms פֶּתַח (petaḥ), an entrance, and מַפְתֵּחַ (mafteaḥ), a key: the verse pictures satisfaction as life reached through an opening.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: opening, entrance
פֶּתַח
An entrance makes a way into what was closed; it echoes the hand opening toward living need.
pātūaḥ: open, opened
פָּתוּחַ
This adjective describes the state created by the opening in the verse.
mafteaḥ: key
מַפְתֵּחַ
A key opens what is shut, carrying the same root into an instrument of access.
מַשְׂבִּיעַ
maśbīaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
to be sated, to have enough
“fill” in this verse is maśbīaʿ. The root carries the bodily sense of fullness and being sated. The verse’s satisfaction is more than a wish being noticed: it describes desire met as enoughness.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: sated, full
שָׂבֵעַ
This describes the state that the hand’s satisfying action brings about.
śōvaʿ: satiety, fullness
שֹׂבַע
The noun names the fullness implicit in the verse’s promise to satisfy.
חַי
ḥay
GROWS FROM
חיה
to live, be alive
“living thing” in this verse is ḥay. The recipient is named with the life-root חיה (ḥ-y-h), extending the verse’s reach beyond a human audience. The open hand meets life in its breadth.
ALSO GROWS
ḥayyim: life
חַיִּים
This plural form names the life whose needs are met in the verse.
ḥāyāh: living creature, animal
חָיָה
This branch makes explicit that the life reached by provision includes living creatures.
THE PATTERN
Life is sustained when provision is opened toward need.
You give to them, and they gather; you open your hand, and they are filled with good.But you shall open your hand wide to him, and you shall surely lend him enough for what he lacks.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
You give to them, and they gather; you open your hand, and they are filled with good.Both verses use פּוֹתֵחַ (pōtēaḥ, opening), from the Hebrew root פתח (p-t-ḥ). Psalm 104:28 adds the receiving side: creatures gather what the opened hand gives, moving from provision to fullness.
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