What Does Psalm 145:19 Mean?
He does the delight of those in awe of him; he hears and responds to their outcry, and delivers them.
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
He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.THE KEY
The cry is not the end of the sentence: God hears, then yasha, delivers the one who cries out.
THE MEANING
God acts on the desire of those who stand in awe of him; their cry reaches him, and deliverance follows. The verse moves from inward longing to voiced distress to being brought out: the cry is heard, and trouble is not the final word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a cry can rise toward God and meet only silence: here, hearing opens into deliverance.
THE ROOT
וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם
veyoshi'em
GROWS FROM
יָשַׁע
yasha
Deliver, rescue.
“delivers” in this verse is veyoshi'em. The root reveals more than escape from danger: deliverance is movement out of constriction and toward spaciousness. Here, the cry is met by that movement; the one who cries is brought out.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the deliverance that the verb yasha enacts in the verse.
moshia: Deliverer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The same root names both the act of bringing out and the one who brings out.
יִשְׁמַע
yishma
GROWS FROM
שָׁמַע
shama
Hear, heed, listen.
“hears and responds” in this verse is yishma. Shama can carry hearing into heed and response. The verse places hearing immediately before deliverance, so God’s hearing is not passive attention: it opens into action.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form makes audible the response already present in the verse’s movement from hearing to deliverance.
shemu'ah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch keeps the root’s connection between hearing and what is received or answered.
יְרֵאָיו
yere'av
GROWS FROM
יָרֵא
yare
Fear, stand in awe.
“in awe of” in this verse is yere'av. The root can hold both fear and awe; here it describes the reader’s regard for God, while the cry names distress from which God delivers. The verse places awe and a cry for help together, without making one cancel the other.
ALSO GROWS
yirah: Fear, awe.
יִרְאָה
This noun shows the same root’s range, including the awe directed toward God in this verse.
nora: Awe-inspiring, fearsome.
נוֹרָא
This form shows how the root can describe what evokes awe as well as the one who feels it.
THE PATTERN
God’s hearing of a cry becomes active deliverance, carrying the one who calls from distress toward room.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.“Salvation” here is יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah), from the same root יָשַׁע (yasha) as “save” in Psalm 145:19. Isaiah names deliverance as what God is to the reader, while the psalm shows that deliverance arriving in response to a cry.
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