What Does Psalm 145:20 Mean?
The LORD guards all who love him, but all the wicked he lays waste.
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 preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.THE KEY
The verse holds watchful keeping and the destruction of the wicked side by side, showing that the LORD’s care is active and judgment is severe.
THE MEANING
The LORD guards all who love him; the verse also says that all the wicked will be destroyed. It holds attentive keeping and severe judgment together without dissolving either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that those who love the LORD go unseen: the verse pictures him actively guarding every one of them.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמֵר
shomer
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
To watch over, guard, or keep.
“guards” in this verse is shomer. The Hebrew word pictures the LORD actively watching over those who love him. Its root also appears in words for a watch or a guarded charge, giving “preserveth” the added sense of attentive keeping.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: To keep, guard, or watch.
שָׁמַר
This is the verb behind the verse’s image of the LORD keeping those who love him.
mishmeret: A guard, watch, or charge entrusted to someone.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch shows that the root’s keeping involves watchful responsibility.
אֹהֲבָיו
ohavav
GROWS FROM
אהב
ʾ-h-b
To love or have affection for.
The verse names people by their love for the LORD, making that relationship the focus of his keeping. The root holds together the act of loving and the love itself.
ALSO GROWS
ohev: One who loves.
אֹהֵב
The verse describes those being guarded through this same word family: they are people who love the LORD.
ahavah: Love.
אַהֲבָה
This noun makes the relational bond explicit; the verse’s keeping is directed toward those who love him.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s keeping is active guarding amid a world where danger and evil remain present.
And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.I do not ask that you lift them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil.THE THREAD
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.Both “preserveth” in Psalm 145 and “preserve” in Psalm 121 come from the Hebrew root שמר (sh-m-r), meaning to watch over or guard. Psalm 121 repeats that root, opening preservation as attentive keeping rather than a vague abstraction.
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