What Does Psalm 145:21 Mean?
My mouth speaks praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his set-apart name through the ages and the ages.
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
My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.THE KEY
The verse gathers one speaking mouth and all flesh into a blessing of the LORD’s name, שֵׁם (shem), the nature made known.
THE MEANING
Your voice belongs to a praise that reaches beyond you: all flesh is named in the blessing of the LORD’s set-apart nature. This blessing carries through the ages, joining the individual voice to a shared act of recognition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Praise is only private or belongs to one kind of person; the verse places all flesh within the blessing.
THE ROOT
יְבָרֵךְ
yevarekh
GROWS FROM
ברך
Bless; the same root also names the knee.
“bless” in this verse is yevarekh. The root joins blessing to the body: בֶּרֶךְ (berekh, knee) and בְּרָכָה (berakhah, blessing) share its letters. Here all flesh blesses the LORD’s name, so the act of blessing belongs to embodied life, not only inward thought.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
This branch gives the blessing a bodily resonance: all flesh is involved.
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
This is the noun from the same root as the verse’s verb, tying the spoken act to blessing itself.
תְּהִלָּה
tehillah
GROWS FROM
הלל
Praise, celebrate, speak in honor of.
The word for praise grows from the same root as the praise-command that names the Psalms. English can make this sound like a single utterance; the root connects this mouth’s praise to a whole songbook of praise.
ALSO GROWS
hallel: Praise
הַלֵּל
This is the same root in the familiar call to praise, making the verse’s spoken praise part of a wider chorus.
tehillim: Praises; the Psalms
תְּהִלִּים
The word for the collection of Psalms shares the root, linking this single verse to the book’s larger practice of praise.
קָדְשׁוֹ
qodsho
GROWS FROM
קדש
Set apart, distinguished as belonging wholly to God.
“holy” in this verse is qodsho. The LORD’s name is described as set apart: שֵׁם (shem, name as nature) points to the nature made known, while קדש marks that nature as belonging wholly to God. The verse does not separate praise from what the name reveals.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the root’s sense into the description of the LORD’s name.
qodesh: Set-apartness; what is set apart
קֹדֶשׁ
This noun makes explicit the quality the verse attaches to the LORD’s name.
THE PATTERN
Praise expands from an individual voice to the recognition of God by all creation.
Let every thing that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bend to me, and every tongue shall speak out to God."And every created thing in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, I hear them saying, Blessing, and honor, and weight, and power, be to the one who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, into the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
Let every thing that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.The Hebrew for “praise” here, תְּהִלָּה (tehillah), and “praise” in Psalm 150:6 share the root הלל (halal). Psalm 145 gathers all flesh to bless the LORD’s name; Psalm 150 opens that chorus to every breathing thing.
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