What Does Psalm 145:3 Mean?
Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness cannot be searched out.
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
Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.THE KEY
The verse places praise beside a greatness no search can exhaust, so wonder does not depend on mastery.
THE MEANING
The LORD is great beyond the reach of a search that could fully measure him. Praise can name that greatness without claiming to contain it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you must fully explain the LORD before your praise can be honest.
THE ROOT
חֵקֶר
ḥēqer
GROWS FROM
חקר
ḥ-q-r
To search out, probe, or investigate.
“cannot be searched out” in this verse is ḥēqer. The Hebrew says there is no חֵקֶר (ḥēqer, searching) to the LORD’s greatness. The limit belongs to the search: it cannot arrive at an exhaustive measure.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāqar: To search out or investigate.
חָקַר
The verse names the limit of this action: no search reaches a final measure of the LORD’s greatness.
ḥōqēr: One who searches; an investigator.
חֹקֵר
The searching person is implicit in “unsearchable”: no investigator completes the task.
מְהֻלָּל
mehullal
GROWS FROM
הלל
h-l-l
To praise or celebrate.
“greatly to be praised” in this verse is mehullal. מְהֻלָּל (mehullal, praised), תְּהִלָּה (tehillah, praise), and הַלְלוּ־יָהּ (halelu-Yah, “Praise Yah”) belong to the same word family. Praise is the language this verse places beside greatness beyond search.
ALSO GROWS
tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
This noun keeps the praise word family visible in the verse’s description of the LORD as praiseworthy.
halelu-Yah: Praise Yah.
הַלְלוּ־יָהּ
The familiar call hallelujah carries the same root, joining praise to the greatness the verse names.
גָּדוֹל
gadol
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
To grow or become great.
גָּדוֹל (gadol, great) and גְּדֻלָּה (gedullah, greatness) echo one another in this verse. The shared root also carries the sense of growing or becoming great, giving the word more depth than a bare label of size.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow or become great.
גָּדַל
This verbal form gives the root a sense of expansion beneath the verse’s word “great.”
gedullah: Greatness or majesty.
גְּדֻלָּה
This is the noun family echoed in “his greatness,” linking the LORD’s greatness directly to the description of him as great.
migdal: A tower.
מִגְדָּל
The tower is a concrete word from the same root family, carrying the sense of something raised up.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names the LORD’s greatness as exceeding human search rather than something the mind can exhaust.
Who does great things beyond searching, and wonders without number.O the depth of the riches of both wisdom and knowledge of God! How beyond searching out are his judgments, and how beyond tracking are his ways!THE THREAD
Have you not perceived? Have you not heard and responded? The God of the ages, the LORD, who created the edges of the earth, does not faint, nor tire; there is no searching of his discernment.Both verses use חֵקֶר (ḥēqer, searching): Psalm 145 says there is no searching of the LORD’s greatness, and Isaiah says there is no searching of his understanding. The shared phrase reveals the same boundary around what no inquiry can exhaust.
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