What Does Psalm 145:4 Mean?
One generation shouts of your works to another, and sets forth your strong deeds.
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
One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.THE KEY
The verse makes praise a relay: what one generation sees in God’s strength becomes the next generation’s inheritance.
THE MEANING
The work of God does not end at the edge of one lifetime. What one generation sees is carried into another’s hearing, placing you within a living chain of praise and testimony. The mighty acts are deeds remembered and spoken, not abstract claims.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a generation’s encounter with God’s works belongs only to itself; each witness stands within a chain that continues beyond one lifetime.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּרֹתֶיךָ
gevurotecha
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
to be strong, prevail
“mighty acts” in this verse is gevurotecha. What is carried onward is more than information: these are acts of strength that prevail. The testimony passes on evidence of what has shown its power.
ALSO GROWS
gābar: to be strong; prevail
גָּבַר
This verb reveals the force inside the mighty acts: something has stood strong and prevailed.
gibbor: a mighty one; warrior
גִּבּוֹר
The mighty one shares the same root, linking these acts to strength made visible.
gevurah: might; strength
גְּבוּרָה
This noun names the strength that the verse says one generation declares to another.
יַגִּידוּ
yaggidu
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
to make known, tell; to be in front
“sets forth” in this verse is yaggidu. The verb means to make known or declare. Related words carry the sense of something placed before another, so the mighty acts are brought into view for the next generation.
ALSO GROWS
higgid: declared; made known
הִגִּיד
This is the same verb family: telling brings what happened into another person’s hearing.
neged: before; in front of
נֶגֶד
This related word makes the act of declaring feel like placing the deeds before the listener.
nagid: leader; prince
נָגִיד
The shared root links what is made known with what stands at the front.
THE PATTERN
God’s works become a shared inheritance when one generation tells them to the next.
And you shall sharpen them to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.And these things you heard from me among many witnesses, place beside steady people who will be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
Who can speak the strong deeds of the LORD? Who can make all his praise be heard?Both verses use גְּבוּרָה (gevurah, might that prevails) for the LORD’s mighty acts. Psalm 145 describes one generation handing them on; Psalm 106 asks who could tell them all, because no single voice exhausts them.
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