What Does Psalm 145:5 Mean?
I speak of the splendor and the weight of your majesty, and of your wonders.
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
I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.THE KEY
The verse turns praise into attention: God’s majesty has weight, and its wonders become the matter of both meditation and speech.
THE MEANING
Your attention rests on the weight of God’s majesty and the wonders that exceed ordinary measure. The word translated “speak” also carries the sense of musing, joining inward attention with spoken words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Praise is only outward performance; here, speech grows from inward musing on God’s works.
THE ROOT
אֲשִׂיחָה
ʾāśîḥâ
GROWS FROM
שיח
siach
To muse, meditate, speak, or converse.
The verb translated “speak” also carries the sense of musing or meditation, so the verse joins inward attention with outward words. What is held in contemplation becomes what the speaker voices.
ALSO GROWS
siach: Musing or meditation
שִׂיחַ
This noun from the same root reveals the inward attention held inside the verse’s act of speaking.
sichah: Speech or conversation
שִׂיחָה
This branch shows the same word-family reaching outward into voiced exchange.
כְּבוֹד
kevod
GROWS FROM
כבד
kabad
To be heavy, weighty, or significant.
The honour in “glorious honour” belongs to a word-family built around weight. God’s majesty carries presence and significance, a concrete sense held beneath the familiar English wording.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy or weighty
כָּבֵד
This adjective gives the root’s physical sense, illuminating the weight carried by God’s majesty.
kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty
כִּבֵּד
This verb shows how the root’s sense of weight extends into the act of honoring.
נִפְלְאֹתֶיךָ
niphle’otekha
GROWS FROM
פלא
pala
To be extraordinary, wonderful, or beyond ordinary comprehension.
“wonders” in this verse is niphle’otekha. The word translated “wondrous” belongs to a root that describes what is marvelous and beyond ordinary grasp. These works exceed explanation while remaining speakable: wonder gives the speaker words.
ALSO GROWS
pele: Wonder or marvel
פֶּלֶא
This noun names the quality that marks the works being spoken of.
hifli: To do wondrously or perform marvelous things
הִפְלִיא
This verb shows the root describing wondrous action, as in the works named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
What is seen and pondered of God’s works becomes speech that carries their wonder outward.
I murmur over all your work, and murmur over your doings.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.That which we have perceived and heard, we declare to you, so that you also may share in common with us. And truly our sharing in common is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
I murmur over all your work, and murmur over your doings.Psalm 145:5’s “I will speak” and Psalm 77:12’s “talk” translate the same Hebrew root, שיח (siach), which also carries the sense of musing or meditation. English makes them look like separate acts; the shared root holds contemplation and telling in one movement.
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