What Does Psalm 145:8 Mean?
The LORD is full of favor and full of compassion, slow to flare, and great in faithful love.
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 is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.THE KEY
The verse does not erase anger; it places anger inside a nature defined by compassion and abundant faithful love.
THE MEANING
The LORD is gracious toward you now, meeting you with compassion that holds vulnerable life close. Anger is slow to flare; faithful love is abundant. The verse does not erase anger, but places it within a nature marked by care and patience.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that anger is God’s first response: the verse names anger as slow to flare and describes compassion and faithful love as abundant.
THE ROOT
חָסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
Faithful love expressed through loyal, enduring care.
“great in faithful love” in this verse is chesed. The Hebrew word behind “great mercy” is chesed, faithful love. Its root family connects that love with loyal action and with the person marked by loyalty, making the LORD’s abundant mercy a steady character rather than an occasional pardon.
ALSO GROWS
chasad: To show kindness or act loyally.
חָסַד
This verb presents faithful love as something expressed in action.
chasid: A faithful, devout, or kind person.
חָסִיד
This branch describes someone whose character reflects the loyal care named by chesed.
רַחוּם
rachum
GROWS FROM
רחם
r-ḥ-m
Compassion and tender care; the same root as the word for womb.
“full of compassion” in this verse is rachum. The root shared by compassion and womb gives this word a life-holding tenderness. Compassion here carries the sense of care that shelters what is vulnerable.
ALSO GROWS
rechem: Womb.
רֶחֶם
This branch makes the root’s connection to protective, life-holding tenderness visible.
rachamim: Compassion; tender mercies.
רַחֲמִים
This plural form carries the same root into the compassion named in the verse.
אַף
af
GROWS FROM
אנף
anaph
To flare up in anger; אַף also means nose or nostril.
“slow to flare” in this verse is af. The Hebrew phrase behind “slow to anger” is literally “long of nostrils.” The root links anger with the nostril’s flare, so the verse pictures anger taking a long time to flare.
ALSO GROWS
appayim: Nostrils; anger in the idiom “long of nostrils.”
אַפַּיִם
This is the word used in the phrase rendered “slow to anger,” revealing the physical image beneath it.
anaph: To become angry or flare up.
אָנַף
This verb makes the movement inside “anger” explicit: it is a flare that does not rise quickly here.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s nature is revealed as patient anger held within abundant compassion and faithful love.
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,Tear your heart and not your garments, and turn to the LORD your God, for he is of favor, compassionate, slow to flare, great in faithful love, and he relents of the harm.Look, we count them flourishing who remain under it. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the LORD, for the LORD is very tender in his inward parts, and moved to groan.THE THREAD
The LORD is compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, and abounding in faithful love.The same Hebrew sequence joins compassion, favor, “long of nostrils,” and abundant chesed. It lets the words read as one portrait: patient restraint and faithful love belong to the LORD’s nature together.
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