What Does Psalm 145:9 Mean?
The LORD is good to all, and his compassions are over all his works.
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 good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “tender mercies” shares its root with “womb,” giving God’s care for all his works a bodily tenderness.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s goodness reaches all, and his compassion rests over everything he makes. No part of creation lies outside the care this verse describes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that God’s compassion is reserved only for those who have proved worthy.
THE ROOT
רַחֲמָיו
rachamav
GROWS FROM
רחם
To show compassion or tender care; this root is associated with the womb.
“compassions” in this verse is rachamav. English makes “tender mercies” sound like an abstract quality. The Hebrew root also appears in the word for womb, linking compassion with intimate, life-holding care that the verse places over all God’s works.
ALSO GROWS
rechem: Womb
רֶחֶם
This branch reveals the bodily tenderness associated with the root behind “tender mercies.”
rachum: Compassionate
רַחוּם
This adjective describes the quality of care named in the verse: compassion extending over God’s works.
THE PATTERN
God’s goodness appears as generous provision that reaches beyond the deserving.
So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.Yet he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, giving you rain from heaven and seasons that bear fruit, filling your hearts with food and gladness.THE THREAD
Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she would not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even they may forget, but I will not forget you.The Hebrew word translated “have compassion” comes from the same רחם root as “tender mercies” here. Isaiah brings the root’s association with the womb into view, while this psalm speaks of that compassion resting over all God’s works.
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