What Does Psalm 147:12 Mean?
Shout to the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion.
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
Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.THE KEY
English flattens two Hebrew verbs into one: Jerusalem is called both to commend the LORD and to exult in its own God.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you as part of a people who belong to God: the community turns its voice toward the LORD and calls him its own. Praise here is both public and relational, arising from belonging.
THE ROOT
שַׁבְּחִי
Shabbechi
GROWS FROM
שבח
To praise, acclaim, or commend.
“Shout to” in this verse is Shabbechi. The first verb carries the shade of acclaiming or commending. Its English rendering matches the next verb, but the Hebrew begins the call to praise in a distinct register.
ALSO GROWS
Shabach: To praise or commend.
שָׁבַח
This is the verb addressed to Jerusalem: its praise gives voice to acclaim.
Shevach: Praise or commendation.
שֶׁבַח
The related noun keeps the sense of praise as spoken recognition.
הַלְלִי
Haleli
GROWS FROM
הלל
To praise, exult, or celebrate.
The second praise is not simply a repetition: the verse shifts from shabach to halal while English uses the same word for both. Together, the verbs widen praise from commendation into exultation.
ALSO GROWS
Hallel: Praise or celebration.
הַלֵּל
This form carries the same root into a sustained expression of praise.
Tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
The branch shows how praise can become a voiced song, extending the verse’s communal address.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete; shalom names wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The name Yerushalayim carries shalom, wholeness, and its ending holds a dual form. The verse addresses this named wholeness as a community with a voice turned toward God.
ALSO GROWS
Shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It brings the verse’s call to Jerusalem into the language of wholeness.
Shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
This related form makes the wholeness carried by the name concrete.
THE PATTERN
Praise turns a gathered people into a public voice directed toward God.
A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his set apart mountain.Ring out and shout, you who settle in Zion, for great is the Set-Apart One of Israel within you.And they cry out with a loud voice, saying, Deliverance to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!THE THREAD
Let every thing that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.The second praise in this verse, haleli, shares the root halal with “praise” in “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.” Psalm 150 extends Zion’s call outward: praise rises from every breathing creature.
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