What Does Psalm 147:13 Mean?
For he has braced the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you.
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
For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.THE KEY
God’s care makes the boundary firm and blesses the children already living within it.
THE MEANING
Your community’s boundaries are made firm, and the children in its midst are blessed. Safety at the edge and flourishing within belong to one field of care.
THE ROOT
חִזַּק
ḥizzaq
GROWS FROM
ח־ז־ק
ḥ-z-q
To be strong or firm; to strengthen, hold fast, or take hold.
“braced” in this verse is ḥizzaq. The root חזק (ḥ-z-q, be strong, strengthen, or hold fast) reaches from firmness to grasping hold. Here that strength firms the gate’s bars, while the next clause turns to the children within: protection at the edge and blessing inside are held together, though they use different roots.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: To be or become strong; to prevail.
חָזַק
This is the root’s basic sense of strength, echoed in the firm bars of the gates.
heḥĕziq: To hold fast or take hold.
הֶחֱזִיק
In Genesis 19:16, this form describes taking hold of hands; the same root can name both a firm boundary and a grasp that brings people out.
בֵּרַךְ
berakh
GROWS FROM
ב־ר־ך
b-r-k
To bless; the related word for knee carries an echo of bending.
“blessed” in this verse is berakh. The related word בֶּרֶךְ (berekh, knee) gives blessing a bodily echo of bending. The verse presents blessing as an act directed toward the children within the community, not merely a label attached to them.
ALSO GROWS
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
It keeps the verse’s active sense of blessing as something given.
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root letters bring the posture of a bent knee into the word’s background, giving blessing an embodied echo of regard.
בְּקִרְבֵּךְ
beqirbekh
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ב
q-r-b
To approach or draw near; the noun forms can mean the inner part or midst.
“within thee” in this verse is beqirbekh. The word for “within” belongs to a root family that also speaks of coming near. The children are blessed in the community’s own midst, where its life is held close.
ALSO GROWS
qerev: The inner part or midst.
קֶרֶב
This is the word family behind “within thee,” locating the children at the community’s center.
qarav: To approach or draw near.
קָרַב
Its shared root joins what is inside with the language of nearness.
THE PATTERN
God’s care holds a community’s outer safety and its vulnerable inner life together.
In the awe of the LORD is a strong place to lean your full weight on, and his children have a shelter.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!THE THREAD
And while he lingered, the men gripped his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, the LORD sparing him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.The root חזק (ḥ-z-q, be strong, strengthen, or hold fast) appears here in the phrase “laid hold.” It names both the firmness set into the gates and the grip that takes hold of a household and brings them out.
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