What Does Psalm 147:2 Mean?
The LORD builds Jerusalem; he gathers the driven-out of Israel.
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 doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.THE KEY
Jerusalem’s wholeness is built by gathering the very people who have been driven away.
THE MEANING
The LORD is building wholeness now by gathering those who have been pushed aside. Their return belongs to what makes the city whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being cast out places someone beyond belonging or restoration.
THE ROOT
נִדְחֵי
nidḥê
GROWS FROM
נדח
to thrust away or drive out
“driven-out” in this verse is nidḥê. This word names people who have been thrust away from their place among others. The verse answers that condition by gathering them in, so being driven out is not the final shape of the story.
ALSO GROWS
hiddiaḥ: to drive away or banish
הִדִּיחַ
It makes explicit the force behind being an outcast: someone has been pushed away.
niddāḥ: one driven away, an outcast
נִדָּח
It is the same word family as the outcasts gathered in this verse.
בּוֹנֵה
boneh
GROWS FROM
בנה
to build or establish
“builds” in this verse is boneh. The word family links building with בֵּן (ben, son), the one who belongs to a built family. Jerusalem is יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (Yerushalayim), a name carrying שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness); here, building that wholeness includes gathering people back in.
ALSO GROWS
ben: son
בֵּן
Its link with the building word family lets the verse’s image of building reach beyond structures to a people and their belonging.
binyan: building or structure
בִּנְיָן
It carries the concrete sense of construction within the same word family.
יְכַנֵּס
yekhannes
GROWS FROM
כנס
to gather or bring in
“gathereth together” in this verse is yekhannes. The verb holds the movement from outside to inside: the outcasts are brought into the gathering. The verse joins that return to the building of Jerusalem’s wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
kanas: to gather or bring in
כָּנַס
It is the basic action expressed by “gathereth together.”
keneset: assembly
כְּנֶסֶת
It shows how gathering can form a people together.
THE PATTERN
Restoration takes shape as the scattered and excluded are gathered into a shared wholeness.
The Lord GOD, who gathers the driven ones of Israel, says, Yet I will gather others to him, beside those already gathered to him.And not for that nation only, but that he would also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.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
Behold, at that time I will do away with all who bend you low; I will deliver the one who limps, and gather the one thrust out. I will set them for praise and for a name in every land where they have been put to shame.The “outcasts,” נִדְחֵי (nidḥê), and “her that was driven out,” הַנִּדָּחָה (hanniddāḥāh), share the Hebrew root נדח, meaning to drive away. The shared root reveals the direct answer in both verses: the one thrust away is the one gathered back.
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