What Does Psalm 147:9 Mean?
He gives to the beast its bread, and to the young ravens that call out.
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
He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.THE KEY
The young ravens’ call and their food belong to the same act of care: their need is not outside provision.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the call of dependent creatures and the food that sustains them in one present scene. Your own need belongs to this same reality of dependence; need itself is not proof that you are forgotten.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an audible need means care is absent.
THE ROOT
יִקְרָאוּ
yiqraʾu
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call out, name, or proclaim.
“that call out” in this verse is yiqraʾu. The Hebrew says the young ravens call; “cry” can make this sound like mere noise. The same root reaches into naming and public reading, opening the word toward an expressed call.
ALSO GROWS
qeriʾah: A calling out or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
The ravens’ cry is a call, an expressed voice rather than an unnamed sound.
miqraʾ: A reading or a gathered assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how the root of calling can also describe people called together to hear.
נֹתֵן
noten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“gives” in this verse is noten. The Hebrew presents giving as an active placement into creaturely life. The same root family holds giving and gift together, so provision is more than food arriving: it is something given.
ALSO GROWS
netinah: The act of giving.
נְתִינָה
The young ravens’ food appears as an ongoing act of giving.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This branch opens the provision of food into the wider language of what is given.
THE PATTERN
The life of creatures is sustained through provision that meets need throughout creation.
All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?THE THREAD
Who prepares for the raven its catch? When its young ones cry out to God, they wander for want of food.Job names the direction of the young ravens’ cry: they cry unto God while searching for food. Psalm 147:9 holds the same scene in a single line, placing their call beside the giving of their food.
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