What Does Psalm 18:36 Mean?
You widen my steps beneath me, and my ankles do not slip.
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
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.THE KEY
The widened way beneath you is what makes movement steady.
THE MEANING
The space beneath your stride widens. Your step has room to land, and your ankles hold steady. The verse locates stability in the breadth opening under your movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that secure movement requires shrinking your stride: steadiness comes as the way beneath you widens.
THE ROOT
תַּרְחִיב
tarḥiv
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ב
r-ḥ-b
To become wide or to widen; to make spacious.
“widen my steps” in this verse is tarḥiv. The widening is concrete: the space available to the stride expands beneath the speaker. Steadiness appears as constriction gives way to room for movement.
ALSO GROWS
merḥav: A broad place, open space.
מֶרְחָב
Psalm 18:19 uses this branch for the large place the speaker is brought into; here, that spaciousness supports each step.
reḥov: An open square or street.
רְחֹב
This branch names shared, open space, echoing the verse’s image of movement gaining room beneath it.
צַעֲדִי
tsaʿadi
GROWS FROM
צ־ע־ד
ṣ-ʿ-d
To step, stride, or march.
English gives the word as “steps,” while Hebrew has “my step” in the singular. The widening meets the movement as it lands, and the following image of steady ankles shows the result.
ALSO GROWS
ṣāʿad: To step, stride, or march.
צָעַד
The root describes forward movement itself, which the verse presents as gaining room.
miṣʿād: A step or footstep.
מִצְעָד
This noun makes the connection between a stride and the particular place where it lands.
THE PATTERN
Movement becomes steady as constriction gives way to room.
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David. Answer me when I call, O God of my alignment. In the narrow place you widen me. Bend toward me, and hear and respond to my prayer.Widen the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwellings stretch out. Do not hold back; lengthen your cords, and grip your pegs.O Corinthians, our mouth is open toward you, our heart is widened.THE THREAD
He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.“Large place” and “enlarged” share the root ר־ח־ב (r-ḥ-b, widen or make spacious). Verse 19 names the open space; this verse shows that spaciousness beneath each step.
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