What Does Psalm 18:7 Mean?
Then the earth quakes and trembles; the foundations of the mountains tremble and quake, because he burns.
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
Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.THE KEY
The Hebrew brackets the verse with the same verb for the earth surging and the hills convulsing, making the whole landscape one upheaval.
THE MEANING
The ground beneath you shakes, and what seems to hold it steady moves too. The verse names this upheaval as the force of God’s anger; its violence reaches into the foundations themselves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this verse undoes is that what is foundational must be immovable.
THE ROOT
וַתִּגְעַשׁ
vattigʿash
GROWS FROM
געש
געש (gaʿash): to surge, quake, or convulse.
“quakes and trembles” in this verse is vattigʿash. The opening word וַתִּגְעַשׁ is answered at the end by וַיִּתְגָּעֲשׁוּ: Hebrew frames the verse with one root, even as English uses both “shook” and “shaken.” That bracket makes the hills’ movement the completion of the earth’s upheaval.
ALSO GROWS
gaʿash: to surge or quake
גָּעַשׁ
This is the root’s basic verb, carrying the force of an upheaval rising through the earth.
vayyitgaʿashu: and they convulsed or were shaken
וַיִּתְגָּעֲשׁוּ
The same root returns at the verse’s close for the hills, joining their convulsion to the earth’s.
וַתִּרְעַשׁ
vattirʿash
GROWS FROM
רעש
רעש (raʿash): to quake, tremble, or make a tumult.
“quakes and trembles” in this verse is vattirʿash. The root of “trembled” also names an earthquake and its tumult. English gives a brief action verb; Hebrew holds the full-scale upheaval and its commotion within the same root.
ALSO GROWS
raʿash: earthquake, tumult, or noise
רַעַשׁ
This noun makes the scale of the trembling explicit: the root can name the earthquake itself.
hirʿish: to cause to quake or make a commotion
הִרְעִישׁ
This causative form keeps the physical shaking and the disturbance it creates within the same consonants.
יִרְגָּזוּ
yirgazu
GROWS FROM
רגז
רגז (ragaz): to quake, tremble, or become agitated.
“the foundations of the mountains tremble and quake” in this verse is yirgazu. The word translated “moved” can also describe trembling or agitation. The hills are not merely shifted elsewhere; the verse pictures their stability convulsed.
ALSO GROWS
ragaz: to quake, tremble, or be agitated
רָגַז
This verb shows that the hills’ movement carries the force of a shuddering upheaval.
rogez: agitation or turmoil
רֹגֶז
The related noun names a state of disturbance, deepening the sense of the hills being thrown out of composure.
THE PATTERN
When divine power enters a scene, what appears fixed can shake.
And Mount Sinai smoked all over, because the LORD came down upon it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount trembled greatly.Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken loose from its place, in the heat of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of the burning of his anger.whose voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”THE THREAD
And he said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the face of the LORD." And behold, the LORD crossed over, and a great and strong breath split the mountains and shattered the rocks before the face of the LORD. But the LORD was not in the breath; and after the breath, a quaking; but the LORD was not in the quaking.The Hebrew root רעש appears here as “trembled” and in 1 Kings as “earthquake,” naming the upheaval at two scales. The connection also preserves a striking distinction: 1 Kings says the LORD is not in that earthquake.
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