What Does Psalm 20:2 Mean?
May he send you help from the set-apart place, and prop you up out of Zion.
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
Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion;THE KEY
The verse pictures strength as support sent toward you: help comes from the sanctuary, and you are held up from Zion.
THE MEANING
Help is sent to you from the sanctuary, and support reaches you from Zion. The verse presents your strength as being sustained by aid that comes to meet you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that strength means carrying everything alone is undone here: the verse describes strength as support that holds you up.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁלַח
yishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
Send forth; release or let go.
“send” in this verse is yishlach. The verb makes help directional: it is sent toward you from the sanctuary. Shiloach, the name of waters glossed as “Sent,” carries the same image of provision moving outward to reach someone.
ALSO GROWS
shaluach: sent; one who is sent
שָׁלוּחַ
This form makes sending concrete: something is dispatched from its source toward a destination, as help is sent to you.
Shiloach: Shiloah; associated with “sent” waters
שִׁלֹחַ
The waters of Shiloah in Isaiah 8:6, named “Sent” in John 9:7, echo the verse’s picture of aid flowing outward to meet a need.
יִסְעָדֶךָ
yisa'adekha
GROWS FROM
סעד
s-ʿ-d
Support; sustain.
“prop you up” in this verse is yisa'adekha. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of sustaining or supporting. In Psalm 41:3 the same verb describes the LORD sustaining someone on a sickbed, so the strength here is pictured as being held up in a vulnerable place.
ALSO GROWS
sa'ad: to support; to sustain
סָעַד
This basic verb shows the support contained in the verse’s “strengthen.”
yisa'adennu: he will sustain him
יִסְעָדֶנּוּ
Psalm 41:3 uses this form for sustaining someone on a bed of languishing, showing support that reaches a person in weakness.
עֶזְרְךָ
ezrekha
GROWS FROM
עזר
ʿ-z-r
Help; aid.
The verse’s help is an arriving aid, not just an inward feeling. The same root appears when the psalmist names the LORD as his help, linking the aid sent here to a source beyond the immediate need.
ALSO GROWS
ezri: my help
עֶזְרִי
Psalm 121:2 uses this form for the help that comes from the LORD, echoing the aid sent from the sanctuary here.
ozer: helper; one who aids
עֹזֵר
This form names the one providing help, making visible the relationship between aid and the source from which it comes.
THE PATTERN
Help is portrayed as support that reaches the person in need and holds them up.
The LORD props him up on the couch of faintness, and you turn over all his bed in his sickness.Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not look about in dismay, for I am your God. I will grip you, and I will help you, and I will hold you up with the right hand of my alignment.Likewise the breath also takes hold alongside our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the breath itself approaches on our behalf with groans too deep for speech.THE THREAD
My help comes from the LORD, who makes heavens and earth.Psalm 121 uses the same Hebrew root עזר (ʿ-z-r), meaning “help” or “aid.” The shared word links the help sent from the sanctuary here to help that comes from the maker of heaven and earth.
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