What Does Psalm 20:5 Mean?
We ring out in your deliverance, and in the nature of our God we lift our banners. May the LORD fill all your requests.
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
We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions.THE KEY
The verse makes deliverance visible: the people lift God’s nature as their banner.
THE MEANING
Deliverance opens space for the community to rejoice together, with God’s nature as its shared standard. The petitions remain within the verse’s confidence that the LORD fulfills them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deliverance is merely private escape: here, it becomes shared joy and a visible standard.
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּעָה
yeshuʿah
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
y-sh-ʿ
To deliver, bringing someone out from constriction into spaciousness.
Here, deliverance is not only escape from danger; it is the widening that lets a people stand together. The root holds the movement of bringing out within what English gathers into “salvation.”
ALSO GROWS
yasha: To deliver or bring out.
יָשַׁע
The verb names the movement that the verse celebrates.
moshia: Deliverer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The same root can name the one who brings people out, keeping the act and its source connected.
yeshuʿah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
The noun names the opening that becomes the community’s shared cause for rejoicing.
נִדְגֹּל
nidgol
GROWS FROM
ד־ג־ל
d-g-l
To raise or mark with a standard, making a group’s allegiance visible.
“lift our banners” in this verse is nidgol. The banner does more than decorate the scene: it shows whose nature defines the gathering. The people’s rejoicing becomes visible as they lift their standard in God’s name.
ALSO GROWS
degel: Banner or standard.
דֶּגֶל
This noun names the visible sign the people raise in the verse.
dagul: Bannered, distinguished, conspicuous.
דָּגוּל
The related form suggests a banner makes its bearer recognizable.
מִשְׁאֲלוֹתֶיךָ
mishʾalotekha
GROWS FROM
ש־א־ל
sh-ʾ-l
To ask, request, or seek.
“requests” in this verse is mishʾalotekha. The verse keeps the act of asking connected to what is asked for. These petitions are held within the expectation that the LORD brings them to completion.
ALSO GROWS
shaʾal: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
The verb names the asking that stands behind the petitions.
sheʾelah: A request or question.
שְׁאֵלָה
This related noun makes clear that a petition is something voiced and sought.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance gathers a people around God’s nature and makes their allegiance visible.
And Moses built an altar and called its name Jehovahnissi, the LORD my lifted banner.He has brought me into the house of wine, and his banner over me is love.There is no deliverance in any other, for there is no other nature under heaven given among people by which we must be delivered."THE THREAD
He has brought me into the house of wine, and his banner over me is love.The same banner root appears here, where the banner over the speaker is love. Psalm 20:5 pictures a people lifting their standard in God’s name; this verse opens what that banner carries.
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