What Does Psalm 21:4 Mean?

He asks life from you, and you give it to him, length of days for ages and ages.

Psalm 21:4 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.

THE KEY

Life is an answer received from God, with a horizon that reaches beyond counted days.

THE MEANING

Your life appears here as something asked of God and received from him, its span reaching into the ages. The verse holds both dependence and abundance: life is given, and its horizon keeps opening.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that life depends entirely on your own power to secure it is undone: here, life is asked of God and given.

THE ROOT

חַיִּים

chayyim

GROWS FROM

חיה

To live; to be alive.

The Hebrew uses ⁨חַיִּים⁩ (chayyim), a plural-shaped noun from the root “to live.” The same root names the living one and a living creature, so “life” carries the fullness of living existence, not just an abstract idea.

ALSO GROWS

chai: Living; alive.

חַי

The same root describes the one who has life, not only life as a gift.

chayah: To live; remain alive.

חָיָה

The verb behind “life” shows the gift as lived existence.

chayyah: A living creature.

חַיָּה

This branch connects life to the beings who embody it.

THE PATTERN

Life is received from God as a gift that sustains and extends beyond the moment it is given.

And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.

Genesis 2:7 · SDVLife enters the formed human as something received from God.

For with you is the spring of life; in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:9 · SDVLife is pictured as flowing from God, its source.

And this is the witness, that God has given us the life of the ages, and this life is in his Son.

1 John 5:11 · SDVLife is again described as given by God and held in the Son.

THE THREAD

You make me perceive the path of life; before your face is the fullness of joy, and at your right hand are sweetnesses forever.

Psalm 16:11 · SDV

Both verses use the ⁨חיה⁩ (chayah, to live) root: here life is asked for and given; there it becomes a path. The shared root links the gift of life to the way that unfolds in God’s presence.

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