What Does Psalm 29:11 Mean?
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with wholeness.
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
The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.THE KEY
The storm’s final word is a people made strong and whole by the LORD.
THE MEANING
The LORD gives strength to his people now; his blessing reaches them as wholeness. Strength and peace belong together here: the strength to stand and the wholeness to live are both gifts.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your strength must come only from your own reserve, or that peace is merely a quiet moment: both are gifts the LORD gives to his people.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be complete, whole, or sound.
Shalom carries more than quiet: it names a state of wholeness. The verse presents that wholeness as the LORD’s blessing to his people.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Complete, whole, sound.
שָׁלֵם
It makes clear that the peace given here is a condition of completeness, not only an absence of conflict.
shillem: To make good, repay, or restore what is owed.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch echoes shalom’s sense of what is brought back into soundness.
עֹז
ʿoz
GROWS FROM
עזז
To be strong or powerful.
The strength here belongs to the LORD as its giver; it is not presented as something his people must manufacture alone. Its pairing with shalom holds power and wholeness together.
ALSO GROWS
ʿazaz: To be strong or grow strong.
עָזַז
This verb form reveals the action behind the strength the LORD gives.
ʿaz: Strong, mighty, or severe.
עַז
The related adjective carries the force of strength that עֹז names.
בָּרַךְ
barakh
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root also carries the image of bending the knee.
“blesses” in this verse is barakh. The root holds a bodily image beneath the familiar act of blessing. Here the LORD’s blessing takes shape as the strength and wholeness given to his people.
ALSO GROWS
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
The noun names the gift the LORD bestows in this verse.
barukh: Blessed.
בָּרוּךְ
This related form describes one who receives or bears a blessing.
THE PATTERN
The LORD gives what human strength cannot secure, supplying power to the weak and wholeness to his people.
He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.The LORD lift up his face upon you, and give you wholeness.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
The LORD lift up his face upon you, and give you wholeness.The word translated peace in both verses is שָׁלוֹם (shalom), whose root carries completeness and wholeness. Psalm 29:11 places that wholeness beside strength as the LORD’s blessing; Numbers 6:26 shows the same gift under the light of his face.
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