What Does Psalm 31:5 Mean?
Into your hand I place my breath; you ransom me, O LORD, God of truth.
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
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.THE KEY
The breath is entrusted to the hand whose nature is steadiness and whose deliverance is already named as complete.
THE MEANING
Your breath is held in God’s hand, and the verse names that hand as the one that has already brought you through release. God’s truth is steadiness you can rely on, so your vulnerability rests within a present trustworthiness. The breath is part of your living self, not a separate possession.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your life is secure only while your own grip controls it: the verse names the receiving hand as steady and its deliverance as already accomplished.
THE ROOT
רוּחִי
ruchi
GROWS FROM
רוּחַ
ruach
Breath, wind, moving air; also spirit.
The word translated “spirit” also names breath and wind, so the verse places living breath itself in God’s hand. A related form with the same consonants carries the sense of room and relief, letting breath and release echo one another.
ALSO GROWS
ruchot: Winds, breaths, or spirits.
רוּחוֹת
The plural keeps wind, breath, and spirit within one word-family, so “spirit” here is not cut off from the body’s breath.
rawach: To have room, be relieved, or find respite.
רָוַח
Its shared consonants echo breath with relief and spaciousness as the speaker entrusts their living breath.
אַפְקִיד
aphqid
GROWS FROM
פקד
paqad
To attend to, appoint, or muster.
“place” in this verse is aphqid. The verb carries the sense of placing something under someone’s charge. The breath is not merely let go; it is entrusted to the one who attends to it.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: To attend to, visit, appoint, or muster.
פָּקַד
This root-family sense makes commitment an act of placing the breath within someone’s care.
pequddah: An appointment, charge, or oversight.
פְּקֻדָּה
The related word for a charge or oversight illuminates the care implied when the speaker places their breath in God’s hand.
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
אמן
aman
To be firm, steady, or reliable.
The word for truth grows from the language of firmness and reliability. “God of truth” therefore names the one receiving the breath as steady ground for what is entrusted.
ALSO GROWS
amen: Firmly so; truly; let it be so.
אָמֵן
Its affirmation rests on what is firm, echoing the reliability named in “God of truth.”
ne'eman: Reliable or trustworthy.
נֶאֱמָן
This related form names dependable character, the quality that makes the entrusted breath secure.
THE PATTERN
A life entrusted in danger rests in God’s keeping even when the speaker cannot control the outcome.
Roll your way upon the LORD, and lean your weight on him, and he will do it.And when Jesus had cried out with a great voice, he said, Father, into your hands I set down my breath. And having said this, he breathed out.So let those who suffer according to the will of God place beside him the keeping of their living souls in doing good, as to a steady Creator.THE THREAD
And when Jesus had cried out with a great voice, he said, Father, into your hands I set down my breath. And having said this, he breathed out.Luke carries this Psalm’s words into the moment of Jesus’ death. The echo makes the Psalm’s “spirit” audible as living breath entrusted to the Father’s hand.
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