What Does Psalm 40:16 Mean?
Let all who seek you leap and be glad in you. Let those who love your deliverance always say, Let the LORD grow great.
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
Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.THE KEY
Those who love deliverance keep making the Deliverer’s greatness visible.
THE MEANING
Seeking you is bound to joy: those who seek you find gladness in you. Love for your deliverance keeps voicing the LORD’s greatness, so rescue remains a source of joy and praise now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deliverance matters only while a crisis is happening; here, love of deliverance keeps giving rise to joy and praise.
THE ROOT
תְּשׁוּעָתֶךָ
teshuʿatekha
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
Deliver or rescue; in this passage’s arc, bring out of constriction into spaciousness.
The word translated “salvation” is “your deliverance,” from the same root as yasha, “to deliver.” The verse presents deliverance as something its lovers keep celebrating, not merely a rescue that has already passed.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: Deliver, rescue.
יָשַׁע
The verb names the action behind the deliverance the seekers love.
yešūʿāh: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the rescue as a continuing reality that gives rise to joy.
Yēšūaʿ: Deliverance; a name formed from this root.
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name carries the same deliverance-root, linking the verse’s loved deliverance with the nature of the one who delivers.
יִגְדַּל
yigdal
GROWS FROM
ג־ד־ל
Grow, become great, increase.
“grow great” in this verse is yigdal. The Hebrew says, in effect, “May the LORD be great.” Praise makes that greatness visible; it gives voice to what is already true.
ALSO GROWS
gādōl: Great.
גָּדוֹל
The root’s familiar form names the greatness proclaimed in the verse.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
This branch carries the image of something raised up and made prominent, echoing the verse’s call to magnify the LORD.
מְבַקְשֶׁיךָ
mevaqsheikha
GROWS FROM
ב־ק־שׁ
Seek, look for, request.
“seek” in this verse is mevaqsheikha. The word for seekers comes from a root that also means to request. Seeking you carries the sense of turning toward you with desire, and the verse places that movement alongside joy.
ALSO GROWS
biqqēš: Seek, look for, request.
בִּקֵּשׁ
This verbal form shows that seeking can carry the sense of asking for what one desires.
baqqāšāh: Request, petition.
בַּקָּשָׁה
This related noun makes the root’s asking sense audible beneath the verse’s “seek.”
THE PATTERN
Those who recognize deliverance find in it an ongoing cause for joy and a voice that declares the LORD’s greatness.
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.Let them ring out for joy and be glad, those who delight in my alignment; and let them say continually, Let the LORD grow great, who delights in the wholeness of his servant.And Mary said, My living soul makes the LORD great.THE THREAD
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.“Salvation” in both verses comes from the Hebrew root י־ש־ע (y-š-ʿ), yasha: deliverance. Psalm 40 gives that deliverance a voice of continual praise; Isaiah names it as strength and song.
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