What Does Psalm 43:4 Mean?
Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, the joy of my leaping. Upon the lyre I will extend my hands to you, O God, my God.
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
Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God.THE KEY
The phrase the KJV renders “my exceeding joy” carries two Hebrew words for joy, שִׂמְחַת (simḥat, joy of) and גִּילִי (gili, my exultation), with God at their center.
THE MEANING
Your movement toward God meets joy named as your own. The Hebrew holds שִׂמְחַת (simḥat, joy) and גִּילִי (gili, exultation) together, so delight fills the approach itself. The harp gives that gathered joy a voice turned toward God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God is only the destination of religious approach, while joy comes from elsewhere. This verse names God as the center of the singer’s joy.
THE ROOT
שִׂמְחַת
simḥat
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
שׂמח (ś-m-ḥ): to rejoice, be glad.
“the joy of my leaping” in this verse is simḥat. The noun in the verse grows from the verb “to rejoice,” so joy carries an active, lived quality as well as a feeling. Its construct form, שִׂמְחַת (simḥat, joy of), opens into גִּילִי (gili, my exultation), placing two neighboring roots for delight in one phrase.
ALSO GROWS
śāmaḥ: to rejoice, be glad
שָׂמַח
The verb shows the active movement contained in the verse’s word for joy.
śimḥāh: joy, rejoicing
שִׂמְחָה
This noun shares the root and makes clear that the verse’s joy belongs to a wider family of rejoicing.
mesammeaḥ: one who gladdens
מְשַׂמֵּחַ
This form from the same root shows joy as something that can be given and received.
גִּילִי
gili
GROWS FROM
גיל
גיל (g-y-l): to exult, rejoice.
“exultation” in this verse is gili. This is a second root for rejoicing, not merely a repeated form of שׂמח. Together, the two roots give the phrase a fullness that the single English phrase “exceeding joy” can leave hidden.
ALSO GROWS
gîl: exultation, rejoicing
גִּיל
This noun shares the root and names the exultation that the verse joins to joy.
gîlāh: rejoicing, gladness
גִּילָה
This related noun shows the same root unfolding into another expression of exultant joy.
מִזְבַּח
mizbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
זבח (z-b-ḥ): to slaughter, sacrifice.
The word for altar grows from the root of sacrifice, so the place bears the action in its name. Here, the movement toward God’s joy passes through the altar named by that root.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: to slaughter, sacrifice
זָבַח
The verb reveals the action carried by the root within the word for altar.
zevaḥ: sacrifice
זֶבַח
This noun shares the root and links the altar’s place with the act associated with it.
THE PATTERN
Joy takes its fullness from God’s presence and becomes strength, communion, and praise.
You make me perceive the path of life; before your face is the fullness of joy, and at your right hand are sweetnesses forever.Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing stands ready, for this day is set apart to our Lord. Do not ache, for the joy of the LORD is your stronghold.These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be filled.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.The Hebrew root שׂמח (ś-m-ḥ, to rejoice) underlies “joy” here and “fulness of joy” in Psalm 16:11. Psalm 43:4 names God as the joy of the singer’s exultation; Psalm 16:11 locates that fullness in God’s presence.
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