What Does Psalm 47:6 Mean?
Sing praises to God, sing; sing praises to our King, sing.
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
Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.THE KEY
The fourfold “sing praises” is one Hebrew verb, zamar: music itself becomes the repeated way God is recognized as King.
THE MEANING
The verse gives you a refrain: God is sung to, and named as your King. Its repeated call lets music carry that recognition, returning again and again to the one who rules.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the idea that recognizing God as King is only an inward thought: the verse gives that recognition a sounding, repeated form.
THE ROOT
זַמְּרוּ
zammeru from zamar
GROWS FROM
זמר
To sing or make music.
The Hebrew repeats the same verb four times; “sing praises” can sound like an abstract act of approval, while zamar carries the sound of music-making. The refrain moves from God to “our King,” giving that musical recognition a named focus.
ALSO GROWS
mizmor: A psalm or musical composition.
מִזְמוֹר
This related word shows that a psalm belongs to the same musical word-family as the repeated verb in the verse.
zimrah: Song or music.
זְמִרָה
This branch keeps the verse’s praise connected to music as something voiced and heard.
מַלְכֵּנוּ
malkenu
GROWS FROM
מלך
To reign or rule; the word-family names kingship and the one who reigns.
The verse turns from naming God as Elohim to naming God as “our King.” The title makes the refrain relational: the one being sung to is also the one whose rule is named as ours.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: King.
מֶלֶךְ
This is the title used in the verse, with the possessive ending making it “our King.”
malkhut: Kingship, reign, or kingdom.
מַלְכוּת
This related word makes the root’s connection between the King and the act or realm of ruling explicit.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives recognition of God’s reign a voiced form through song.
Give thanks to the LORD with the harp, and pluck for him on the psaltery and the instrument of ten strings.Shout to the LORD, all the earth. Burst open, ring out, and make music.And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to untie its seals, for you were slaughtered and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.THE THREAD
Give thanks to the LORD with the harp, and pluck for him on the psaltery and the instrument of ten strings.Psalm 33:2 uses the same zamar word-family and places the singing beside harp, psaltery, and strings. That makes the repeated call in Psalm 47:6 ring as music-making, while its final phrase names the one addressed as “our King.”
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