What Does Psalm 50:1 Mean?
A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty God, even the LORD, speaks, and calls the earth from the rising of the sun to its going in.
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
A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.THE KEY
The verb translated “called” can also mean to name or proclaim, so the LORD’s voice summons the whole earth into its address, from horizon to horizon.
THE MEANING
The LORD speaks, and the whole earth lies within the reach of that voice, from sunrise to sunset. You are inside the span this verse names: no place on earth sits beyond the scope of the call.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God’s voice is confined to one sacred place or moment: the verse gives it the full sweep of the earth and the day.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call, name, or summon; in some forms, to proclaim or read aloud.
“called” in this verse is wayyiqra. This root carries both calling and naming: a call can identify what it addresses, and it can summon someone into hearing. Here the earth is the object of that call, and the phrase from sunrise to sunset gives its reach the full sweep of the world.
ALSO GROWS
qara: The root verb can name or summon someone, proclaim a message, or read aloud.
קָרָא
The verse’s “called” carries the sense of an address directed to the earth, not merely a mention of it.
miqra: A reading or proclamation; also an assembly summoned together.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how a call can carry a message and gather those who hear it, opening the verse’s address to the whole earth.
THE PATTERN
God’s word goes forth to act within creation, and its reach is not bounded by one place.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, indeed, their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited earth.THE THREAD
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.Genesis uses the same קרא (qara, to call or name) when God calls light “Day” and darkness “Night.” Here that same verb addresses the whole earth, opening the naming force of a call into a summons spanning the full horizon.
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