What Does Psalm 57:11 Mean?
Be lifted up, O God, above the heavens; let your weight be above all the earth.
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
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.THE KEY
The verse’s “glory” is weight: neither heaven nor earth contains God; both lie beneath God’s weight.
THE MEANING
The highest thing you can imagine does not place a ceiling over God, and the ground you stand on does not confine God’s weight. Heaven and earth remain beneath God’s presence and worth, however vast or final they seem.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that what seems largest in your world, power, danger, or circumstance, has the highest authority.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹדֶךָ
kevodekha
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy, to carry weight.
The KJV’s “glory” can suggest radiance, while כְּבוֹדֶךָ (kevodekha, your glory or weight) carries the sense of weight and substance. The verse places God’s weight above the heavens and all the earth, beyond every created scale.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
This branch keeps “glory” anchored in weight rather than mere brightness.
kibbed: To honor, to give weight to.
כִּבֵּד
To honor is to treat someone as weighty; here, God’s worth stands above all creation.
רוּמָה
rumah
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“Be lifted up” in this verse is rumah. “Exalted” comes from רום (r-w-m, to rise or be high), a root that also describes highness and lifting. The verse’s two “above” clauses let that height span both heavens and earth, placing all that exists beneath God’s eminence.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High, lofty.
רָם
This branch names the height that the verse declares belongs to God.
herim: Raised, lifted up.
הֵרִים
This branch carries the act of lifting, echoing the verse’s call for God to be exalted.
THE PATTERN
The created order, from its highest reaches to its inhabited ground, lies beneath God’s weight and bears witness to it.
The LORD is lifted high over all nations, and his weight above the heavens.And one called out to another, and said, Set apart, set apart, set apart is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his weight.Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive the weight, and the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and through your will they were and were created.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens recount the weight of God; and the expanse sets forth the work of his hands.Psalm 19 calls the heavens witnesses to כָּבוֹד (kavod, glory and weight), the same word at the heart of this verse. The heavens stand beneath God’s weight and announce it.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us