What Does Psalm 57:5 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 names God’s glory as weight, placing that weight above the heavens and over the whole earth.
THE MEANING
God stands higher than the heavens, and God’s weight is set above the whole earth. For you now, the visible world is not the highest measure; God’s weight stands over the world you inhabit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that the visible world is the highest authority. The verse places God’s weight above both the heavens and the earth.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹדֶךָ
kevodekha
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
The root gives “glory” the sense of weight: something substantial, with consequence and honor. The verse sets God’s weight above the whole earth, giving exaltation a sense of surpassing importance.
ALSO GROWS
kāvēd: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
This adjective preserves the sense of heaviness beneath the verse’s word for glory.
kāvōd: Weight; honor; glory.
כָּבוֹד
This noun shares the root and names the weight the verse places above all the earth.
רוּמָה
rūmāh
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
To rise, be high, or be lifted up.
“Be lifted up” in this verse is rūmāh. The root turns exaltation into an image of height: God is lifted above the heavens. Paired with God’s weight above the earth, the verse holds height and substance together.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High; exalted.
רָם
This branch shares the root’s language of height and echoes God being exalted.
mārōm: Height; high place.
מָרוֹם
This noun from the root evokes the elevated place echoed by “above the heavens.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture names God’s exalted glory as a reality that reaches across every realm from heaven to earth.
Be lifted up, O God, above the heavens; and over all the earth, let your weight be.Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is lifted high; his majesty is above the earth and the heavens.And every created thing in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, I hear them saying, Blessing, and honor, and weight, and power, be to the one who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, into the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
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.Isaiah’s “glory” uses the same Hebrew root כבד (k-b-d, weight) as the word in this verse. The weight placed above the earth here is also what fills the earth there, holding transcendence and presence together.
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