What Does Psalm 65:8 Mean?
They who settle at the edges are struck with awe at your signs, and you make the goings forth of morning and evening ring out.
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
They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens: thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.THE KEY
Across even the farthest reaches, signs of divine power meet awe, while the daily emergence of morning and evening rings out in joy.
THE MEANING
Even at the earth’s farthest inhabited edges, your signs awaken awe. You make morning and evening ring out in joy; the day’s boundaries carry a response that reaches across the world.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that divine signs are confined to a central place: even the farthest dwellers respond to them.
THE ROOT
מוֹצָאֵי
motsa’ei
GROWS FROM
יָצָא
y-ts-ʾ
To go out, come forth, or emerge.
“goings forth” in this verse is motsa’ei. The word for “outgoings” grows from יָצָא, “to go out.” Morning and evening appear as the day’s recurring emergences, not merely points on a clock.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out or emerge.
יָצָא
This is the root action behind the verse’s image of morning and evening going forth.
motsa: A going out, outlet, or source.
מוֹצָא
This noun form makes the day’s appearing feel like an emergence into the world.
תַּרְנִין
tar’nin
GROWS FROM
רָנַן
r-n-n
To ring out, shout, or sing aloud.
“ring out” in this verse is tar’nin. The verb means more than an inward feeling: it pictures a voiced, ringing response. God makes the outgoings themselves sound with joy.
ALSO GROWS
ranan: To sing or shout aloud.
רָנַן
It shows the audible force held inside “rejoice” in this verse.
rinnah: A ringing cry or song of joy.
רִנָּה
This noun from the same root echoes the verse’s picture of daybreak and evening as a song.
וַיִּירְאוּ
wayyir’u
GROWS FROM
יָרֵא
y-r-ʾ
To fear or stand in awe.
“struck with awe” in this verse is wayyir’u. Here the awe rises in response to “thy tokens.” The word can hold trembling and reverence together, and the verse places that response even at the world’s farthest edges.
ALSO GROWS
yare: To fear or stand in awe.
יָרֵא
It is the verb behind the dwellers’ response to the signs.
yir’ah: Awe or fear.
יִרְאָה
This related noun holds the reverent weight of the response in the verse.
THE PATTERN
The created order carries signs of divine presence across the full reach of human life.
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to part the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days and years."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.So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.THE THREAD
From the edge of the heavens is his going out, and his circling to their edges; and nothing is hidden from his heat.Both verses use the root יָצָא (yatsa), “to go out”: Psalm 65 speaks of the morning and evening “outgoings,” and Psalm 19 of the sun’s “going forth.” Psalm 19 traces that emergence from heaven’s end to its farthest reach, opening the full span of the rejoicing in Psalm 65.
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