What Does Psalm 66:4 Mean?
All the earth bows down to you, and sings to you; they sing to your name. Selah.
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
All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name. Selah.THE KEY
The whole earth joins in one response: it bows, makes music, and directs its praise to God’s nature.
THE MEANING
The whole earth belongs in the response to God: it bows and sings. The song reaches God’s name, God’s nature, so praise answers who God is with both posture and sound. The reader stands within this living scene of praise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that praise is only an inward human feeling: here the whole earth bows and sings.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
yishtachaveh
GROWS FROM
שחה
shachah
to bow down, prostrate oneself
“bows down” in this verse is yishtachaveh. The verb names a bodily lowering, so worship here has a posture built into it. The whole earth’s response is not only voiced; it is a movement of bowing toward God.
ALSO GROWS
nishtachaveh: let us bow down
נִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
This form makes the posture explicit: worship carries the body’s downward movement.
hishtachavayah: bowing down, prostration
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָיָה
This noun names the bodily act held within the verse’s word for worship.
יְזַמְּרוּ
yezammeru
GROWS FROM
זמר
zamar
to make music, sing praise
“sing” in this verse is yezammeru. The verb gathers musical praise into the earth’s response, not just words spoken aloud. A psalm belongs to this same root family, joining the verse’s singing to a shaped song offered to God’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
mizmor: psalm, song of praise
מִזְמוֹר
A psalm is praise shaped as a song, giving form to the music in this verse.
zemirot: songs, songs of praise
זְמִירוֹת
This plural form shows the root’s reach into songs offered as praise.
THE PATTERN
Creation’s response to God takes bodily and voiced form across the whole world.
Shout to the LORD, all the earth. Burst open, ring out, and make music.For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bend to me, and every tongue shall speak out to God."THE THREAD
Enter, let us bow down and kneel before the face of the LORD who makes us.Psalm 95 uses the same Hebrew root for worship and makes its bodily posture visible in bowing and kneeling. It opens Psalm 66’s whole-earth praise as a response that bends toward its Maker.
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