What Does Psalm 66:5 Mean?
Come and see the works of God, awe-filled in his doing upon the children of humankind.
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
Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.THE KEY
The verse makes awe arise from seeing what God does among people.
THE MEANING
You are invited to look at God’s deeds among human beings. What you see can awaken awe; God’s action is presented as something encountered, not merely imagined.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that God is only a distant concept: the verse points to deeds among people that can be seen.
THE ROOT
נוֹרָא
nora
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
To fear, revere, or stand in awe; when God is the one feared, the word carries awe.
“awe-filled” in this verse is nora. The word translated “terrible” comes from the same root that names awe and reverent fear. That root lets the verse hold both the unsettling force of God’s deeds and the awe they awaken.
ALSO GROWS
yir'ah: Awe, reverent fear.
יִרְאָה
This noun shares the root and shows that the response to God’s deeds is not simple alarm but awe.
yare: To fear or stand in awe.
יָרֵא
This verb carries the response named by nora: encountering God’s action can bring a person into awe.
THE PATTERN
Visible acts of God awaken awe in those who encounter them.
Go, and gaze upon the works of the LORD, the wastes he sets in the earth.He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awe-inspiring things, which your eyes have seen.And they were all gripped and beside themselves, and they gave weight to God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen things beyond all weight today.THE THREAD
They speak of the strength of your awe-stirring deeds, and I recount your greatness.“Terrible” here and “terrible” in Psalm 66:5 both translate forms from ירא (y-r-ʾ, yare), the root of awe and reverent fear. The shared root links seeing God’s acts with the awe that makes them worth declaring.
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