What Does Psalm 67:5 Mean?
Let the peoples extend their hands to you, O God; let all the peoples extend their hands to you.
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
Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.THE KEY
The repeated word for praise carries thanksgiving and acknowledgment, turning one voice into a chorus across all peoples.
THE MEANING
This verse places you within a chorus that reaches across every people. Praise is shared acknowledgment, voiced again until all are included.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that praise belongs rightly to only one people or one kind of voice.
THE ROOT
יְהוֹדוּךָ
yehodukha
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
Yādâ (יָדָה): acknowledge, give thanks, praise.
“extend their hands to you” in this verse is yehodukha. English says “praise” twice, but yādâ also names thanksgiving and confession: the word holds open acknowledgment within it. The repeated refrain widens that acknowledgment from the peoples to all of them.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving, thanks; also a thank offering.
תּוֹדָה
This noun from the same root shows that praise and gratitude share a word-family.
hitvadah: Confess, acknowledge.
הִתְוַדָּה
This branch reveals the root’s range: acknowledgment can take the form of praise or an open confession.
THE PATTERN
Praise crosses every boundary of people and gathers many voices into one acknowledgment.
Praise the LORD, all you nations; shout for him, all you peoples.And again, Praise the LORD, all you nations, and let all the peoples praise him.After this I see, and look, a great crowd that no one can number, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wrapped in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. And they cry out with a loud voice, saying, Deliverance to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!THE THREAD
O extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages.The Hebrew word יְהוֹדוּךָ (yehodukha, “they praise you”) here and הוֹדוּ (hôdû, “give thanks”) in Psalm 118:1 come from the same root, ידה (yādâ). The shared root joins praise and thanksgiving as forms of acknowledging God.
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