What Does Psalm 68:28 Mean?
Your God commands your strength; strengthen, O God, what you have worked for us.
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
Thy God hath commanded thy strength: strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us.THE KEY
In Hebrew, “strength” and “strengthen” share a root, so the verse asks God to make the strength already commanded active in the work already done.
THE MEANING
God’s strength is already commanded for you, and what God is working for you is not self-made. The verse holds recognition and request together: God’s work is present now, and you still ask for it to be strengthened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that once God begins a work, its continuation depends on your own strength.
THE ROOT
עֻזֶּךָ
ʿuzzekha
GROWS FROM
עָזַז
ʿazaz
To be strong; to prevail.
“strength / strengthen” in this verse is ʿuzzekha. The Hebrew עֹז (ʿoz, strength) sits beside עוּזָּה (ʿuzzāh, strengthen), forms from the same root. English makes one a noun and the other a verb; Hebrew lets you hear strength as both what is given and what becomes active in the work.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoz: Strength, might.
עֹז
This is the strength named in the verse: it is under God’s command.
ʿaz: Strong, fierce.
עַז
The adjective shares the root’s sense of strength, showing the quality behind the strength God is asked to bring forth.
פָּעַלְתָּ
paʿalta
GROWS FROM
פעל
p-ʿ-l
To do, act, or work.
“have worked” in this verse is paʿalta. English can make “wrought” sound like a finished result; the Hebrew root keeps the doing in view. The verse asks God to strengthen what God has worked for us, locating both the work and its sustaining strength in God.
ALSO GROWS
poʿal: Work, deed.
פֹּעַל
This noun from the same root names the kind of work the verse recognizes as God’s doing.
peʿullah: Work, action.
פְּעֻלָּה
This branch keeps the emphasis on an act being carried out, fitting the verse’s request that God strengthen what God has done.
THE PATTERN
God supplies the strength that sustains work God has begun.
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with wholeness.He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do, for the sake of his good pleasure.THE THREAD
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with wholeness.Psalm 29 uses עֹז (ʿoz, strength), the same Hebrew root family heard in “strength” and “strengthen” here. One verse says God gives this strength; the other asks God to strengthen the work God has already done.
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