What Does Psalm 71:16 Mean?
I come in the might of my Lord, the LORD; I call to mind your alignment, yours alone.
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
I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.THE KEY
Your movement rests in the LORD’s might, while the righteousness you name belongs to God alone.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to your movement now: the strength carrying you is the LORD’s, and the alignment named in your words is God’s alone. What you make known points beyond your own power to the one whose strength and righteousness sustain you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your progress rests on your own force or that rightness is something you produce: the verse locates strength in the LORD and names righteousness as his alone.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּרוֹת
gevurot
GROWS FROM
גבר
To be strong, mighty, or prevail.
“in the might” in this verse is gevurot. The word can hold both strength and mighty deeds, so the verse’s support is not an abstract force but the LORD’s power in action. The speaker’s movement is carried by that power, rather than claimed as a personal possession.
ALSO GROWS
gevurah: Might or strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This related form makes explicit the power in which the speaker moves.
gibbor: A mighty one or warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
The branch gives strength a personal, active shape: might that acts and prevails.
אַזְכִּיר
ʾazkîr
GROWS FROM
זכר
To remember, recall, or bring to mind.
“I call to mind” in this verse is ʾazkîr. The Hebrew verb translated “make mention” comes from the same root as “remember.” Naming God’s righteousness is therefore bound to recollection: the speaker brings what is true of God into view.
ALSO GROWS
zākar: Remember or recall.
זָכַר
This is the root verb behind “make mention,” revealing memory within the act of speaking.
zikkārôn: Remembrance or memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch shows how recalling can make something present and keep it before the mind.
צִדְקָתֶךָ
tsidqatekha
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right, just, or in alignment.
The verse names this alignment as God’s own, and its closing “thine only” leaves no ambiguity about its source. English “righteousness” carries the sense of moral rightness; the root also opens the image of being rightly aligned.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Righteousness, justice, or rightness.
צֶדֶק
This related form shows the shared root beneath the verse’s naming of God’s righteousness.
tsaddiq: Righteous or just; one who is in the right.
צַדִּיק
This branch describes a person in alignment and clarifies the quality the verse attributes to God.
THE PATTERN
The strength that carries a person and the rightness they name have their source in God.
Some lean their full weight on chariots, and some on horses; but we remember in the nature of the LORD our God.He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.THE THREAD
I remember the deeds of the LORD; surely I remember your wonders of old.“Make mention” translates אַזְכִּיר (ʾazkîr), from זכר (z-k-r), the same root rendered “remember” here. That shared root opens the verse’s speech as remembrance: naming God’s righteousness brings God’s works into view.
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