What Does Psalm 71:5 Mean?

For you are the cord I am stretched toward, my Lord, the LORD; you are the one I lean on from my youth.

Psalm 71:5 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.

THE KEY

Hope here is trust stretched toward what is ahead, grounded in the security already known.

THE MEANING

God is both the expectation ahead of you and the security beneath you. The verse holds this trust as something with history: it reaches back to youth and remains present now.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It loosens the belief that hope begins only after circumstances improve: hope is anchored in God himself.

THE ROOT

תִּקְוָתִי

tiqvāti

GROWS FROM

קוה

To wait for, look toward with expectation.

“the cord I am stretched toward” in this verse is tiqvāti. The Hebrew word for hope belongs to a root that also names waiting and looking toward something. Hope here carries expectation directed toward God, not merely a wish about what may happen.

ALSO GROWS

qāvāh: To wait for, look for, expect.

קָוָה

Psalm 39:7 uses this verb beside the noun for hope, showing expectation as an active turning toward God.

tiqvāh: Expectation, hope.

תִּקְוָה

This is the noun in the verse: the reader’s hope is expectation placed in God.

מִבְטָחִי

mivtaḥi

GROWS FROM

בטח

To trust, rely on, feel secure.

“the one I lean on” in this verse is mivtaḥi. The word translated “trust” is mivtaḥ, a noun of confidence or security from batach, to trust. It gives trust the feel of lived reliance, carried through the years from youth.

ALSO GROWS

bāṭaḥ: To trust, rely on, feel secure.

בָּטַח

The verb behind the noun makes trust an act of reliance, not only an idea held in the mind.

mivṭāḥ: Confidence, security, refuge.

מִבְטָח

This noun is the form used in the verse; God is named as the place of security in which trust rests.

THE PATTERN

Hope takes its shape from the one trusted across the whole span of life.

Yet you are the one who draws me out of the belly; you make me lean upon my mother's breasts.

Psalm 22:9 · SDVThe Hebrew verb translated “hope” comes from batach, the same root as “trust” in Psalm 71:5, and locates that reliance at life’s beginning.

And now, Lord, what am I stretched toward? My holding is toward you.

Psalm 39:7 · SDVWaiting and hope come from the same Hebrew root, and both are directed toward God.

who through him lean their full weight on God, the one who raised him from the dead and clothed him in weight, so that your trust and hope might be in God.

1 Peter 1:21 · SDVThe verse joins trust and hope in God, echoing Psalm 71:5’s pairing of reliance and expectation.

THE THREAD

And now, Lord, what am I stretched toward? My holding is toward you.

Psalm 39:7 · SDV

“Wait” is ⁨קָוָה⁩ (qāvāh), to wait or expect; “hope” is ⁨תִּקְוָה⁩ (tiqvāh), expectation. The shared root reveals waiting as hope directed toward God, the same expectancy named in Psalm 71:5.

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