What Does Psalm 72:20 Mean?
The prayers of David the son of Jesse have run out.
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
The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.THE KEY
The word translated “ended” also carries “completed,” so David’s prayers are pictured as brought to wholeness rather than erased.
THE MEANING
The verse lets an ending mean completion: the prayers stand as a whole expression, even when their speaking stops. Their finish does not make them empty or lost.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a prayer that stops has failed or disappeared; here, its stopping marks completion.
THE ROOT
תַּמּוּ
tamu
GROWS FROM
תמם
tamam
To be complete, whole, or finished.
The word translated “ended” is תַּמּוּ (tamu), from תָּמַם (tamam), “to be complete, whole.” The same root carries both an ending and wholeness, so the line can name completion rather than mere cessation.
ALSO GROWS
tam: Whole, complete; sometimes upright or blameless.
תָּם
This branch shows that completion can describe a whole state of being, not simply a task that has stopped.
tamim: Whole, complete, sound.
תָּמִים
This form makes the root’s sense of wholeness explicit and illuminates “ended” as brought to completion.
תְּפִלּוֹת
tefillot
GROWS FROM
פלל
palal
To intervene or intercede; in the prayer form, to pray or appeal.
English “prayers” can sound like a category of religious speech, while this Hebrew word belongs to a family that also carries appeal and intercession. The verse closes an act of address, not merely a collection of words.
ALSO GROWS
tefillah: Prayer, petition.
תְּפִלָּה
This singular form is the same kind of address named in the verse’s plural “prayers.”
hitpallel: To pray, entreat.
הִתְפַּלֵּל
This verb makes the action within “prayers” visible: someone is appealing, not only speaking.
דָּוִד
David
GROWS FROM
דוד
dod
Beloved, dear one.
David’s name echoes דּוֹד (dod), “beloved.” The verse’s closing line therefore names the prayers as belonging to a person whose name carries belovedness.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved, dear one; also a close male relative or uncle.
דּוֹד
This word carries the belovedness echoed in David’s name.
dodim: Loves, beloved affection.
דֹּדִים
This plural form shows the same name-root extending into the language of affection.
THE PATTERN
Across Scripture, an ending can mark a work brought to completion and wholeness.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.The LORD finishes what concerns me; your faithful love, O LORD, endures for the ages; do not let the works of your hands drop.When Jesus had taken the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head, and handed over his breath.THE THREAD
The instruction of the LORD is whole, turning back the living soul; the witness of the LORD is steady, making the open ones wise.The word rendered “perfect” is תְּמִימָה (temimah), “whole, complete,” from תָּמַם (tamam), the same root behind “are ended” here. This verse makes the shared root visible: completion can be wholeness.
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