What Does Psalm 76:1 Mean?
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song of Asaph. In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel.
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
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song of Asaph. In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel.THE KEY
God is known in Judah, whose name Genesis links to praise: recognition and praise meet in the name of a people.
THE MEANING
You encounter God here as known within a shared life: in Judah God is recognized, and in Israel God’s name is held as great. The verse joins knowing to naming, presenting God’s identity as something a people recognize together.
THE ROOT
נוֹדָע
nôdaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive; often to know through relationship or encounter.
“is known” in this verse is nôdaʿ. The word translated “known” is נוֹדָע (nôdaʿ, known), from the root ידע (yādaʿ, to know). It carries recognition beyond the possession of information: God is acknowledged within the shared life of Judah.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know, recognize, or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the verb behind “known,” keeping the verse’s claim rooted in recognition.
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This related noun shows the same root extending from knowing into what is understood.
יְהוּדָה
Yehudah
GROWS FROM
ידה
To praise, give thanks, or acknowledge.
Genesis links the name Judah to Leah’s declaration, “I will praise the LORD.” Its sound echoes the separate root ידע (yādaʿ, to know): the verse brings knowing and praise near without making them the same root.
ALSO GROWS
yādâ: To praise, give thanks, or acknowledge.
יָדָה
Genesis 29:35 links Judah’s name to this act when Leah says she will praise the LORD.
tôdâ: Thanksgiving or thanks.
תּוֹדָה
This related word gives a concrete form to the praise associated with Judah’s name.
גָּדוֹל
gādôl
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow or become great; to increase in stature or significance.
“Great” belongs to the language of growth and magnitude. Applied to God’s name, it portrays a name recognized as great among Israel.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow, become great, or increase.
גָּדַל
This verb makes the growth and magnitude within “great” visible.
migdal: A tower.
מִגְדָּל
A tower rises in stature, showing another concrete form built from the same root.
THE PATTERN
God’s name is made known among peoples through acts that disclose God’s presence and character.
And for this very reason I have made you stand, so that I may show my strength in you, and that my name may be recounted throughout all the earth.Hear and respond in heaven, your settling place, and act according to all that the stranger calls to you for, so that all the peoples of the earth may perceive your name, to stand in awe of you, as your people Israel do; and that they may perceive that this house, which I have built, is called by your name.I have made your nature visible to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have guarded your word.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now I will extend my hands to the LORD. Therefore she called his name Judah, Praise, and she stood from bearing.Genesis links Judah’s name to אֹודֶה (ʾōdeh, I will praise), from ידה (yādâ, praise, give thanks, or acknowledge). Psalm 76 places God as known in Judah, so the name carries a praise association beside the distinct root behind “known.”
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