What Does Psalm 78:15 Mean?
He split the rocks in the wilderness, and let them drink as from the great depths.
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
He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.THE KEY
The split does not create the water; it uncovers the deep source beneath the stone.
THE MEANING
Your wilderness holds this image: stone opens, and drink comes out as though drawn from the great depths. The verse locates provision in a depth already there, disclosed when the rock is cleaved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sealed surface does not prove that no sustaining depth lies beneath it.
THE ROOT
יְבַקַּע
yəvaqqaʿ
GROWS FROM
בקע
To split open, cleave, or break through.
The Hebrew בָּקַע names a split made through a barrier. The same root describes the deep’s fountains breaking open and the sea being divided; here, the cleft exposes water for drink, so the opening reveals a source rather than creating one.
ALSO GROWS
baqa: In Genesis 7:11, the fountains of the great deep are “broken up.”
בָּקַע
The same root joins the opening of the deep with the cleaving of the rock.
baqa: In Exodus 14:21, the waters of the sea “were divided.”
בָּקַע
The root describes a passage opened through what had been a barrier.
THE PATTERN
What appears sealed can become provision when it opens and reveals a source within.
Look, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You will strike the rock, and waters will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.And they did not thirst when he set them walking through the dry places. He brought waters out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.And all drank the same breath-given drink, for they drank from the breath-given rock that followed them, and that rock was the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And they did not thirst when he set them walking through the dry places. He brought waters out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.Isaiah uses the same root, בָּקַע, for the rock’s opening. Its waters gush out, letting the shared word reveal the cleaving as the moment a hidden source becomes visible.
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