What Does Psalm 78:4 Mean?
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.
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
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.THE KEY
The verse treats silence as a way the LORD’s deeds can disappear, and telling as the act that keeps them in a family’s memory.
THE MEANING
What has been seen and received remains alive across generations as it is told to those coming after. The LORD’s praise, strength, and works are carried forward in speech.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is not passed on will remain alive on its own: hidden testimony can disappear from the generations that follow.
THE ROOT
מְסַפְּרִים
mesapperim
GROWS FROM
ספר
Count, recount, or relate.
The verb for telling shares its root with counting and recounting: the deeds are named one by one. The same root gives סֵפֶר (sefer), a book or written record, linking spoken testimony with the keeping of memory.
ALSO GROWS
saphar: Count, recount, relate.
סָפַר
The deeds are recounted in speech so they remain known beyond the people who first saw them.
sefer: Book, scroll, written record.
סֵפֶר
This branch connects recounting with a record that carries what happened forward.
נְכַחֵד
nekhaḥed
GROWS FROM
כחד
Conceal, keep back; in some forms, cause to disappear.
The word translated “hide” shares a root whose range also includes disappearance. The verse’s refusal to conceal is therefore a refusal to let the LORD’s deeds vanish from the memory passed between generations.
ALSO GROWS
kachad: Hide, conceal, withhold.
כָּחַד
This is the root behind the verse’s refusal to keep the deeds from the children.
hikhchid: Suppress, cause to disappear.
הִכְחִיד
This form makes visible what concealment can do: remove something from view and memory.
THE PATTERN
Testimony remains available when each generation carries it forward in words.
Only guard yourself, and guard your living soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they turn aside from your heart all the days of your life. But make them known to your children, and to your children's children.One generation shouts of your works to another, and sets forth your strong deeds.And these things you heard from me among many witnesses, place beside steady people who will be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
I do not cover your alignment within my heart. I speak your steadiness and your deliverance. I do not hide your faithful love and your truth from the great assembly.Psalm 78 uses כחד (kachad, conceal) for what is not kept from the children; Psalm 40 uses the same root for what is not concealed from the congregation. Together they show testimony moving from family memory into public speech.
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