What Does Psalm 78:65 Mean?
Then the Lord woke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who roars from the wine.
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
Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.THE KEY
The verse imagines divine force as a warrior waking into a wine-stirred shout, sudden, loud, and embodied.
THE MEANING
You encounter the LORD here in a startling image: he wakes from sleep and breaks into a warrior’s cry stirred by wine. The verse makes divine action feel abrupt, bodily, and loud.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The LORD is asleep and will stay unresponsive; this verse turns apparent sleep into awakening and a cry of action.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקַץ
vayyiqats
GROWS FROM
קוּץ
qûts
Wake or rouse from sleep.
“woke” in this verse is vayyiqats. The Hebrew verb presents waking as a sudden break from sleep. The same root can describe a plea for the LORD to awake and a person waking, so the image carries both urgency and movement out of stillness.
ALSO GROWS
haqitsah: Awake! (imperative)
הָקִיצָה
Psalm 44:23 uses this form as a plea to the LORD; here the same wake-root becomes an image of divine action.
heqitsoti: I awoke
הֱקִיצוֹתִי
Psalm 3:5 uses the root for waking from sleep, showing that the same word applies to ordinary human waking and the LORD’s awakening image.
מִתְרֹנֵן
mitronen
GROWS FROM
רנן
r-n-n
Ring out in a cry or song; shout aloud.
“roars” in this verse is mitronen. The Hebrew word belongs to a family used for both shouting and singing. English “shouteth” preserves the force of the sound, while the root also holds the possibility of a ringing song.
ALSO GROWS
yerannenu: They shout for joy
יְרַנֵּנוּ
Psalm 5:11 uses this form for a joyful cry, showing how the same vocal surge can carry celebration as well as force.
rinnah: A ringing cry or song
רִנָּה
Psalm 126:2 uses this noun for singing, revealing that the root crosses the English boundary between shout and song.
גִּבּוֹר
gibbor
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
Grow strong, be mighty, or prevail.
The word for “mighty man” grows from a root of strength and prevailing. The image is not only of a powerful figure, but of power rising into action.
ALSO GROWS
gavar: Grow strong or prevail
גָּבַר
The verb shows the force carried by “mighty man”: strength moving toward the upper hand.
gevurah: Might or strength
גְּבוּרָה
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s warrior image a picture of active power, not merely status.
THE PATTERN
The divine cry marks the moment power moves from stillness into action.
The LORD goes out like a mighty man. He stirs up his zeal like a man of war. He shouts, yes, he roars. He grows strong over his enemies.For the Lord himself, with a shout of command, with the voice of the chief messenger, and with the trumpet of God, will step down from heaven, and the dead in the Anointed One will rise first.THE THREAD
Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Rise! Do not push us away forever.This plea uses the same Hebrew wake-root as Psalm 78:65. Beside it, the verse turns “awake” from a cry directed toward the LORD into the image of the LORD waking and shouting.
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