What Does Psalm 79:13 Mean?
And we, your people and sheep of your pasture, extend our hands to you for the ages; from generation to generation we count out your praise.
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
So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.THE KEY
The flock’s thanks becomes a story carried from one generation to the next.
THE MEANING
You are named among God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture, held within the care that feeds and tends the flock. Gratitude here becomes more than a private feeling: it is told onward, joining your voice to generations before and after you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that belonging depends on standing alone, or that gratitude ends with the person who feels it.
THE ROOT
נוֹדֶה
nodeh
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
Acknowledge, confess, give thanks or praise.
“extend our hands to you” in this verse is nodeh. The verb נוֹדֶה (nodeh, “we give thanks”) belongs to the same root family as תּוֹדָה (todah, “thanksgiving”) and יְהוּדָה (Yehudah, “Judah”). The verse’s thanks is an acknowledgment directed toward God, and the next phrase gives that acknowledgment a voice that reaches every generation.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving or praise.
תּוֹדָה
It shares the root of the verse’s “give thee thanks,” showing that thanks can be voiced as praise.
Yehudah: Judah; a name associated with “praise.”
יְהוּדָה
The name’s biblical wordplay joins a person’s identity with praise, echoing this verse’s shared, enduring testimony.
מַרְעִיתֶךָ
mar'itekha
GROWS FROM
רעה
r-ʿ-h
Tend, shepherd, feed or graze.
The word for “your pasture” grows from the same root as tending and shepherding. The image holds the flock and its care together: the people belong to the one who tends them, and the pasture is where that tending provides for them.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: Shepherd or one who tends.
רֹעֶה
It names the care implicit in calling the people sheep of God’s pasture.
mir'eh: Pasture or grazing land.
מִרְעֶה
It shares the root with “your pasture,” tying the place of provision to the act of tending.
תְּהִלָּתֶךָ
tehillatekha
GROWS FROM
הלל
h-l-l
Praise, celebrate or commend.
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah, “praise”) comes from a root for praise and celebration. The verse’s “shew forth” makes that praise something recounted aloud, carried beyond the present generation.
ALSO GROWS
tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
It is the noun behind “thy praise,” making praise something that can be spoken and shared.
hallelu: Praise, addressed to a group.
הַלְלוּ
It is another form from the same root, connecting the verse’s praise with praise voiced by a gathered people.
THE PATTERN
A people who receive their identity and care carry their testimony forward together.
Perceive that the LORD is God; it is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.This people I have shaped for myself; they shall recount my praise.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.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.The Hebrew verb behind “give thee thanks” here and “praise” in Leah’s words is יָדָה (yadah, “acknowledge, give thanks or praise”); the name יְהוּדָה (Yehudah, “Judah”) echoes that root. In Genesis, praise is carried in a name; in this psalm, it is told across generations.
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