What Does Psalm 80:18 Mean?
And we will not go back from you; bring us to life, and we will call upon your nature.
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 will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.THE KEY
The verse puts renewed life before renewed speech: the call rises from being made alive, rather than earning life.
THE MEANING
You ask God to make you live, and from that renewed life comes the voice that calls on God’s nature. The verse places that calling after the quickening, as the answer to retreat.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling is the price of being made alive; here, God’s quickening comes first, and the call follows.
THE ROOT
תְּחַיֵּנוּ
techayyenu
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah
To live; in this form, to make alive or revive.
“bring us to life” in this verse is techayyenu. The word translated “quicken” is a causative form of חיה (chayah), “to live”: it asks God to “make us live.” The same root holds both being made alive and living, so the call that follows grows from renewed life.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living; alive
חַי
This adjective shares the root of “quicken,” keeping the request tied to living itself.
chayyim: Life
חַיִּים
The noun carries the same root into the life the verse asks to be restored.
נִקְרָא
niqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call out, proclaim, or read aloud.
“call upon” in this verse is niqra. The verb קרא (qara), “call out, proclaim, read,” can hold both personal calling and public voicing. Joined to שֵׁם (shem), “name as nature,” the call is an address to God’s expressed nature, not merely a spoken label.
ALSO GROWS
qara: Call out; proclaim; read aloud
קָרָא
The range of this root binds calling to voiced recognition.
miqra: Convocation; public reading
מִקְרָא
This related word connects calling with an audible gathering around what is proclaimed.
THE PATTERN
Renewed life comes from God and reopens the voice that calls on God’s nature.
Turn us again, O God, and cause your face to shine, and we will be delivered.After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before his face.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before his face.The Hebrew verb translated “revive” here and “quicken” in Psalm 80:18 comes from חיה (chayah), “to live, make alive.” Both verses ask for life to be restored, and Psalm 80 shows the call following that renewal.
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