What Does Psalm 81:2 Mean?
Lift up the song, and set here the timbrel, the sweet lyre with the harp.
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
Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.THE KEY
The song is not just named; it is lifted, given a beat, and joined by strings, praise arrives as shared sound.
THE MEANING
Here praise takes shape through several kinds of sound: the song is lifted, the drum is given into the gathering, and strings make the music pleasant. The reader meets praise as something shared and audible, carried by voice and instruments now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Praise is not limited to silent inward feeling or words; this verse gives rhythm and instrumental sound a place in it.
THE ROOT
זִמְרָה
zimrah
GROWS FROM
זמר
zamar
Make music; sing praise.
“psalm/song” in this verse is zimrah. The Hebrew word carries music as an action, not merely a named kind of text. The verse’s song is lifted into sound, then joined by percussion and strings.
ALSO GROWS
zamar: Make music; sing praise.
זָמַר
This verb names the musical action contained in the verse’s song.
mizmor: A psalm or song of praise.
מִזְמוֹר
This related word links the verse’s invitation to the wider language of sung psalms.
שְׂאוּ
se’u
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
Lift, carry, bear.
“lift up” in this verse is se’u. The opening verb can mean lifting or bearing, so the song appears as something raised into shared hearing. The verse begins by carrying sound before the drum and strings enter.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the verb behind “Take,” showing the song being raised into sound.
massa: A burden, something carried.
מַשָּׂא
The related noun keeps the sense of bearing: what is lifted can also be carried.
תְּנוּ
tenu
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
Give, set, place.
“set here” in this verse is tenu. The drum enters through a verb of giving: it is placed into the shared music. The verse presents rhythm as part of the gathering’s sound.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
The verse’s command carries this root’s sense of placing the drum among the music.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
The related noun gives the act of giving a concrete form, as something offered into the shared sound.
THE PATTERN
Praise becomes shared sound when voices and instruments sound together.
Praise him with the thrust of the ram's horn; praise him with the harp and the lyre.And David spoke to the heads of the Levites to appoint their brothers to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.Let the word of the Anointed One settle in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in plucked songs, in hymns, and in songs of breath, singing with favor in your hearts to God.THE THREAD
Make music to the LORD with the lyre; with the lyre, and the voice of song.The Hebrew זַמְּרוּ (zammeru, “sing or make music”) here comes from זמר (zamar, “make music, sing praise”), the same root carried by זִמְרָה (zimrah, “song or music”) in Psalm 81:2. Psalm 98:5 lets that shared root sound beside the harp: song and instrument join in one act.
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