What Does Psalm 85:2 Mean?
You release the crookedness of your people; you cover all their falling short. Selah.
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
Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.THE KEY
Forgiveness is pictured as a burden lifted and a wrong covered: the thing is named, then no longer left exposed.
THE MEANING
Your crookedness is lifted from you, and your missing is covered. The verse holds removal and covering together: what weighs on you is carried away, and what could expose you is no longer left bare.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a named wrong must remain your defining condition is undone: the verse names the crookedness and missing, then shows them lifted and covered.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂאתָ
nāśāʾtā
GROWS FROM
נשא
נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ): lift, carry, bear.
“release” in this verse is nāśāʾtā. The verb נָשָׂאתָ (nāśāʾtā, you have lifted or carried) gives “forgiven” the image of a burden taken up. Forgiveness here changes what the people carry; it does not pretend the wrong was never there.
ALSO GROWS
nāśûʾ: lifted, carried, borne
נָשׂוּא
This form retains the root’s consonants and names what is borne; it makes the verse’s forgiveness sound like a burden lifted.
nāśîʾ: leader, prince; one raised up
נָשִׂיא
This word belongs to the same root family and extends the sense of lifting from carrying a burden to being raised up.
כִּסִּיתָ
kissîtā
GROWS FROM
כסה
כָּסָה (kāsāh): cover, conceal.
“cover” in this verse is kissîtā. כִּסִּיתָ (kissîtā, you covered) keeps the concrete image of placing a covering over what remains there. Beside the lifted burden, the verse shows the wrong no longer left bare or exposed.
ALSO GROWS
kāsāh: to cover, conceal
כָּסָה
This is the verb’s root form; its direct sense of covering remains present in the verse’s image.
mikhseh: covering
מִכְסֶה
This noun uses the same root consonants for a covering, making visible the thing implied by the act of covering.
חַטָּאתָם
ḥaṭṭāʾtām
GROWS FROM
חטא
חָטָא (ḥāṭāʾ): miss, err, go wrong.
“falling short” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾtām. חַטָּאתָם (ḥaṭṭāʾtām, their sin) carries the root sense of missing or going wrong. The verse names what went wrong, then says it is covered.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: to miss, err, commit a wrong
חָטָא
The verb makes the root’s sense of missing visible inside the English word “sin.”
ḥaṭṭāʾt: sin, missing; in some contexts, a sin offering
חַטָּאת
This noun carries the same root consonants, keeping the sense of missing within the verse’s phrase “all their sin.”
THE PATTERN
Restoration is pictured as wrongdoing lifted away, cast beyond reach, or covered so it no longer remains exposed.
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Flourishing is the one whose rebellion is released, whose shortcomings are covered.He will turn back to us, and have compassion on us; he will tread down our crookedness, and you will throw all their shortcomings into the depths of the sea.And above all, hold love stretched out among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of missed marks.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Flourishing is the one whose rebellion is released, whose shortcomings are covered.Psalm 32:1 repeats the same Hebrew roots: נשא (nāśāʾ, lift or carry) under “forgiven,” and כסה (kāsāh, cover) under “covered.” The parallel makes the paired image in Psalm 85:2 visible: the burden is lifted and its exposure is covered.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us