What Does Psalm 85:5 Mean?
Will you be angry with us for all the ages? Will you draw out your anger from generation to generation?
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
Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?THE KEY
Anger appears as burning heat pulled forward through time, making the question whether present pain is being stretched into an age and passed across generations.
THE MEANING
You stand inside the “us” asking whether this heat will continue without end and reach generations after you. The question names that fear without making its permanence a fact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that because anger is here now, its continuation is inevitable or permanent.
THE ROOT
תִּמְשֹׁךְ
timshokh
GROWS FROM
משך
m-sh-kh
to draw, pull, or prolong
“draw out” in this verse is timshokh. The word pictures anger being pulled onward, giving the verse’s fear a physical shape: heat extended through time. The same root can describe drawing something out or drawing someone toward you.
ALSO GROWS
mishkhu: draw out; pull
מִשְׁכוּ
In Exodus 12:21, this root describes drawing out an animal from the flock; here, the thing feared to be drawn onward is anger.
meshakhtikh: I have drawn you
מְשַׁכְתִּיךְ
In Jeremiah 31:3, the same root describes being drawn by faithful love, showing that its pull can carry someone toward connection as well as prolong what hurts.
תֶּאֱנַף
te'enaf appékha
GROWS FROM
אנף
ʾ-n-p
to be angry, with the linked image of the nose or nostrils; anger as heat at the nostrils
“be angry” in this verse is te'enaf appékha. The verse first asks whether this heat remains, then names that same heat as what might be drawn out. Anger is not only an abstract state here; its Hebrew wording carries the bodily image of burning nostrils.
ALSO GROWS
af: nose, nostril; anger
אַף
This noun appears again in “thine anger,” linking the burning image directly to what the verse fears will continue.
appayim: nostrils; anger in the phrase “slow to anger”
אַפַּיִם
The phrase erekh appayim carries the image of being slow to flare, keeping the verse’s anger rooted in heat rather than an abstract label.
לְעוֹלָם
le'olam
GROWS FROM
עלם
ʿ-l-m
to hide or be out of sight; עוֹלָם names a remote age or long duration
“for all the ages” in this verse is le'olam. The KJV’s “for ever” carries the fear out to an unseen horizon. The Hebrew word also holds the sense of an age, aligning with the verse’s next phrase about generation after generation.
ALSO GROWS
olam: age; long duration
עוֹלָם
This is the word in the verse translated “for ever”; it places the feared anger across an age.
ne'elam: hidden; concealed
נֶעְלָם
This related form brings out the hidden-horizon sense: the far edge of an age is beyond sight, which helps explain why its duration becomes a question.
THE PATTERN
Anger is not treated as naturally endless: scripture names its horizon, limits its duration, or questions whether it will continue.
He does not contend forever, nor hold his anger for the ages.For I will not contend without end, nor will I be angry for the ages, for the breath would grow faint before me, and the living souls which I have made.Be angry, and do not miss the mark; let not the sun set upon your provocation.THE THREAD
He does not contend forever, nor hold his anger for the ages.Psalm 85 asks whether the heat of af will be carried through every generation; Psalm 103 uses that same word for anger and says it is not kept forever. Together, they leave room for the question without making the present heat the final horizon.
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