What Does Psalm 86:10 Mean?
For you are great and do wonders; you alone are God.
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
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.THE KEY
The wonders beyond the ordinary disclose the one source from which they come.
THE MEANING
The God addressed here exceeds every frame the mind can make, and what this presence does reaches beyond the familiar. Wonder gathers around one source: this is God alone, not one power among peers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that extraordinary power is divided among competing sources: the verse names one God as the one who does wondrous things.
THE ROOT
נִפְלָאוֹת
nifla'ot
GROWS FROM
פלא
p-l-ʾ
Be extraordinary or wondrous; surpass the ordinary.
“wonders” in this verse is nifla'ot. “Wondrous things” carries the sense of acts that exceed the ordinary and resist being contained by the familiar. The verse places that surpassing action beside the claim that God is alone, so wonder discloses a singular source.
ALSO GROWS
pele: A wonder, marvel, or extraordinary deed.
פֶּלֶא
This noun shares the same root, linking the deeds in the verse with what lies beyond the ordinary.
nifla: Wonderful or extraordinary.
נִפְלָא
This related form describes what surpasses the usual, carrying the root’s sense into the quality of the wondrous.
גָּדוֹל
gādōl
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
Grow, become large, or increase.
The word for “great” carries more than superiority: its root suggests growing in size and scale. Beside wonders that exceed the ordinary, greatness names a reality whose magnitude outgrows what the mind can contain.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow or become great.
גָּדַל
The verb shows the root’s sense of increasing in stature behind the description “great.”
migdal: A tower.
מִגְדָּל
A tower rises in height and scale, echoing the root’s sense of growing large.
THE PATTERN
Wonders reveal the singular source whose action exceeds ordinary bounds.
Who is like you among the mighty ones, O LORD? Who is like you, majestic in being set apart, awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders?You are the God who makes wonders; you make known your strength among the peoples.Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man shown forth by God among you through works of strength and wonders and signs, which God did through him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know.THE THREAD
Let the LORD God be blessed, the God of Israel, who alone does wonders.This verse uses the same Hebrew root for “wondrous things” and says God “only” does them. That echo makes Psalm 86:10’s final “alone” feel like the completion of its wonder claim: the extraordinary points to one source.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us