What Does Psalm 86:5 Mean?
For you, Lord, are good, and ready to release, and abounding in faithful love to all who call out to you.
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, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.THE KEY
God is not persuaded into forgiveness here: pardon is ready, and faithful love is abundant for everyone who calls.
THE MEANING
God’s goodness meets you now as ready forgiveness and abundant faithful love. The verse gives this welcome to all who call upon God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that you must first become worthy before God is willing to forgive you: the verse says forgiveness is ready for everyone who calls.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful, steadfast love.
“abounding in faithful love” in this verse is chesed. The Hebrew says God is abundant in chesed: faithful love is not a passing kindness but the character meeting the caller. The same root also describes a person marked by that faithfulness.
ALSO GROWS
chasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
The branch shows faithful love as something that can mark a person, not only describe a feeling.
chasidut: Faithfulness or devotion.
חֲסִידוּת
This related form makes the root’s connection between steadfast love and lived devotion visible.
סֹלֵחַ
soleaḥ
GROWS FROM
סלח
To forgive or pardon; here, forgiveness is release.
“ready to release” in this verse is soleaḥ. The verse calls God “ready to forgive,” making pardon an open posture rather than something the caller must pry loose. Forgiveness is release: the accusation is let go, while faithful love remains.
ALSO GROWS
salaḥ: To forgive or pardon.
סָלַח
This is the verb behind “ready to forgive,” naming pardon as what God is prepared to extend.
seliḥah: Forgiveness or pardon.
סְלִיחָה
The noun form carries the same root from the act of forgiving into forgiveness itself.
קֹרְאֶיךָ
qore’ekha
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call out, proclaim, or summon; the root also carries the sense of reading aloud.
“call out to” in this verse is qore’ekha. The verse’s “all who call upon thee” uses language of calling out: the welcome reaches anyone who makes an appeal. The root’s other branches connect calling with words spoken into the open.
ALSO GROWS
qara: To call, proclaim, or read aloud.
קָרָא
Its range joins an appeal to God with a voice that speaks or calls openly.
miqra: A reading or an assembly called together.
מִקְרָא
This related form shows the root extending from calling out to a gathering formed by that call.
THE PATTERN
God’s abundant character meets everyone who calls upon him.
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will slip free, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors whom the LORD calls.For there is no drawing apart between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich toward all who call upon him.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,“Plenteous in mercy” in Psalm 86:5 is the same Hebrew pairing rav chesed, abundant faithful love, found in Exodus 34:6. That shared root shows the welcome to everyone who calls resting in the LORD’s abundant character.
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