What Does Psalm 86:9 Mean?
All the nations you made come and bow down before your face, O Lord, and give weight to your name.
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
All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.THE KEY
The nations’ worship is more than a spoken tribute: their bowing gives weight to the nature carried in the LORD’s name.
THE MEANING
Every people God makes stands within the reach of this gathering before the LORD. Their coming takes the shape of a bow, and their glorifying recognizes the weight of the LORD’s name, God’s nature made known.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the LORD belongs to one people alone gives way here: every nation God made comes before him.
THE ROOT
כָּבֵד
kabad
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
Be heavy or weighty; by extension, honor.
“give weight to” in this verse is kabad. The verb rendered “glorify” carries the sense of weight into the language of honor. With the LORD’s name as God’s nature, the nations recognize what God is as weighty.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
This physical sense shows the concrete image beneath the honor given to the LORD.
kavod: Weight, honor, glory
כָּבוֹד
This branch brings the root’s weight directly into the verse’s act of glorifying the LORD’s name.
שָׁחָה
shachah
GROWS FROM
שחה
sh-ḥ-h
Bow down or prostrate oneself.
“bow down” in this verse is shachah. The word rendered “worship” names a bowing posture. The verse pictures the nations’ recognition as something visible: they come before the LORD and bow.
ALSO GROWS
hishtachavah: Bow down, prostrate oneself
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה
This related form makes the bodily posture explicit, as in the nations bowing before the LORD.
mishtachaveh: One who bows down
מִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
This form describes the one taking the posture the verse gives to every nation.
עָשָׂה
asah
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-ś-h
Make or do.
The verse calls every nation something the LORD has made; the root also carries the sense of doing and working. Their coming before the maker is framed by the relation between what is made and the one who makes it.
ALSO GROWS
ma’aseh: Work, deed
מַעֲשֶׂה
This branch keeps making connected to what is done, giving the verse’s created peoples an active place in the scene.
oseh: One who makes or does
עֹשֶׂה
This form names the maker whom the nations come before.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s reach gathers every people into bowing recognition.
All the ends of the earth remember and turn back to the LORD; all the families of the nations bow down before you.And it shall be, that from one new moon to the next, and from one sabbath to the next, all flesh will come to bow down before me, says the LORD.Who will not stand in awe of you, Lord, and give weight to your name? For you alone are set apart, and all the nations come and bow down before your face, for your judgments are made visible.THE THREAD
Who will not stand in awe of you, Lord, and give weight to your name? For you alone are set apart, and all the nations come and bow down before your face, for your judgments are made visible.This verse holds the same paired movement: all nations bow before the LORD, and his name receives glory. It connects that recognition to God’s judgments made manifest, showing the LORD’s nature through what is done.
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