What Does Psalm 89:25 Mean?
I will set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.
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
I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.THE KEY
The promise places the hand of rule within both the sea and the rivers, so its reach includes the vast and the constantly moving.
THE MEANING
The verse gives you an image of divine rule as a hand placed in the sea and in the rivers. The waters do not mark the edge of that reach; even what feels vast and difficult to command is pictured within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what feels overwhelming or unfamiliar lies beyond divine reach.
THE ROOT
וְשַׂמְתִּי
ve-samti
GROWS FROM
שׂים
to put, place, or set
The Hebrew verb makes the image concrete: a hand is deliberately placed in the waters. The same root appears in שִׂים לֵב (sim lev, set the heart or attend), linking placement with focused presence; here, the hand is present in both sea and river.
ALSO GROWS
sam: he places or sets
שָׂם
This form carries the same act of placing pictured in the verse, where the hand is set among the waters.
sim lev: set the heart; attend
שִׂים לֵב
This idiom shows the root can describe directed presence, echoing the deliberate placement of the hand across the waters.
THE PATTERN
Divine rule is pictured as a reach that crosses waters and boundaries.
He treads from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the war-bow will be cut off. He will speak wholeness to the nations, and his rule will be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.And the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea hear and respond to him?THE THREAD
He treads from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.This verse repeats the same Hebrew sea and river words, ים (yam, sea) and נהר (nahar, river), and names the reach as dominion. It makes the image of a hand set in the waters legible as authority extending across them.
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