What Does Psalm 90:16 Mean?
Let your work appear to your servants, and your splendor upon their children.
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
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.THE KEY
God’s work is asked to come into view now, while his splendor rests on the generation that follows.
THE MEANING
God’s work becomes visible to those who serve, and his splendor rests on their children. What is seen in one generation can become an inheritance of beauty and honor in the next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that God’s work ends with the generation that first sees it gives way to the hope that his splendor reaches their children.
THE ROOT
וַהֲדָרְךָ
va-hadarekha
GROWS FROM
הדר
hadar
To adorn or honor; splendor, majesty, beauty
The word translated “glory” is hadar, a word for splendor and majesty whose root also means to honor. The line holds together God’s visible beauty and the honor that rests on the children.
ALSO GROWS
hadar: Splendor, majesty, beauty
הָדָר
This is the noun used for God’s glory in the verse, giving that glory the sense of visible splendor.
wehadarta: You shall honor
וְהָדַרְתָּ
In Leviticus 19:32 this same root describes honoring an elder, linking hadar’s splendor with the honor named in its root family.
יֵרָאֶה
yera'eh
GROWS FROM
ראה
ra'ah
To see, look; in this form, to be seen or appear
The form yera’eh comes from ra’ah, “to see,” and can mean “be seen” or “appear.” The verse asks for God’s work to come into view, so its presence is bound up with the seeing of those who serve.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ah: To see, look
רָאָה
The same verb beneath “appear” names the act of seeing, tying the work’s revelation to the servants who behold it.
mar'eh: Appearance, vision
מַרְאֶה
This related form names what is seen, echoing the verse’s movement from God’s work to its appearance.
פָעֳלֶךָ
po'alecha
GROWS FROM
פעל
pa'al
To do, act, work
Po’alecha, “your work,” grows from pa’al, “to do” or “act.” The root foregrounds God’s doing itself: the verse asks for that action to become visible.
ALSO GROWS
po'al: Work, deed
פֹּעַל
This noun from the same root names an accomplished act, keeping the verse’s focus on what God does.
pe'ullah: Work, action, deed
פְּעֻלָּה
This related noun carries the root’s sense of active doing into another form, reinforcing that the verse concerns God’s action made visible.
THE PATTERN
God’s work becomes visible to one generation and is carried forward as testimony to the next.
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.Let your light shine like this before people, that they may perceive your good works and give weight to your Father in the heavens.THE THREAD
And you make him a little short of God, and you crown him with weight and splendor.The Hebrew word rendered “honour” here is hadar, the same word rendered “glory” in Psalm 90:16. In both verses, hadar describes splendor resting upon a life.
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