What Does Psalm 91:16 Mean?
With the length of days I fill him, and I let him see my deliverance.
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
With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.THE KEY
The promise joins a life filled with days to deliverance made visible.
THE MEANING
The speaker promises to fill your days to satisfaction and let you see deliverance. The verse holds fullness and rescue together within the life you are living now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that deliverance only means being taken out of life: here, deliverance is shown alongside a life filled with days.
THE ROOT
אַשְׂבִּיעֵהוּ
ʾaśbîʿēhû
GROWS FROM
שבע
Be sated, be filled.
“fill” in this verse is ʾaśbîʿēhû. The word rendered satisfy belongs to the Hebrew family of fullness and satiety. The promise is more than having enough to continue: it carries the sense of being filled to satisfaction.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Sated, full.
שָׂבֵעַ
This describes the state named by the promise: a person filled, not merely supplied.
śōvaʿ: Fullness, satiety.
שֹׂבַע
This noun shows that the verb satisfy belongs to a wider word-family of fullness.
בִּישׁוּעָתִי
bi-yeshuʿātî
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver, bring to safety.
The word rendered salvation is yeshuah, deliverance. Here the speaker promises to show it, placing deliverance alongside the fullness of a life lived through many days.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuʿāh: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This is the noun form behind the verse’s promise of the speaker’s deliverance.
môshîaʿ: Deliverer, rescuer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form names the one who brings deliverance, connecting the promise to the speaker’s action.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s care is pictured as fullness that reaches into the life being lived.
Who fills your mouth with goodness, and your youth is made new like the eagle's.And the LORD shall lead you continually, and fill your living soul in the parched places, and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a drenched garden, and like a spring of water whose waters never fail.The thief comes only to steal, and to slaughter, and to make perish. I came that they might have life, and have it overflowing.THE THREAD
Who fills your mouth with goodness, and your youth is made new like the eagle's.Psalm 103:5 uses the same שבע (ś-b-ʿ) word-family: the LORD satisfies the person with good things. The shared root makes satisfaction concrete here as fullness that reaches the living person.
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