What Does Psalm 92:5 Mean?
How they grow, your works, O LORD! And your plans run very deep.
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
O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.THE KEY
The visible works rise from thoughts whose depth the eye cannot measure.
THE MEANING
You encounter works too great to take in, while the thoughts behind them reach beyond what you can measure from the surface. What is visible opens onto a depth of design that remains unseen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you can see is all there is: the works are visible, but the thoughts behind them reach further than sight.
THE ROOT
עָמְקוּ
ʿāməqū
GROWS FROM
עמק
ʿ-m-q
To be deep or become deep.
“run very deep” in this verse is ʿāməqū. This root gives depth a spatial sense, not only the sense of difficulty. Its related word for a valley names a place that sinks below the surrounding ground, so the verse pictures thoughts that extend beneath the visible works.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmōq: Deep.
עָמֹק
This related form makes explicit the depth expressed by the verse’s verb.
ʿēmeq: Valley or lowland.
עֵמֶק
The shared root connects depth with a landform below its surroundings, giving “very deep” a concrete spatial image.
מַחְשְׁבֹתֶיךָ
maḥšəḇōṯeḵā
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-š-b
To think, plan, devise, or reckon.
This root reaches beyond passing thoughts to plans and reckonings. The verse describes the thoughts behind the works as designs with a depth the works alone cannot reveal.
ALSO GROWS
maḥăšāḇāh: Thought, plan, or design.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This singular form shows that the word translated “thoughts” can also carry the sense of a plan or design.
ḥešbôn: Account or reckoning.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch shows the root’s connection to weighing and reckoning, adding considered thought to the verse’s image of depth.
THE PATTERN
Visible works disclose wisdom whose depth exceeds human reach.
How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you make them all; the earth is full of your possessions.The heights of the heavens; what can you do? The depths of the grave; what can you know?O the depth of the riches of both wisdom and knowledge of God! How beyond searching out are his judgments, and how beyond tracking are his ways!THE THREAD
Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep waters, but a man of understanding draws it up.Proverbs uses עֲמֻקִּים (ʿămūqîm, “deep”) for the water-like depth of counsel, from the same root עמק (ʿ-m-q, “to be deep”) as “very deep” here. Its image of counsel that can be drawn out opens the verse further: depth can hold what is present beneath the surface.
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