What Does Psalm 95:2 Mean?
Let us come before his face with extended hands, and shout to him with songs of plucked strings.
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 us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.THE KEY
Here, God’s “presence” is his face, and approaching it takes the audible form of gratitude and song.
THE MEANING
You come before God’s face with gratitude; your joy rises as a shout and a song. Thanksgiving here is audible acknowledgment, carried by voice and music.
THE ROOT
תּוֹדָה
todah
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
Give thanks, praise, acknowledge, or confess.
“extended hands” in this verse is todah. Todah belongs to the yadah family, whose verb carries the sense of giving thanks, praising, and acknowledging. Gratitude here is voiced recognition, paired with a shout and musical praise rather than kept as a private feeling alone.
ALSO GROWS
yādâ: Give thanks, praise, acknowledge, or confess.
יָדָה
The verb names the act inside todah: thanksgiving is acknowledgment expressed aloud.
hōdû: Give thanks; praise.
הוֹדוּ
This form appears beside todah in Psalm 100:4, linking thanksgiving and praise through the same root.
נָרִיעַ
nārîaʿ
GROWS FROM
רוע
r-w-ʿ
Raise a shout or cry aloud.
The Hebrew verb is a shout, a sound with force and volume; “joyful” describes its character here, while the root also appears in cries of alarm. The verse’s praise is not merely quiet sentiment: it rises into the voice.
ALSO GROWS
teruʿāh: A shout, alarm, or trumpet blast.
תְּרוּעָה
This noun comes from the same root and shows how a raised cry can carry different force depending on its setting.
hārîʿû: Shout aloud; make a joyful shout.
הָרִיעוּ
This form opens Psalm 100:1, where the same root makes praise a sound offered publicly.
זְמִרוֹת
zimrōt
GROWS FROM
זמר
z-m-r
Make music, sing, or play.
“songs of plucked strings” in this verse is zimrōt. The word translated “psalms” belongs to a musical root: the approach to God includes song made with voice or instrument. The verse gathers thanksgiving, a shout, and music into one act of praise.
ALSO GROWS
mizmor: A psalm or song for musical praise.
מִזְמוֹר
This familiar word for a psalm grows from the same musical root as zimrōt.
zimrāh: Song, music, or praise.
זִמְרָה
This form keeps the musical sense explicit, showing that the verse’s psalms are praise made into song.
THE PATTERN
Approach to God is voiced as gratitude, with song giving that gratitude a shared sound.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with a clamor of praise; lift your hands to him, and bless his nature.Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and songs of breath, singing and plucking the strings in your heart to the Lord.Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
Let me praise the name of God in song, and let me grow him great with thanksgiving.The word “thanksgiving” here is todah, from the same Hebrew root family as in Psalm 95:2. The two verses bring song and thanksgiving together, revealing them as joined expressions of praise.
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