What Does Psalm 95:4 Mean?
In his hand are the searched-out depths of the earth, and the soaring heights of the mountains are his also.
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
In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.THE KEY
Earth’s deepest recesses and its highest peaks are already within the same hand.
THE MEANING
What feels buried beyond your reach is held, and what rises beyond your scale is held too. The verse gathers hidden depth and visible height into God’s hand, leaving no place outside his keeping.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what lies beyond human reach has fallen outside God’s keeping dissolves here: earth’s recesses and mountain heights are both in his hand.
THE ROOT
מֶחְקְרֵי
meḥqĕrê
GROWS FROM
חקר
to search out, investigate, or probe
“searched-out depths” in this verse is meḥqĕrê. The Hebrew word translated “deep places” comes from חקר (ḥāqar, “to search out or probe”), carrying the sense of earth’s hidden recesses. The verse places even these far-reaching depths within God’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāqar: to search, investigate, or probe
חָקַר
This verb reveals the searching image carried by the word for earth’s depths.
ḥēqer: searching, investigation; a depth or recess
חֵקֶר
This related noun links probing into what is hidden with the deep recesses named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
No height or depth lies beyond God’s reach.
Have you entered the springs of the sea, or walked in the digging of the deep?Who measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, marks out heaven with a hand's span, holds the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, weighs the mountains in the scales, and the hills in the balance?Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, you probe me, and you perceive me.Psalm 95 uses a form of חקר (ḥāqar, “to search out or probe”) for earth’s hidden depths; here the same root describes God searching the reader. The word that reaches into the earth’s recesses also speaks of being fully known.
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