Eight verses of thanks that never stop being addressed to a person. Almost every line ends in the same suffix, the second person masculine singular: I thank You, I sing to You, Your holy temple, Your name, Your kindness, Your truth, Your word, Your mouth, Your hand, Your right hand, Your hands. Learn that one ending here and you have the backbone of the psalm. It opens the last run of psalms headed with David's name, and its shape is worth watching: it starts alone in front of the temple, widens to every king on earth, and then comes back to a speaker still walking through trouble and asking not to be dropped.
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| AmAm | EmEm | AmDm | EmAm |
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Two verbs, both carrying You as their object, which is the pattern the whole psalm runs on. The thanks is private in the first line and performed in front of an audience in the second.
and I thank Your name for Your kindness and for Your faithfulness,
כִּי
ki
for
הִגְדַּלְתָּ
hig-dal-TA
You have magnified
עַל
al
above
כׇּל
kol
all
שִׁמְךָ
shim-CHA
Your name
אִמְרָתֶךָ
im-ra-te-CHA
Your word
for You have made Your word great beyond all Your name.
The longest verse in the psalm, and it ends on its hardest clause. Kindness and truth are the standard pair; what follows ranks a spoken promise above the name itself, which is a strange thing to say and has never been read one single way.
The same verb as verse 1, now with a plural subject. One man's thanks is projected outward onto every ruler, and the trigger is again something heard rather than something seen.
The kings take over both of the speaker's verbs, thanking in verse 4 and singing here. Their subject is not the glory itself but the ways, which is to say the conduct.
The hinge of the psalm, and it inverts the usual physics. Height brings the low into view and pushes the high away, so distance here is a verdict rather than a measurement.
If I walk in the midst of trouble, You keep me alive;
עַל
al
against
אַף
af
the wrath of
אֹיְבַי
oi-VAI
my enemies
תִּשְׁלַח
tish-LACH
You stretch out
יָדֶךָ
ya-de-CHA
Your hand
against the anger of my enemies You stretch out Your hand,
וְתוֹשִׁיעֵנִי
ve-to-shi-e-NI
and it saves me
יְמִינֶךָ
ye-mi-ne-CHA
Your right hand
and Your right hand saves me.
The trouble is still going on. Three verbs of rescue in the present, all with me attached as a suffix, and none of them removes the situation the speaker is walking through.
A psalm of thanks that ends in a request, and the request is worded as a claim: I am something You made, so finish it. Confidence and anxiety in the same verse, in that order.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Three movements. Verses 1 to 3 are one person thanking, bowing and remembering the day he was answered. Verses 4 to 6 widen to every king on earth and end with a general principle about height and lowness. Verses 7 and 8 come back to the speaker, still in trouble, and turn the thanks into a petition. The psalm is held together by a single ending, the second person masculine suffix, which sits on the verbs in אוֹדְךָ (od-cha, v.1) and אֲזַמְּרֶךָּ (a-zam-re-ka, v.1) and then on noun after noun. Note that the closing verb תֶּרֶף (te-ref, v.8) is a negative command: the confidence of the first line of verse 8 does not stop the speaker asking.
רמז · Remez: allusion
Three cruxes, in order. In אֱלֹהִים (e-lo-him, v.1) the word can mean God, gods, judges or the heavenly court, and translations split: the older JPS gives the mighty, others give gods or angels, and the choice changes whether the singing happens in a throne room or a courtroom. The end of verse 2 is harder still. The word order allows more than one division of the clause, and the reading that You have magnified Your word above all Your name is the plainest but not the only one offered; some readers repunctuate so that the name is not being outranked. The verb תַּרְהִבֵנִי (tar-hi-ve-ni, v.3) is rare, from a root that elsewhere means to storm or be insolent, so being made bold here has an edge of being made brazen. The form יְיֵדָע (ye-ye-da, v.6) is unusual in the Masoretic pointing and is discussed as a variant spelling.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Verse 6 is the verse this psalm is quoted for: high and yet seeing the low, distant from the lofty. It has been read as a rule about who gets attention rather than a statement about altitude, and paired with the closing request, where the speaker's only argument is that he is the work of God's hands. That argument is a common one in the book, and it puts the obligation on the maker rather than on the merit of the made. The kings of verse 4 give the psalm its reach: a private answer to a private call becomes evidence that outsiders hear and act on, which is why what they hear is the words of the mouth and not a report of the rescue.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The mystical reading takes verse 6 as a description of how measure works rather than of preference. What is low can receive, what is inflated is already full and can only be known from a distance, so the same height produces nearness in one direction and remoteness in the other. On that reading the boldness of verse 3 is not courage but capacity, a soul widened enough to hold what came. The two hands of verse 7, the outstretched one and the right one, are read as two modes of the same act, restraint on one side and rescue on the other, and the last verse asks that the work not be abandoned before it is finished, which is the standard shape of a prayer said from inside an unfinished process.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).