Psalms 65:5 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Psalms 65:5
By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:
to fear · verb, niphal active participle, feminine plural absolute
righteousness
בְּצֶ֣דֶקbe.Tze.dek
H6664
the right (natural · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
answer
תַּ֭עֲנֵנוּTa.'a.ne.nu
H6030
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
God
אֱלֹהֵ֣י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
salvation
יִשְׁעֵ֑נוּyish.'E.nu
H3468
liberty · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
confidence
מִבְטָ֥חmiv.Tach
H4009
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
ends
קַצְוֵיkatz.vei-
H7099
a limit · noun, common masculine plural construct
earth
אֶ֝֗רֶץ'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute
off
רְחֹקִֽיםre.cho.Kim
H7350
remote · adjective, masculine plural absolute
sea
וְיָ֣םve.Yam
H3220
a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 10:21 He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
Isaiah 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
Psalms 66:3 Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.
Revelation 15:3-4 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty;…
Psalms 45:4 And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.
Psalms 22:27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
Psalms 68:19-20 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
Isaiah 51:5 My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm sh…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 65:1-5
The psalmist here has no particular concern of his own at the throne of grace, but begins with an address to God, as the master of an assembly and the mouth of a congregation; and observe,
I. How he gives glory to God, Psa 65:1. 1. By humble thankfulness: Praise waiteth for thee, O God! in Zion, waits till it arrives, that it may be received with thankfulness at its first approach. When God is coming towards us with his favours we must go forth to meet him with our praises, and wait till the day dawn. "Praise waits, with an entire satisfaction in thy holy will and dependence on thy mercy." When we stand ready in every thing to give thanks, then praise waits for God. "Praise waits thy accepta…
terrible things--that is, by the manifestation of justice and wrath to enemies, accompanying that of mercy to His people (Psa 63:9-11; Psa 64:7-9).
the confidence--object of it.
of all . . . earth--the whole world; that is, deservedly such, whether men think so or not.
John Gill on Psalms 65:5
By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us,.... Not by afflictive dispensations of Providence, which, though disagreeable to flesh and blood, and are sometimes terrible to good men, when they apprehend the wrath of God in them, and look upon them as punishments for sin; yet these are consistent with the love of God to them, are for their spiritual good, and, when viewed in this light, they rejoice and glory in them; but as afflictions are not prayed for, nor to be prayed for, there being no direction for it, nor example of it, they cannot be considered as answers of prayer; but the Lord answers his people in this way, by inflicting judgments on their enemies: by such terrible th…
Psalm 65:4-8
4. Blessed is the man whom thou hast chosen, and hast brought near thee; we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of the sanctuary of thy palace. 5. Terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer to us, O God of our salvation! the hope of all the ends of the earth, and the far of places of the sea. [448] 6. By his strength setting fast the mountains, being girded with power. [449] 7. Stilling the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the nations. 8. They also that dwell in the ends of the earth shall fear at thy signs; thou shalt make the outgoings of the evening and morning to rejoice.
4. Blessed is the man whom thou hast chosen H…
The Church Fathers
"Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour" [Psalm 65:5]. He has disclosed now Whom he names as God. The "Saviour" specially is the Lord Jesus Christ. It has appeared now more openly of Whom he had said, "Unto You every flesh shall come." That One Man that is taken unto Him into the Temple of God, is both many and is One. In the person of One he has said, "Hearken, O God, i.e., to my hunger:" and because the same One of many is composed, now he says, "Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour." Hear Him now more openly preached: "Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour, the Hope of all the ends of the earth and in the sea afar." Behold wherefore has been said "Unto You every flesh shall come." From every quarter they come. "Hope of all the ends of the earth," not hope of one corner, not hope of Judæa alone, not hope of Africa alone, not hope of Pannonia, not hope of East or of West: but "Hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar:" of the very ends of the earth. "And in the sea afar:" and because in the sea, therefore afar. For the sea by a figure is spoken of this world, with saltness bitter, with storms troubled; where men of perverse and depraved appetites have become like fishes devouring one another. Observe the evil sea, bitter sea, with waves violent, observe with what sort of men it is filled. Who desires an inheritance except through the death of another? Who desires gain except by the loss of another? By the fall of others how many men wish to be exalted? How many, in order that they may buy, desire for other men to sell their goods? How they mutually oppress, and how they that are able do devour! And when one fish has devoured, the greater the less, itself also is devoured by some greater....Because evil fishes that were taken within the nets they said they would not endure; they themselves have become more evil than they whom they said they could not endure. For those nets did take fishes both good and evil. The Lord says, "The kingdom of Heaven is like to a sein cast into the sea, which gathers of every kind, which, when it had been filled, drawing out, and sitting on the shore, they gathered the good into vessels, but the evil they cast out: so it shall be," He says, "in the consummation of the world." [Matthew 13:47-49] He shows what is the shore, He shows what is the end of the sea. "The angels shall go forth, and shall sever the evil from the midst…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The praise of God on account of the lovingkindness which Israel as a people among the peoples has experienced. The future תּעננוּ confesses, as a present, a fact of experience that still holds good in all times to come. נוראות might, according to Psa 20:7, as in Psa 139:14, be an accusative of the more exact definition; but why not, according to Sa1 20:10; Job 9:3, a second accusative under the government of the verb? God answers the prayer of His people superabundantly. He replies to it גוראות, terrible deeds, viz., בּצדק, by a rule which stringently executes the will of His righteousness (vid., on Jer 42:6); in this instance against the oppressors of His people, so that henceforth everywhe…
those you choose to bring near: This includes people from Israel and from other nations. • Only those whom God sees as blameless live in his holy courts (Pss 15 and 24). • At the Temple, God’s earthly palace, all nations can gather to experience God’s holy presence. No structure can separate humans from God (see Rev 21:22).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 65:5
By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:
By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation. God's memorial is that he hears prayer, and his glory is that he answers it in a manner fitted to inspire awe in the hearts of his people. The saints, in the commencement of the Psalm, offered praise in reverential silence; and now, in the like awe stricken spirit, they receive answers to their prayers. The direct allusion here is, no doubt, to the Lord's overthrow of the enemies of his people in ways calculated to strike terror into al…
