ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Psalms 145.3

Book: Psalms · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV
  1. A Psalm of praise; of David. I will extol thee, my God, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever. 2. Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

3. Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.

  1. One generation shall laud thy works to another, And shall declare thy mighty acts. 5. Of the glorious majesty of thine honor, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate. (Psalms 145:1-5, ASV)
WEB
  1. A praise psalm by David. I will exalt you, my God, the King. I will praise your name forever and ever. 2. Every day I will praise you. I will extol your name forever and ever.

3. Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.

  1. One generation will commend your works to another, and will declare your mighty acts. 5. Of the glorious majesty of your honor, of your wondrous works, I will meditate. (Psalms 145:1-5, WEB)
KJV
  1. David's Psalm of praise. I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. 2. Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

3. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. and his: Heb. and of his greatness there is no search

  1. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. 5. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. works: Heb. things, or, words (Psalms 145:1-5, KJV)
YLT
  1. Praise by David. I exalt Thee, my God, O king, And bless Thy name to the age and for ever. 2. Every day do I bless Thee, And praise Thy name to the age and for ever.

3. Great [is] Jehovah, and praised greatly, And of His greatness there is no searching.

  1. Generation to generation praiseth Thy works, And Thy mighty acts they declare. 5. The honour, the glory of Thy majesty, And the matters of Thy wonders I declare. (Psalms 145:1-5, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: the psalmist; the superscription assigns the psalm to David
  • Audience: Israel gathered in worship; the Psalter is the congregation's book
  • Location: the sanctuary and its liturgy, rather than a narrative setting
  • Time period: the monarchy or later; individual psalms are difficult to date and the Psalter was compiled over centuries

Theological reading

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

The psalm is an acrostic of praise, and this verse states the limit inside the praise: the greatness being praised cannot be searched out.

The word rendered unsearchable is used elsewhere of the depths of the sea and of the unfathomable workings of God in Job. So the claim is not that God is unknown but that he is inexhaustible, which is a different assertion and the one the incomprehensibility tradition rests on.

The psalm's structure does the theology. Immediately after saying the greatness cannot be measured, it proceeds to enumerate: one generation shall commend your works to another, they shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, of your abundant goodness. Praise continues in the face of the limit rather than stopping at it, and the psalm's own answer to unsearchability is generational transmission.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

  • TBD
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Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.