Psalms 135:20

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

House of Levi, praise Yahweh! You who fear Yahweh, praise Yahweh!

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

יִֽרְאֵ֥י

yârêʼ

H3373

“fearing of”

Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Construct

Appears 54× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 22:12

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H3372

TWOT: 907a

fearing, reverent, afraid

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

10: words
6: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יִֽרְאֵ֥י fearing H3373 occurs in 54 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
1 adjective
2 particles

Verb forms

בָּרֲכ֣וּ Piel · Imperative
בָּרֲכ֥וּ Piel · Imperative

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

יְהוָ֑ה LORD H3068 ×3
בָּרֲכ֣וּ to bless H1288 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 10 Hebrew tokens and 12 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

You’re reading Greek Psalm 134 (Hebrew Psalm 135). The Septuagint counts the superscription, so verse numbers can differ from the Hebrew — chapter-level alignment, not verse-by-verse. Numbering follows Rahlfs.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Psalms 135:20 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

בֵּ֣ית הַ֭לֵּוִי בָּרֲכ֣וּ אֶת יְהוָ֑ה יִֽרְאֵ֥י יְ֝הוָ֗ה בָּרֲכ֥וּ אֶת יְהוָֽה

House of Levi, praise Yahweh! You who fear Yahweh, praise Yahweh!

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Greek Psalm 134:20 Septuagint · lemma form

οἶκος λευί εὐλογέω ὁ κύριος ὁ φοβέω ὁ κύριος εὐλογέω ὁ κύριος

O house of Levi, bless you⌃ the Lord: you⌃ that fear the Lord, bless the Lord.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Psalms 135:20 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Psa 135:20 Bless the LORD, O house of Levi: ye that fear the LORD, bless the LORD.

Ver. 20. Ye that fear the Lord] Ye devout Proselytes.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. A. Alexander on Psalms

Joseph Addison Alexander

20. (Psa 135:20) O house of Levi, bless Jehovah! Fearers of Jehovah, bless Jehovah! The Levites are not particularly mentioned in the parallel passages.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Blessed be the Lord out of Zion,.... This, according to Aben Ezra, was the formula of blessing to be used by the houses of Israel, Aaron, and Levi, and all that feared God; or a direction to them in what manner they should bless him; and may both point out the persons that were to bless, and the place where; those that were inhabitants of Zion, where praise waited for the Lord, and was his due; and the blessings and benefits he was to be praised for, such as came out of Zion, strength from the Lord there, the rod of his strength, the word of the Gospel, and the Saviour himself;

which dwelleth at Jerusalem; in the temple there; and which distinguishes him from the idols of the Heathens before mentioned; and who dwells in the heavenly Jerusalem, in Gospel churches; and will dwell in the New Jerusalem, where his tabernacle will be with men, Rev 21:3;

praise ye the Lord; or "hallelujah"; and so the psalm ends as it begun, being from first to last an exhortation to praise.

Next: Psalms Chapter 136

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Treasury of David

Charles H. Spurgeon

Ver. 20. Bless the LORD, O house of Levi. These helped the priests in other things, let them aid them in this also. The house of Israel comprehends all the chosen seed; then we come down to the smaller but more central ring of the house of Aaron, and now we widen out to the whole tribe of Levi. Let reverence and adoration spread from man to man until the whole lump of humanity shall be leavened. The house of Levi had choice reasons for blessing God: read the Levite story and see. Remember that the whole of the Levites were set apart for holy service, and supported by tim tribes allotted to them; therefore they were in honour bound above all others to worship Jehovah with cheerfulness.

Ver. 20. Bless the LORD, O house Of Levi. In Ps 115:1-18 the exhortation given is to trust or hope in the Lord; here, to bless him. The Levites are mentioned in addition to the house of Aaron, there being two orders of priesthood. Everything else in the two Psalms is the same, except that, in the last verse, the Psalmist here joins himself, along with the rest of the Lord's people, in blessing God. Franz Delitzsch.

Ver. 20. Ye that fear the LORD, bless the LORD. These are distinct from the Israelites, priests, and Levites, and design the proselytes among them of other nations that truly feared God, as Jarchi notes; and all such persons, whoever and wherever they are, have reason to bless the Lord for the fear of him they have, which is not from nature but from grace; and for the favours shown them, the blessings bestowed upon them, the good things laid up for them, and the guard that is about them, which the Scriptures abundantly declare, and experience confirms. John Gill.

Ver. 20. Ye that fear the LORD, bless the LORD. In Scripture it is quite common to find this "fear" put for holiness itself, or the sum of true religion. It is not, therefore, such a fear as seized the hearts of our first parents when, hearing the voice of the Lord God, they hid themselves amongst the trees of the garden; nor such as suddenly quenched the noise of royal revelry in the night of Babylon's overthrow; nor such as, on some day yet future, shall drive despairing sinners to the unavailing shelter of the mountains and rocks. It is not the fear of guilty distrust, or of hatred, or of bondagethat fear which hath torment, and which perfect love casteth out; but a fear compatible with the highest privileges, attainments, and hopes of the Christian life. It is the fear of deep humility and reverence, of filial subjection, and adoring gratitude; the fear which "blesseth the Lord", saying, "His mercy endureth for ever." John Lillie (1812-1867), in "Lectures on the Epistles of Peter."

Ver. 20. The Levites, their history, duties, rewards, and obligations to bless God.

Ver. 20. (second clause).

1. The fear of God includes all religion.

2. The fear of the Lord suggests praise.

3. The fear of the Lord renders praise acceptable.

Psalms 135:21*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Bless the Lord, O house of Levi: ye that fear the Lord, bless the Lord. (comp. Psa_115:11, Psa_115:13)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Scofield Reference Notes

C. I. Scofield

fear

(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

those who fear the Lord These are the proselytes (I found this).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Psalms, in the Wisdom, opens this verse with 10 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is yârêʼ (“fearing”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word yârêʼ carries the sense “fearing.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Genesis 22:12, which shares the word «fearing», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “LORD” (3× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«בָּרֲכ֣וּ» is a Piel Imperative verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and J. A. Alexander on Psalms read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
“LORD” occurs 3× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.