Bible Strands
Psalms 36:5
Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Yahweh immediately after detailing a wicked person’s persistent plotting of evil and just before contrasting human sin with God’s cosmic righteousness. This declaration functions as a structural pivot from human depravity to divine character.
The words — The Hebrew terms חַסְדֶּךָ (chasdekha) and אֱמוּנָתְךָ ('emunatekha) translate literally as “your covenant loyalty” and “your faithfulness.” The preposition עַד־ ('ad-) paired with שְׁחָקִים (shechakim) establishes the spatial boundary “to the clouds.”
The thread — The verse’s spatial imagery appears in Psalms 108:4 and Psalms 103:11, while Psalms 100:5 uses temporal language instead, noting that faithfulness continues to all generations.
Why it lands — The text states that divine loyalty and faithfulness extend to the highest visible sky, contrasting sharply with the confined plotting of the wicked in the preceding verse. Readers are asked to recognize that God’s steadfast character operates on a scale that dwarfs human moral failure.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
Cross-references
- Psalms 100:5 For the LORD is good, and His loving devotion endures forever; His faithfulness continues to all generations.
- Psalms 108:4 For Your loving devotion extends beyond the heavens, and Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
- Psalms 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him.
- Psalms 57:10 For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds.
- Psalms 89:2 For I have said, “Loving devotion is built up forever; in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”
- Hebrews 6:18 Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.
- Psalms 92:2 to proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning and Your faithfulness at night
- Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
- Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Psalms 52:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of David. After Doeg the Edomite went to Saul and told him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.” Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The loving devotion of God endures all day long.