Exalted above all His name

This is the verse most often quoted to prove that God ranks His Word above His own name — and it is the one verse in this slot where the honest work is mostly about the translation.

The Hebrew of the second half is difficult, and translations diverge sharply. Some read it as here: You have exalted Your word above all Your name. Others: You have exalted above all things Your name and Your word. Others: You have magnified Your promise above all Your name.

The difficulty is real and it is grammatical, not doctrinal. Serious translators land in different places, and any teacher using this verse should know that before quoting it.

So take the part that is not disputed first, because it carries most of the weight.

I will give thanks for Your loving devotion and Your faithfulness. That is the pairing this volume met in Week Six — chesed and emeth, covenant love and reliability, the two words used together of God’s character since Exodus 34.

The psalmist bows toward the temple and thanks God for those two things. And then, however the second half is construed, he says God has magnified something — His word, His promise, His name — and magnified it enormously.

Because the rest of Scripture says it plainly enough elsewhere. He watches over His word to perform it. His word will not return empty. It is settled forever in heaven. Not one word of His good promises has failed. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not.

A doctrine that needs a contested translation to survive is not a doctrine worth building. This one does not need it.

And there is a lesson in the day beyond the verse. A reader who loves this Book will eventually meet a passage where the translations disagree, and the temptation is to reach for the one that preaches best.

The better instinct is the one Week Nine called cutting straight: find out what the difficulty is, say so out loud, use the verse for what it can bear, and let the doctrine rest on the places where the text is not in dispute.

It is also worth naming what the disputed reading would and would not establish. Even on the strongest rendering, the verse would say God has magnified His word above His name — and in Hebrew usage a name is a reputation and a self-disclosure, not a label. The two are not rivals in Scripture; God’s word is how His name is made known, which is the whole burden of Week Seven’s thread.

The psalm ends with a line nobody argues about: the LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; Your loving devotion, O LORD, endures forever. Do not abandon the works of Your hands.

The crux is the phrase usually rendered above all Your name. The Hebrew has a construction whose head is uncertain, and the ancient versions already differ — the Greek Old Testament reads along the lines of magnifying His holy name above all. Modern committees split, and the footnotes in most study Bibles say so.

The word for word here is imrah, the promise word from Week Eleven, which is why several translations render it promise. That choice is lexically defensible and changes how the verse sounds considerably.

Psalm 138 is a psalm of David and belongs to the group of eight ascribed to him near the end of the Psalter. Its setting is thanksgiving after answered prayer — on the day I called, You answered me — which is the frame for everything else in it.

Note the useful principle this day illustrates. Where the Hebrew or Greek is genuinely uncertain, the responsible move is to say so and to teach the doctrine from clearer texts. Every major doctrine of Scripture rests on multiple undisputed passages; none of them depends on a single contested line.

The psalm’s opening line — I will praise You with all my heart; before the gods I will sing Your praises — sets the whole thing in a contest of claims. Whatever is magnified in verse 2 is magnified over against rivals, which is the frame the rest of the psalm assumes.

Look it upH1431 גָּדַל gadal, to magnify, make great · H565 אִמְרָה imrah, saying, promise · H2617 חֶסֶד chesed, loving devotion · H571 אֶמֶת emeth, truth, faithfulness

Where this touchesPsalm 138 · Exodus 34:6 · Jeremiah 1:12 · Isaiah 55:11 (Week Three, Day Six) · Psalm 119:89 (Week Nine, Day Six) · Joshua 21:45 (Week Ten, Day Six). Psalm 19, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Isaiah 55:10–11, Matthew 24:35, Psalm 12:6, Matthew 5:18, Romans 15:4, Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:89, Joshua 21:45 and Isaiah 66:2 were the earlier single-verse days.