May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
Parallel translations
- WEB May He grant you your heart’s desire, and fulfill all your counsel.
- KJV Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel.
- NKJV May He grant you according to your heart’s desire, And fulfill all your purpose.
- NASB ¶May He grant you your heart’s desire And fulfill your whole plan!
- NLT May he grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They pray that God will grant the king his heart's desire and fulfill all his plans. Their longing is for the king's God-honoring purposes to succeed.
Overview
The petition assumes a king whose desires and counsel align with God's will, so that fulfilling them advances God's cause. The prayer is bold yet submitted to the Lord. It finds ultimate answer in the Messiah, whose every desire is to do the Father's will and whose purposes God always accomplishes.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 145:19He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them.
- Ps 37:4Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
- Matt 21:22If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
- Ps 21:2You have granted his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah
- John 16:23In that day you will no longer ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I tell you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
- Rom 8:27–28And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
- Prov 11:23The desire of the righteous leads only to good, but the hope of the wicked brings wrath.
- 1 Jn 5:14–15And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
- John 11:42I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 20:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.