Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
- KJV Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
- NKJV Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
- NASB ¶Your mercy, Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
- NLT Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
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
In sharp contrast to the wicked, God's loving kindness and faithfulness fill the heavens and skies. His covenant love is vast beyond measure.
Overview
David lifts his eyes from human corruption to the immensity of God's steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness, picturing them reaching to the heavens. The contrast is deliberate: against the small, dark world of the sinner stands the boundless mercy of God. This covenant faithfulness finds its fullest expression in Christ, in whom God's love and truth meet (John 1:14).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 100:5For the LORD is good, and His loving devotion endures forever; His faithfulness continues to all generations.
- Ps 108:4For Your loving devotion extends beyond the heavens, and Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
- Ps 103:11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him.
- Ps 57:10For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds.
- Ps 89:2For I have said, “Loving devotion is built up forever; in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”
- Heb 6:18–20Thus 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.
- Ps 92:2to proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning and Your faithfulness at night
- Matt 24:35Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
- Isa 55:7–9Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Ps 52:1For 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.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 36:5 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.