What Does 2 Chronicles 6:19 Mean?
Therefore turn your face toward the prayer of your servant, and toward his pleading, O LORD my God, to hear and respond to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee:THE KEY
“Supplication” grows from the Hebrew root for showing favor: prayer here is a plea to be met with favor.
THE MEANING
Your prayer is a plea for attention and favor, not words spoken into emptiness. The verse holds together the cry rising from you and the prayer you form, with both named as things the LORD is asked to hear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The cry does not have to be polished into prayer before it belongs before God; this verse names both the cry and the prayer as what the LORD is asked to hear.
THE ROOT
תְּחִנָּתוֹ
teḥinnāṯô
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor, to be gracious.
“pleading” in this verse is teḥinnāṯô. The KJV’s “supplication” carries the חנן family, the language of showing favor and gracious regard. Prayer here is more than words sent upward: it is a plea for the hearer to meet the speaker with favor.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor; gracious regard.
חֵן
This noun condenses the favor sought in the supplication.
ḥannûn: Gracious; one who shows favor.
חַנּוּן
It describes a giver characterized by graciousness, placing the plea within the language of a favorable response.
רִנָּה
rinnāh
GROWS FROM
רנן
To ring out, shout aloud, or sing out.
The root of “cry” can also describe a ringing shout or song. The verse holds this voiced outpouring alongside prayer, leaving both within what is asked to be heard.
ALSO GROWS
rānan: To shout aloud or sing out.
רָנַן
The verb gives the cry a voice that rings out, rather than treating it only as an inward feeling.
rinnāh: A ringing cry, shout, or song.
רִנָּה
This noun is the word used for the servant’s cry in the verse.
לִשְׁמֹעַ
lishmōaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen, with responsive attention when the context implies it.
“hear and respond” in this verse is lishmōaʿ. The root שמע is also carried by “Shema,” the word for hearing and responding. Here, the servant asks for attentive reception of the cry and prayer.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form shows how hearing can carry the sense of receptive attention.
shemuʿah: A report; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The noun extends the root from the act of hearing to what is received as a report.
THE PATTERN
A request for divine hearing can carry both an unguarded cry and formed prayer.
Stretch your ear to the voice of my outcry, my King and my God, for to you I pray.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Do not be pulled apart over anything, but in everything, through prayer and need, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.The Hebrew plea “Have mercy upon me” uses חנן, the same root carried by “supplication” here. Both verses draw on the language of asking God to show favor.
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