What Does Psalm 106:44 Mean in the King James?
Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Your constriction is not hidden: the verse says God sees it and hears the cry rising from it.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you in the narrowness you are in now: your distress stays within God’s sight, and your cry reaches his hearing. The verse holds seeing and hearing together, so neither your condition nor the voice coming from it is erased.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the fear that distress makes you invisible, or that your cry is too small to be heard.
THE ROOT
בַּצַּר
ba-tsar
GROWS FROM
צרר
To bind or press into narrowness.
The word rendered “affliction” carries the image of being pressed into a narrow place. The verse names distress as constriction, the Mitzrayim pattern, and says it remains within God’s sight.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight; distress.
צַר
It makes the verse’s affliction a felt narrowing, not a vague hardship.
tsarah: Distress, trouble.
צָרָה
It carries the same pressed, constricted condition into other words for trouble.
metsar: A narrow place; distress.
מֵצַר
Psalm 18:6 uses this same constriction-root for “distress,” then says God hears the cry.
וַיַּרְא
vayyar’
GROWS FROM
ראה
To see, look at, or perceive.
The Hebrew verb means “he saw,” giving “regarded” the concrete sense of sight. Alongside hearing the cry, this says both the distress itself and the voice rising from it are perceived.
ALSO GROWS
ra’ah: To see or perceive.
רָאָה
This is the verb behind the verse’s “regarded”; the distress enters the field of sight.
mar’eh: Sight, appearance, vision.
מַרְאֶה
It extends the root’s language of seeing into what is visible or perceived.
nir’ah: To appear, be seen.
נִרְאָה
It echoes the verse’s claim that distress is not outside what can be seen.
רִנָּתָם
rinnatam
GROWS FROM
רנן
To ring out in a cry, shout, or song.
The word translated “cry” belongs to a root that can also describe a ringing shout or song. That range keeps the voice vivid: the verse says it is heard without requiring the cry to become joyful.
ALSO GROWS
rinnah: A ringing cry or song.
רִנָּה
It shows that the cry is a voiced sound with resonance, not merely a label for suffering.
ranan: To ring out, shout, or sing.
רָנַן
The verb carries the same full-voiced sound behind the cry in this verse.
THE PATTERN
The cry arising from distress enters God’s hearing, and the distressed remain within God’s sight.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.Psalm 18:6 uses the same Hebrew roots for “distress” and “heard” as Psalm 106:44. The shared words connect the narrow place with a voice that reaches God’s hearing.
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