What Does Psalm 116:1 Mean in the King James?
I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
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
Love here begins as the answer to being heard.
THE MEANING
Your voice reaches the LORD, including your pleas for favor. Love rises from this hearing: you are not speaking into emptiness, but into a relationship already alive between you and the LORD.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמַע
yishma
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, listen, heed
“heard” in this verse is yishma. The root שמע reaches beyond sound arriving at an ear to attentive listening. The verse presents the speaker’s plea as received, and love grows from that hearing.
ALSO GROWS
shema: hear and respond
שְׁמַע
This familiar form carries the root’s sense of hearing that attends to what is heard.
shomea: one who hears or listens
שֹׁמֵעַ
The same root describes the listener as well as the act of hearing, keeping the exchange relational.
תַּחֲנוּנָי
tachanunai
GROWS FROM
חנן
show favor, be gracious
The Hebrew word translated “supplications” grows from חנן, the root of showing favor. The speaker’s pleas are requests to be met with favor, held within the LORD’s hearing.
ALSO GROWS
chen: favor
חֵן
This branch names the favor sought in the supplications.
channun: gracious, showing favor
חַנּוּן
It describes the quality of the one whose favor the plea seeks.
THE PATTERN
Love and confidence grow where a voiced need is received by God’s hearing.
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:THE THREAD
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.“Heareth” here shares the root שמע (shama, hear and listen) with “heard” in Psalm 116:1. Both verses join a voiced cry to the LORD’s hearing; Psalm 116 names that hearing as the ground of love, while this verse shows it accompanying deliverance.
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