What Does Psalm 142:1 Mean in the King James?
Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave. I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the LORD did I make my supplication.
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
The cry and the supplication are the same voice: distress already speaks as a plea for favor.
THE MEANING
Your voice can carry both distress and a request for favor; it does not need to become composed before it is addressed to the LORD. Here, the same voice cries out and makes its appeal directly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that prayer only counts when it sounds composed: the voice that cries is also the voice that pleads for favor.
THE ROOT
אֶתְחַנָּן
etchanan
GROWS FROM
חנן
Show favor; be gracious; seek favor.
The word rendered “supplication” grows from the root of favor and graciousness. The cry is also a plea to be met with favor, so distress and request are carried by the same voice.
ALSO GROWS
chen: Favor; graciousness.
חֵן
This branch makes clear that the supplication is a request for favor, not merely speech directed upward.
chanun: Gracious; showing favor.
חַנּוּן
This related form ties the appeal to graciousness: the voice asks to be received with favor.
אֶזְעָק
ez'aq
GROWS FROM
זעק
Cry out; call for help in distress.
“cried” in this verse is ez'aq. The verb is a distress call, not just a neutral act of speaking. The verse gives that urgent cry a direction, toward the LORD, and repeats it as a plea.
ALSO GROWS
za'aq: To cry out; to call for help.
זָעַק
This verb names the urgent vocal appeal expressed in “I cried.”
ze'aqah: A cry or outcry for help.
זְעָקָה
The related noun shows the cry as a voiced appeal, matching the verse’s repeated emphasis on “my voice.”
THE PATTERN
A voiced cry brings distress into direct address to God.
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;THE THREAD
I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.The same Hebrew root זעק (za’aq, cry out) appears in both verses. The opening cry becomes, here, an explicit address to the LORD and a naming of refuge and portion.
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