What Does Psalm 119:107 Mean?
I am bowed very low; LORD, bring me to life according to your word.
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
I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word.THE KEY
“Quicken” is a plea for life to be renewed, so this verse asks for life from within severe affliction, not only after it ends.
THE MEANING
The verse names the pressure plainly: the speaker is afflicted very much and asks the LORD for life according to his word. Distress is present, and renewal remains possible in the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that severe affliction proves life cannot be renewed.
THE ROOT
חַיֵּנִי
ḥayyēnî
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live, be alive, or cause to live.
“bring me to life” in this verse is ḥayyēnî. The verb asks for life to be given again, not merely for the suffering to feel less intense. Its root also forms words for life and living beings, so the plea reaches toward life itself while affliction remains.
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: Living, alive.
חַי
The same root names being alive; “quicken” asks for life itself to be renewed.
ḥayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
This branch makes clear that the request concerns renewed life, not simply relief from pressure.
ḥayyah: A living creature.
חַיָּה
The root also names living beings, giving “quicken” the sense of restoring active life.
כִּדְבָרֶךָ
kidvarekha
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; its noun forms include word, matter, or thing.
The request for renewed life is tethered to what God speaks. Because the same word family can name a matter or thing, “word” carries more than the sound of speech: it can name what is spoken and what concerns the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
This verb shows that the word in the verse belongs to a root of speaking and utterance.
dibbur: Speech, utterance.
דִּבּוּר
The request rests on speech as something expressed, not on a vague or unspoken hope.
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The word family joins speech with a matter or thing, giving the prayer a concrete point of reference.
THE PATTERN
Renewed life is asked for within affliction, with God’s word as its measure.
This is my comfort in my bowing low, for your word has brought me to life.For thus says the high and lifted one, who dwells in the ages, whose nature is set apart. I dwell in the high and set-apart place, and with the crushed and the low of breath, to revive the breath of the low, and to revive the heart of the crushed ones.It is the breath that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are breath, and they are life.THE THREAD
My living soul clings to the dust; bring me to life according to your word.Here the speaker clings to dust and makes the same request: life according to God’s word. The repeated verb and phrase show the plea returning under another image of distress.
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