What Does Psalm 119:116 Mean?
Prop me up according to your word, so that I may live, and do not let me be ashamed of my waiting.
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
Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope.THE KEY
The plea reveals that life and hope both depend on being held steady by what God has spoken.
THE MEANING
Your life is sustained by what God has spoken, while your hope remains vulnerable to disappointment. The verse holds dependence and expectation together without concealing the risk of being let down.
THE ROOT
סָמְכֵנִי
sāmĕḵēnî
GROWS FROM
סמך
To support, lean upon, or sustain.
“prop me up” in this verse is sāmĕḵēnî. This root describes support someone can lean on, not reassurance alone. Here, that sustaining support is what lets life continue.
ALSO GROWS
samak: To support or uphold.
סָמַךְ
This is the same root as the verse’s plea: the speaker asks to be held steady.
somekh: One who supports or sustains.
סוֹמֵךְ
The related form places the emphasis on the one providing support, opening the plea toward God as the source of the speaker’s steadiness.
וְאֶחְיֶה
ve’echyeh
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live, be alive, or preserve life.
“Live” in this verse is ve’echyeh. The speaker’s life is tied directly to being upheld. The root’s branches name both being alive and life itself, keeping the verse’s plea grounded in continued living.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living or alive.
חַי
It echoes the speaker’s request to remain alive through the support being asked for.
chayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
It shows that the plea concerns life itself, not simply comfort or reassurance.
תְּבִישֵׁנִי
tevisheni
GROWS FROM
בוש
To be ashamed or disappointed.
“Ashamed” in this verse is tevisheni. This root can describe disappointment as well as shame. So the request reaches beyond embarrassment: the speaker asks not to be left with hope that has failed.
ALSO GROWS
bosh: To be ashamed or disappointed.
בּוֹשׁ
Its sense of disappointment illuminates the fear that the speaker’s hope may not be fulfilled.
busha: Shame or disgrace.
בּוּשָׁה
It shows the exposed vulnerability carried by asking that hope not end in humiliation.
THE PATTERN
God’s support meets human vulnerability and keeps a fall from becoming final.
Though he falls, he will not be hurled down, for the LORD props him up with his hand.Throw your load upon the LORD, and he holds you. He does not give the aligned one to totter for the ages.throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.THE THREAD
Though he falls, he will not be hurled down, for the LORD props him up with his hand.Psalm 37:24 uses the same root, סמך (samak, “to uphold”), and shows the support as the LORD’s hand beneath someone who falls. It opens this plea further: being upheld is sustaining support that meets vulnerability and keeps it from becoming final.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us