What Does Psalm 119:170 Mean?
Let my plea come before you, and snatch me out 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
Let my supplication come before thee: deliver me according to thy word.THE KEY
Here, deliverance is a drawing out that rests on what God has spoken.
THE MEANING
Your plea comes before God, and you ask to be drawn clear according to what God has spoken. The prayer places deliverance within the reach of God’s utterance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that rescue must be produced by your own effort gives way to a plea for God to draw you out according to God’s word.
THE ROOT
הַצִּילֵנִי
haṣṣîlēnî
GROWS FROM
נצל
natsal
to snatch away, rescue, or draw out of danger
“snatch me out” in this verse is haṣṣîlēnî. This verb pictures more than general help: it asks to be pulled clear of what holds you. The same root can describe taking something away, so rescue and removal grow from one seed.
ALSO GROWS
ūmaṣṣîlām: and he delivers them
וּמַצִּילָם
Psalm 34:17 uses this form for the LORD delivering those who cry, showing the same rescue at work.
wayyaṣṣēl: and he took away
וַיַּצֵּל
In Genesis 31:9, this root describes God taking the cattle away; here, deliverance likewise carries the sense of being removed from a hold.
כְּאִמְרָתְךָ
keʾimrāteḵā
GROWS FROM
אמר
amar
to say, speak, or utter
The Hebrew word here is an utterance, keeping God’s word close to the act of speaking. The plea asks for deliverance in keeping with what God has said.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāmar: to say, speak
אָמַר
This is the verb behind the noun, linking God’s word to the act of saying.
ʾōmer: speech, utterance
אֹמֶר
This related noun names speech itself and echoes the verse’s appeal to God’s utterance.
תְּחִנָּתִי
teḥinnātî
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥanan
to show favor, be gracious
“plea” in this verse is teḥinnātî. The word for supplication grows from the language of favor. English names the act of pleading, while the root also carries an appeal for gracious attention.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: favor
חֵן
This noun shares the root’s language of favor, revealing the quality beneath the petition.
hitḥannēn: to plead or ask for favor
הִתְחַנֵּן
This related verb makes explicit the appeal for favor contained in the verse’s supplication.
THE PATTERN
Those who cry to God meet deliverance that God gives.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Psalm 34:17 uses נצל (natsal, “to rescue or draw out”) in its verb for the LORD who delivers those who cry. The shared root makes the request here visible as an answered cry: God hears and draws the petitioner out of trouble.
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