What Does Psalm 141:1 Mean?
A Psalm of David. LORD, I cry out to you. Hasten to me; give ear to my voice when I cry out to you.
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
A Psalm of David. LORD, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.THE KEY
The repeated call frames the prayer: the cry is urgent, yet already directed toward the One asked to hear it.
THE MEANING
The reader speaks to the LORD and asks both for nearness and for hearing. The repeated call joins urgency to relationship: this voice is not merely a feeling, but an address.
THE ROOT
קָרָאתִיךָ
qerāʾtîkā
GROWS FROM
קרא
Call out, summon, proclaim, or name.
“cry out to you” in this verse is qerāʾtîkā. The same root appears twice in the verse, translated as “cry” and “cry.” Its wider family also includes reading aloud and public assembly, revealing a word-family centered on voiced address. The cry is not merely noise; it is speech directed toward someone.
ALSO GROWS
miqrāʾ: A convocation or reading aloud.
מִקְרָא
The same root links a personal call with a gathering summoned by spoken words.
qerîʾāh: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
The call in the verse belongs to a family of words for speech made audible.
qārāʾ: To call out, summon, or name.
קָרָא
This is the root verb behind both cries in the verse.
הַאֲזִינָה
haʾăzînâ
GROWS FROM
אזן
Ear; listen or attend.
“give ear to my voice” in this verse is haʾăzînâ. The Hebrew verb is built from the word for ear, putting the ear itself into the act of attending to a voice. Paired with the repeated call, it gives the line a clear movement: voice sent, ear sought.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōzen: Ear.
אֹזֶן
The noun names the body part carried into the verb “give ear.”
heʾĕzîn: To listen attentively or give ear.
הֶאֱזִין
This verb expresses the attentive hearing the speaker asks for.
THE PATTERN
In these verses, a call directed to God is joined to hearing, answer, or deliverance.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things that you do not know.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
But perceive that the LORD has set apart for himself the one held in faithful love. The LORD hears and responds when I call to him.Psalm 4:3 uses the same Hebrew root קרא (qārāʾ, “call”) for “when I call unto him,” then says the LORD hears. Psalm 141:1 repeats that root around its request for haste and attentive hearing, joining voice and response.
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