What Does Psalm 142:1 Mean?
Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave. I cry out to the LORD with my voice; with my voice I bend low to the LORD.
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
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 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.
“bend low” in this verse is etchanan. 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.
“cry out” 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 in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.This bowed one cries out, and the LORD hears him, and brings him out of all his narrow places.In the days of his flesh, he brought near prayers and clinging pleas, with a strong outcry and tears, to the one able to deliver him out of death, and he was heard because of his awe.THE THREAD
I cry out to you, O LORD, and I say, You are my shelter, 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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