What Does Psalm 142:6 Mean?
Incline your ear to my ringing cry, for I have been emptied exceedingly. Snatch me from my pursuers, for they are stronger than I.
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
Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.THE KEY
The verse calls rescue an extraction from a pursuit that really is stronger than the one being chased.
THE MEANING
When you are brought very low, this verse gives your cry room to name the imbalance plainly: the ones pursuing you are stronger. Its plea is for rescue from their reach, so vulnerability and the need to be pulled clear are spoken without disguise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an honest plea must hide how outmatched you are.
THE ROOT
הַצִּילֵנִי
hatsileini
GROWS FROM
נצל
natsal
To take away or snatch away; to rescue or extract from danger.
“Snatch me” in this verse is hatsileini. The plea is for rescue that reaches into the situation and removes the speaker from pursuit. This root can also describe stripping something from its holder, so its range gives rescue the feel of an actual extraction.
ALSO GROWS
hitzil: He rescued or delivered.
הִצִּיל
This form makes the verse’s request a concrete act of pulling someone out of danger.
waynatslu: They stripped or despoiled.
וַיְנַצְּלוּ
The same root can describe taking something out of its holder’s grasp, illuminating the force of rescue as removal.
דַּלּוֹתִי
dalloti
GROWS FROM
דלל
dalal
To become low, diminished, languishing, or impoverished.
“have been emptied” in this verse is dalloti. This first-person word names the speaker’s diminished state; its family also names the poor and the condition of poverty. Lowliness here is concrete vulnerability, not an abstract judgment about worth.
ALSO GROWS
dal: Poor, low, or weak.
דַּל
This branch describes a person with diminished means or power, giving ‘brought very low’ a concrete human dimension.
dallut: Poverty or low condition.
דַּלּוּת
This branch names a state of depletion that helps explain why the speaker asks to be rescued.
אָמְצוּ
amtsu
GROWS FROM
אמץ
amats
To be strong or firm, and to strengthen.
“stronger than I” in this verse is amtsu. This is the strength-word used in calls to be strong or courageous; here, that strength belongs to the pursuers in greater measure. The verse states the unequal contest plainly, without turning the speaker’s weakness into an accusation.
ALSO GROWS
ve'imtsu: And be strong or courageous.
וְאִמְצוּ
This form shows the root naming strength as a capacity that can be called forth.
omets: Strength or courage.
אֹמֶץ
This related noun makes clear that the verse’s comparison concerns strength and capacity.
THE PATTERN
Rescue brings a person clear of what overpowers them, whether the threat is pursuit, fear, or death.
I seek the LORD, and he answers me, and snatches me out of every place of dread.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.And the LORD delivered Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the lip of the sea.THE THREAD
He snatches me from my strong enemy and from my haters, for they are too firm for me.Both verses use נצל (natsal, to snatch away or rescue) for deliverance and pair it with the admission that the opposing force is too strong. Psalm 18:17 echoes this exact imbalance, placing the plea within a recurring language of being pulled free when strength is unequal.
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