What Does Psalm 17:6 Mean?
I call upon you, for you answer me, O God. Bend your ear to me, and hear my speech.
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
I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.THE KEY
The English repeats ‘hear,’ but Hebrew moves from ‘you answer me’ to ‘hear my speech,’ turning prayer into an exchange.
THE MEANING
Your call rises from confidence that God listens and responds. The prayer moves from an expected answer to a request for God’s ear to turn toward the words you are speaking. Listening and response belong to one living exchange.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that prayer is only a one-way cry gives way here: the speaker calls from confidence that the words are received and answered.
THE ROOT
תַּעֲנֵנִי
ta'aneni
GROWS FROM
ענה
answer, respond
The Hebrew verb beneath ‘hear me’ carries the sense of ‘answer me.’ That makes the confidence in this line relational: the call rests on an expected response.
ALSO GROWS
ta'aneh: you answer, you will answer
תַּעֲנֶה
This verb form makes the expected reply explicit; in the verse, its ending directs that reply to the speaker.
ma'aneh: answer, response
מַעֲנֶה
The related noun names the answering side of an exchange, echoing the prayer’s confidence.
שְׁמַע
shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, listen, heed
“hear my speech” in this verse is shema. This is a different Hebrew root from the earlier verb rendered ‘hear me.’ Its placement after the word for ‘answer’ lets the verse hold attentive listening and response together.
ALSO GROWS
shama: hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
The verb names the listening requested here, with the preceding promise of an answer giving that listening a responsive quality.
shemu'ah: report, news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This related word carries speech as a message received, fitting the request to hear the speaker’s utterance.
קְרָאתִיךָ
qera'tikha
GROWS FROM
קרא
call, summon, proclaim
“called upon” in this verse is qera'tikha. The root also describes proclaiming and reading aloud, so this call is voiced speech directed toward another. Beside the roots for hearing and answering, it forms one side of a living exchange.
ALSO GROWS
qara: call out, summon, proclaim, read aloud
קָרָא
The root joins calling with voiced proclamation, showing the speaker’s words as an addressed call.
miqra: convocation, reading
מִקְרָא
This related word can describe a gathering or a reading aloud, extending the root’s sense of a call that brings people into relation.
THE PATTERN
Prayer forms an exchange in which the call is met by attentive hearing and response.
Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things that you do not know.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.And this is the open speech we hold toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David. Answer me when I call, O God of my alignment. In the narrow place you widen me. Bend toward me, and hear and respond to my prayer.Psalm 4:1 uses the same Hebrew roots for call and answer found here, even though its KJV also renders the answer verb as ‘hear me.’ It then speaks of being enlarged in distress, carrying the call-and-response movement toward spaciousness.
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