What Does Psalm 28:2 Mean?
Hear and respond to the voice of my pleas for favor, when I cry out to you, when I lift up my hands toward your set-apart innermost room.
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
Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.THE KEY
The word “supplications” grows from the same root as “gracious”: this cry is already a plea for favor.
THE MEANING
Your prayer here has a voice and a posture: you cry out and lift your hands toward God’s holy place. Even the word “supplications” carries the language of seeking favor as you ask God to hear you.
THE ROOT
תַּחֲנוּנַי
tachanunai
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥ-n-n
To show favor or be gracious; a plea from this root seeks favor.
“pleas for favor” in this verse is tachanunai. The word translated “supplications” is shaped by the root for favor and graciousness. English makes it sound like a general request, while the Hebrew carries the texture of an appeal for favor.
ALSO GROWS
chen: Favor
חֵן
This branch makes the plea’s appeal for favor audible inside “supplications.”
ḥannun: Gracious
חַנּוּן
The same root describes graciousness, linking the plea to the favor it seeks.
שְׁמַע
shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, or attend.
“Hear and respond to” in this verse is shema. The request is for more than sound to reach God: it asks for attention to the cry. The same root also appears in the connected psalm, where the LORD hears the one who cries.
ALSO GROWS
shomea: One who hears
שֹׁמֵעַ
This form names the listener, bringing the requested act of hearing into view.
shemuah: A report or something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch links hearing with what is received and attended to.
נָשְׂאִי
nasi
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-s-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“when I lift up my hands” in this verse is nasi. The hands are described with a verb that can also mean carrying or bearing. Their raised posture gives the plea a visible direction, as if the appeal itself is being carried toward the holy place.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: To lift, carry, or bear
נָשָׂא
This is the verb’s basic range, showing the raised hands as an act of lifting.
massa: A burden or load
מַשָּׂא
A related word for what is carried echoes the weight a person may bring into a plea.
THE PATTERN
Prayer turns toward God through the joined gestures of voice, hands, and heart.
Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.Let us lift our heart with our palms to God in the heavens.I will therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up set-apart hands, without anger and divided reasoning.THE THREAD
This bowed one cries out, and the LORD hears him, and brings him out of all his narrow places.Psalm 28 asks God to hear a cry; Psalm 34 shows the cry being heard. The shared Hebrew root שמע (shama, hear) links the plea here to that response.
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