What Does Psalm 3:4 Mean?
With my voice I call out to the LORD, and he answers me from his set-apart hill. Selah.
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 cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah.THE KEY
The Hebrew says the LORD answered the voice, not merely heard it.
THE MEANING
Your voice reaches the LORD as a real address, and the LORD answers from his holy hill. The verse holds your call together with a response coming from the place set apart to him; Selah lets that exchange linger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that your cry reaches only silence is undone here: the verse names a response.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעֲנֵנִי
wayyaʿanēnî
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
to answer, respond
“answers me” in this verse is wayyaʿanēnî. The Hebrew form means “and he answered me,” while the KJV gives “he heard me.” The verse names a response, with the reply coming from the LORD’s holy hill.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānâ: to answer, respond
עָנָה
This is the verb behind the verse’s “he heard me”; its root makes the reply explicit.
maʿăneh: an answer, a response
מַעֲנֶה
The same root names the reply itself, underscoring that the cry is met rather than merely noticed.
אֶקְרָא
ʾeqrāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
to call out, proclaim, name
“call out to” in this verse is ʾeqrāʾ. The Hebrew verb means “I call,” an intentionally addressed voice. Its branches also name a caller or reader and a convocation, words for voicing and gathering; the verse frames the cry as an address, not an unshaped outburst.
ALSO GROWS
qōrēʾ: one who calls or reads
קֹרֵא
The caller is an active voice, echoing the verse’s direct address to the LORD.
miqrāʾ: a convocation, a reading
מִקְרָא
The root can name a gathering called into being; here the voice likewise reaches toward another.
THE PATTERN
A direct call toward the LORD meets a response named as an answer.
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.Then you shall call, and the LORD shall answer; you shall cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the stretching of the finger, and speaking emptiness.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
Then you shall call, and the LORD shall answer; you shall cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the stretching of the finger, and speaking emptiness.Isaiah pairs קרא (qārāʾ, to call) with ענה (ʿānâ, to answer) in the same call-and-response structure. It opens Psalm’s “he heard me” as an answered cry, and voices the reply as “Here I am.”
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us