What Does Psalm 5:2 Mean?
Stretch your ear to the voice of my outcry, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
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
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “cry” already means a call for help, so “unto thee will I pray” reveals where the cry is going.
THE MEANING
Your distress comes as a cry addressed to the one you name King and God, then as prayer turned directly toward him. Raw need and deliberate address belong to the same movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a distressed or unpolished voice cannot be prayer: here, the cry itself is part of the appeal to God.
THE ROOT
שַׁוְעִי
shav‘i
GROWS FROM
שׁוּעַ
sh-w-ʿ
A cry for help; an appeal for aid.
“outcry” in this verse is shav‘i. English “cry” can sound like an outburst, while שׁוּעַ names a call for help. The same root appears in the afflicted person’s cry that God hears, so the word already carries direction toward aid.
ALSO GROWS
shav'ah: A cry for help.
שַׁוְעָה
In Exodus 2:23 and Psalm 18:6, this noun names distress voiced before God; the plea in this verse belongs to that same language of appeal.
beshav'o: When he cries out.
בְּשַׁוְּעוֹ
Psalm 22:24 uses this form for the afflicted person’s cry to God, linking the act of crying with a direct appeal.
הַקְשִׁיבָה
haqshivah
GROWS FROM
קשב
q-sh-b
To attend carefully; to give focused attention.
“stretch your ear” in this verse is haqshivah. “Hearken” can sound like merely detecting a sound, but קשב names attentive listening. The verse asks for attention turned toward a voiced plea.
ALSO GROWS
haqshivu: Attend; listen closely.
הַקְשִׁיבוּ
Proverbs 4:1 uses this form in an appeal to attend to instruction, showing the root’s sense of focused listening.
taqshiv oznekha: You attend your ear.
תַּקְשִׁיב אָזְנֶךָ
Psalm 10:17 uses the root with “ear” as God attends to the humble, joining attentive hearing with a person’s appeal.
THE PATTERN
A voiced cry directed toward God becomes prayer: distress is spoken to the one who can hear and deliver.
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.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their 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
In my narrow place I call out to the LORD, and I cry out to my God. From his temple he hears and answers my voice, and my cry comes into his ears.“My cry” in both verses comes from the root שׁוּעַ, a call for help. Psalm 18:6 makes the movement vivid: the cry comes before God and into his ears.
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