What Does Psalm 55:16 Mean?

As for me, I call out to God, and the LORD delivers me.

Psalm 55:16 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.

THE KEY

The verse holds calling and deliverance as one movement: the cry opens toward being brought out.

THE MEANING

When you call upon God, your cry meets a promise of deliverance: the LORD brings you out. The verse makes that promise personal, “me”, so deliverance meets you where you are.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie this verse undoes is that calling is pointless and no response follows your cry.

THE ROOT

יוֹשִׁיעֵנִי

yōšîʿēnî

GROWS FROM

ישע

y-š-ʿ

Deliver, rescue, bring out; here, movement from constriction toward spaciousness.

“delivers” in this verse is yōšîʿēnî. The root’s family keeps the motion visible: to deliver, the deliverance, and the deliverer all grow from one seed. Here, “save me” names being brought out of constriction toward spaciousness.

ALSO GROWS

yāšaʿ: To deliver or rescue

יָשַׁע

This is the root verb behind “shall save me,” naming deliverance as an action.

yeshuʿah: Deliverance

יְשׁוּעָה

This branch names the movement promised to the one who calls.

mōšîaʿ: Deliverer

מוֹשִׁיעַ

This branch names the one who carries out the deliverance the verse promises.

THE PATTERN

When a person calls on the LORD, deliverance answers by bringing them out of trouble.

Call upon me in the day of the narrow place, and I draw you out, and you give me weight.

Psalm 50:15 · SDVThe call meets a direct promise: the LORD will deliver the one who calls.

And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will slip free, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

Joel 2:32 · SDVCalling on the LORD’s name opens into deliverance.

And it will come to pass that whoever calls on the nature of the LORD will be delivered.

Acts 2:21 · SDVThe same pattern joins a person’s call to the promise of being brought out.

THE THREAD

This bowed one cries out, and the LORD hears him, and brings him out of all his narrow places.

Psalm 34:6 · SDV

“Saved” here shares the root ⁨ישע⁩ (y-š-ʿ) with “shall save me” in Psalm 55:16. This verse makes the movement explicit: the cry is heard, and deliverance brings the person out of trouble.

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