What Does Psalm 55:2 Mean?
Bend your hearing toward me, and answer me. I pace in my murmuring and roar.
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
Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;THE KEY
The word for complaint holds both inward musing and spoken distress, so the thought turning inside and the sound coming out are one act of address.
THE MEANING
You address God while grief is still turning through your thoughts and coming out in sound. Your request is for attentive hearing and an answer, and inward complaint and audible groaning enter the same prayer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that grief must be composed before it can be brought into prayer; the speaker addresses God while complaint and groaning are still unfolding.
THE ROOT
בְּשִׂיחִי
be-siachi
GROWS FROM
שיח
siach
To muse, meditate, or speak; the root also carries complaint.
“murmuring” in this verse is be-siachi. The root שיח (siach, musing or speech) ranges from inward meditation to spoken complaint. It links the thought turning inside to the distress voiced aloud: both belong to the same troubled address.
ALSO GROWS
siach: Musing, meditation, or speech.
שִׂיחַ
Its range shows that the complaint can be inwardly carried as well as spoken.
asichah: I speak or complain.
אָשִׂיחָה
This form appears in Psalm 77:3, where complaint is voiced from within distress.
וְאָהִימָה
ve-ahimah
GROWS FROM
המה
hamah
To murmur, groan, roar, or be in tumult.
“roar” in this verse is ve-ahimah. The root המה (hamah, murmuring or roaring) holds quiet groaning and swelling tumult in one sound-field. The verse lets inward musing break out as audible distress without requiring it to become orderly speech first.
ALSO GROWS
hamon: Tumult, noise, or a multitude.
הָמוֹן
This noun carries the root’s sense of sound swelling into a crowd or uproar.
yehemu: They roar or surge noisily.
יֶהֱמוּ
The same root describes roaring waters in Psalm 46:3, giving the distress here the force of an uncontained sound.
THE PATTERN
Distress reaches toward divine response through the cry itself, before it is resolved.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.And it shall be, before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear and respond.Jesus stood still and said to call him. They called the blind man, saying to him, Take heart, get up, he is calling you.THE THREAD
I remember God, and I roar; I murmur, and my breath wraps itself up. Selah.Psalm 77:3 uses שיח (siach, musing or complaint) for “I complained,” while המה (hamah, tumult or groaning) appears in “was troubled.” The two roots that hold this verse’s thought and sound together return together there, making inward and outward distress part of one language.
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