What Does Psalm 55:4 Mean?
My heart writhes within me, and the terrors of death fall upon me.
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
My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.THE KEY
The word translated “pained” carries the motion of writhing and labor, so this is death-terror felt as travail inside the heart.
THE MEANING
Your heart is writhing within you as the terrors of death fall upon you. The pressure is inward and bodily, while the image of falling gives the fear the weight of something landing on you.
THE ROOT
יָחִיל
yāḥîl
GROWS FROM
חוּל
ḥul
To writhe, whirl, or travail in labor.
“writhes” in this verse is yāḥîl. The word translated “pained” comes from a root of writhing and travail. Hebrew lets anguish feel like movement in the body, twisting through the heart, rather than a label for a mood.
ALSO GROWS
tāḥîl: Is in labor; writhes in birth pangs.
תָּחִיל
Isaiah uses this form for labor pain, showing that the root describes felt bodily motion rather than a generic mood.
māḥōl: Dance.
מָחוֹל
This related word names another kind of bodily movement; here the root gives that movement an anguished form.
בְּקִרְבִּי
bəqirbî
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
To approach or draw near; also to be inward or near the center.
The phrase rendered “within me” names the inward place, from the same root that forms “draw near.” English gives a location, while Hebrew lets nearness resonate inside that location.
ALSO GROWS
qerev: Inner part; inward place.
קֶרֶב
This noun names the interior where the verse locates the heart’s pain.
qārav: Draw near; approach.
קָרַב
The shared root links inwardness with nearness: the terror is felt close to the speaker’s center.
THE PATTERN
The fear of death can press inward as pain and hold a person in bondage.
The cords of death wrap around me, and the narrows of Sheol find me; I find the narrow place and sorrow.And loosen those who through fear of death were held in slavery throughout all their living.THE THREAD
As a woman with child who draws near to bring forth writhes and cries out in her cords, so we have been before your face, LORD.The same Hebrew root behind “pained” describes the woman “in pain” as she approaches labor. That link makes the Psalm’s terror sound like travail held inside the body, not a vague mood.
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