What Does Psalm 59:15 Mean?
Let them stagger about for food, and lodge through the night if they are not filled.
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
Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.THE KEY
The verse pairs an unsated appetite with lingering complaint: hunger keeps the body moving, and lack keeps the mouth speaking.
THE MEANING
You encounter a severe wish: let them keep roaming for food, and let their unmet hunger issue in complaint. The verse shows a repeating condition, movement toward food without fullness, followed by murmuring. It does not soften the speaker’s desire for their distress.
THE ROOT
וַיָּלִינוּ
wayyālînû
GROWS FROM
לון
lûn
To lodge or pass the night; also to murmur or complain.
“lodge through the night” in this verse is wayyālînû. The root can name lodging through the night and also murmuring or complaint. Here, grievance is bound to an appetite that remains unmet, making the complaint feel lingering rather than incidental.
ALSO GROWS
lîn: To lodge or pass the night.
לִין
This neighboring sense lends a lingering image to the root without implying literal overnight lodging in this verse.
telunah: Murmuring or complaint.
תְּלוּנָה
This noun from the same root makes explicit the complaint carried by the verse’s word “grudge.”
THE PATTERN
When hunger remains unfilled, the search keeps moving and dissatisfaction becomes complaint.
Sheol and the place of perishing are never filled, and the eyes of man are never filled.All the toil of humankind is for his mouth, yet the living soul is not filled.Why do you weigh out silver for what is not bread, and your toil for what does not fill? Hear and respond, hear and respond to me, and eat the good, and let your living soul delight itself in fatness.THE THREAD
And in the morning, then you shall see the weight of the LORD, for he has heard your murmurings against the LORD. And what are we, that you murmur against us?The Hebrew word translated “grudge” here belongs to the same root as “murmurings” and “murmur” in Exodus 16:7. There, hunger and complaint share the scene; the root makes the complaint in Psalm 59 sound like the audible continuation of unmet appetite.
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