What Does Psalm 6:6 Mean?
I am spent with my groaning; all the night I make my bed swim; I melt my couch with my tears.
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
I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “groaning” belongs to the same root as Isaiah’s “sighing,” which that verse names among the sorrows that flee.
THE MEANING
Your distress has a voice and fills the night, turning your bed and couch into a landscape soaked with tears. The verse lets exhaustion speak at full volume, without disguising it as composure or explaining it away.
THE ROOT
אַנְחָתִי
ʾanḥātî
GROWS FROM
אנח
To sigh or groan, giving distress a voice.
The root אנח holds groaning and sighing together. Isaiah 35:10 uses the same word family for the sighing that flees, so Hebrew keeps connected what English names differently.
ALSO GROWS
ʾānaḥ: To sigh or groan.
אָנַח
This verb gives the speaker’s distress a sound; it is more than a silent feeling.
ʾănāḥāh: A sigh or groan; sighing.
אֲנָחָה
Isaiah 35:10 uses this same-root word for the sighing that flees with sorrow.
דִּמְעָתִי
dimʿātî
GROWS FROM
דמע
To weep; a tear.
The root connects weeping with the tears themselves. Here, tears do not merely accompany the groaning: they soak the bed and couch until sorrow fills the speaker’s surroundings.
ALSO GROWS
dāmaʿ: To weep.
דָּמַע
The action of weeping and the tears it produces belong to one word family.
dimʿāh: A tear.
דִּמְעָה
This is the noun beneath the verse’s “my tears,” making lament tangible.
יָגַעְתִּי
yāgaʿtî
GROWS FROM
יגע
To toil or grow weary.
The root carries both toil and exhaustion, so this weariness is not mere drowsiness. The groaning has spent the speaker through the night.
ALSO GROWS
yāgēaʿ: Weary or exhausted.
יָגֵעַ
This adjective shares the root’s sense of being worn down.
yegīʿāh: Labor or toil.
יְגִיעָה
The branch links weariness with the effort that consumes strength.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives inward sorrow a bodily voice through groaning, tears, and weeping.
My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say to me all day, Where is your God?And she was bitter in her living soul, and she prayed to the LORD, and wept hard.Jesus wept.THE THREAD
The ransomed of the LORD turn back and come to Zion with ringing cries, and the joy of the ages is upon their heads. They overtake joy and gladness, and sorrow and groaning flee.Isaiah uses אֲנָחָה (ʾănāḥāh), “sighing,” from the same root אנח as this verse’s “groaning.” The root holds both utterances together, while Isaiah pictures sorrow and sighing fleeing.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us