What Does Psalm 66:14 Mean?
Which my lips burst open, and my mouth speaks in my narrow place.
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
Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble.THE KEY
Trouble is a narrow place, and this verse locates the vow in the constriction from which it is spoken.
THE MEANING
Your lips have uttered words from within a constricted place, and your mouth has given those words form. The verse keeps that speech tied to the pressure where it arose, so the vow remains present as something you have said.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that words spoken under pressure become disposable once the pressure passes; the verse still holds them as the speaker’s own utterance.
THE ROOT
בַּצַּר־לִי
ba-tsar li
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind, press in, or make narrow.
“narrow place” in this verse is ba-tsar li. The KJV’s “trouble” can sound like a general hardship, while the Hebrew gives it the shape of constriction. The lips speak from inside that narrowness, and the vow remains attached to the place from which it arose.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: A narrow or constricted place; by extension, distress.
צַר
This is the word-shape behind “trouble” here: the speaker is pressed into a narrow place.
tsarah: Distress or adversity.
צָרָה
This related form shows how constriction can be experienced as adversity pressing on a person.
THE PATTERN
A vow spoken in distress remains present as speech carried toward fulfillment.
I will enter your house with rising offerings; I will make my vows whole to you.But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of open-handed thanks; what I have vowed, I will make whole. Deliverance belongs to the LORD.Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not break your oath, but shall pay to the LORD your oaths.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.Both verses use צַר (tsar), the language of a narrow place, for distress. Psalm 118:5 makes the movement clear: the call rises from constriction and meets an answer that brings the speaker into a large place.
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