What Does Psalm 69:16 Mean?
Answer me, LORD, for your faithful love is good. According to the abundance of your compassions, turn your face to 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
Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.THE KEY
The plea asks for God’s face to turn toward the reader on the strength of faithful love and compassion rooted in the image of the womb.
THE MEANING
This is a cry for a response and for the divine face to turn toward the reader. The request rests on good, faithful love and compassion described as abundant.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that need can exhaust compassion meets the verse’s claim that compassion is abundant.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
Loyal, faithful love expressed through relationship.
“faithful love” in this verse is chesed. The verse calls this love good and makes it the ground of the plea. Chesed carries the sense of faithful care, so the appeal rests on a relationship marked by loyalty.
ALSO GROWS
chasad: To act loyally or show kindness.
חָסַד
The action behind chesed shows faithful love as something expressed, not merely felt.
chasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
This branch describes someone characterized by the same quality of loyal devotion.
רַחֲמִים
rachamim
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ם
Compassion and tender care, with a word-family association to the womb.
“compassions” in this verse is rachamim. The verse asks for compassion in abundance. Its root also appears in words for the womb and for being compassionate, giving this plea a bodily image of intimate, protective tenderness.
ALSO GROWS
rechem: Womb.
רֶחֶם
This shared root gives compassion an image of intimate, bodily care.
rachum: Compassionate.
רַחוּם
The same root describes the one whose nature is marked by compassion.
פְּנֵה
panah
GROWS FROM
פ־נ־ה
To turn or direct oneself toward something.
“turn your face to me” in this verse is panah. The request is for more than attention from a distance: it asks for a turning toward. The related word for “face” helps reveal the personal presence carried by this movement.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face; presence.
פָּנִים
The face is what turns toward the speaker, making the request feel relational and direct.
panah: Turn; turn toward or away.
פָּנָה
The verb names the movement requested in the verse.
THE PATTERN
The cry for a response is met by compassion described as abundant and faithful.
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those in awe of him.Look, we count them flourishing who remain under it. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the LORD, for the LORD is very tender in his inward parts, and moved to groan.THE THREAD
Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she would not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even they may forget, but I will not forget you.The same racham root underlies the compassion requested here and the phrase “have compassion” in Isaiah. Isaiah’s image of a child of the womb reveals the bodily tenderness inside the word, then holds that care firm even when a human bond fails.
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