What Does Psalm 69:3 Mean?
I am worn out from my crying. My throat burns dry, and my eyes run out while I wait for my God.
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 of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.THE KEY
Waiting here is not untouched calm: the eyes can be spent while expectation remains turned toward God.
THE MEANING
The voice is worn from crying out, its throat parched and its eyes spent from looking. It still waits for God, so exhaustion and expectation occupy the same present moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that real trust must feel calm or physically strong: the speaker is depleted and still waiting for God.
THE ROOT
מְיַחֵל
meyachel
GROWS FROM
יחל
yachal
To wait, hope, or expect.
English “wait” can sound like empty delay, but יחל carries waiting with the horizon of hope and expectation. The verse names that orientation without claiming the speaker feels calm.
ALSO GROWS
hochalti: I waited or hoped.
הוֹחָלְתִּי
This form appears in Psalm 130:5, where waiting for the LORD and hoping in his word are held together.
tohelet: Expectation or hope.
תּוֹחֶלֶת
This noun shows that the root can name the expectation carried through a wait.
כָּלוּ
kalu
GROWS FROM
כלה
kalah
To be completed, come to an end, or be consumed.
“run out” in this verse is kalu. The Hebrew places the eyes at their limit: they are spent, not merely malfunctioning. Their depletion makes the duration of the waiting visible in the body.
ALSO GROWS
kalah: To come to an end or be consumed.
כָּלָה
This form carries the sense of something reaching its limit, the force behind the eyes being spent.
waykhal: And he finished or completed.
וַיְכַל
The same root can describe bringing something to its endpoint, linking the eyes’ exhaustion with completion.
יָגַעְתִּי
yaga'ti
GROWS FROM
יגע
yaga
To toil, labor, or grow weary.
“worn out” in this verse is yaga'ti. This is weariness with the grain of labor in it, not vague sadness. The verse lets the cry itself carry a bodily cost.
ALSO GROWS
yagea: Weary or worn from labor.
יָגֵעַ
This form makes clear that the speaker’s exhaustion is the kind that comes from exertion.
yegia: Toil or labor.
יְגִיעַ
The noun names the effort behind the root, illuminating how crying out can wear the speaker down.
THE PATTERN
Waiting on God remains an active orientation through present depletion and unseen outcomes.
I stretch myself taut for the LORD, my living soul stretches taut, and in his word I hope.But those who wait upon the LORD exchange their strength; they rise on wings like eagles; they run and do not tire; they walk and do not faint.But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it by bearing up under it.THE THREAD
I stretch myself taut for the LORD, my living soul stretches taut, and in his word I hope.Psalm 69:3 uses מְיַחֵל (meyachel), from יחל (yachal), meaning to wait or hope. Psalm 130:5 uses the same root for hoping in God’s word, revealing that this waiting carries expectation even when the body is worn down.
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