What Does Psalm 86:3 Mean?
Favor me, O Lord, for to you I call out all the day.
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
Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.THE KEY
The plea translated “be merciful” asks for חֵן (ḥēn, favor), while “daily” is “all the day”, a cry that keeps returning.
THE MEANING
The verse gives voice to you calling toward God through the whole day and asking to receive favor. Your cry is directed toward someone you can keep addressing; the request remains open in each return.
THE ROOT
חָנֵּנִי
ḥonnēnî
GROWS FROM
חנן
to show favor, to be gracious
The Hebrew asks for favor: a welcome extended to the one who calls. The related word חֵן (ḥēn, favor) shows the same root from another angle, the favor being sought is received as an open welcome.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: favor
חֵן
It names the favor the speaker asks to receive.
ḥannûn: gracious
חַנּוּן
This related form describes the one who shows favor, placing the request within a relationship of graciousness.
אֶקְרָא
ʾeqrāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
to call, summon, or proclaim
“call out” in this verse is ʾeqrāʾ. The Hebrew verb is “I call”: the verse names not only distress, but a voice directed toward God. Its “all the day” phrase keeps that call present through the whole day.
ALSO GROWS
miqrāʾ: a convocation or called assembly
מִקְרָא
This branch shows the root extending from an individual call to people gathered by a call.
qerîʾāh: a calling or reading aloud
קְרִיאָה
It preserves the sense of a voice making something heard, as the speaker does here.
THE PATTERN
Calling toward God in need is shown as an ongoing reach for hearing and favor.
Evening, and morning, and at noon, I murmur and roar, and he hears and responds to my voice.And will God not set his own chosen straight, the ones who cry out to him day and night, though he is slow to heat with them?Let us therefore draw near, with open speech, to the throne of favor, that we may receive compassion, and find favor to help in the right moment.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David. Answer me when I call, O God of my alignment. In the narrow place you widen me. Bend toward me, and hear and respond to my prayer.Psalm 4:1 repeats both movements: the speaker calls from קרא (qara, to call) and asks for favor from חנן (ḥanan, to show favor). It adds that distress gives way to being enlarged, narrowness opening into room.
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