What Does Psalm 88:2 Mean?
Let my prayer come before your face. Incline your ear to my ringing cry.
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
Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;THE KEY
The verse’s “cry” is a ringing voice that can also be song, and God’s ear is asked to stretch toward it.
THE MEANING
You ask for your prayer to come before God and for God’s ear to turn toward your cry. The word translated “cry” also names a ringing shout or song, while “incline” pictures an ear stretching toward what is voiced. The verse gives your distress a voice before the presence it addresses.
THE ROOT
רִנָּה
rinnah
GROWS FROM
רנן
ranan
Ring out, cry aloud, or sing aloud.
The word for your “cry” is רִנָּה (rinnah, a ringing cry), a word that also names song or a shout. Its root רנן (ranan, to ring out or cry aloud) joins the voice of need to the voice that sings, so “cry” holds more than distress alone.
ALSO GROWS
ranan: To sing aloud or shout.
רָנַן
The verb shows a voice ringing outward, whether in grief or joy.
rinnah: A ringing cry, shout, or song.
רִנָּה
This noun holds vocal appeal and song in the same word-family.
תְּפִלָּה
tefillah
GROWS FROM
פלל
palal
Intervene, interpose, or judge.
The prayer-word belongs to פלל (palal, to interpose or judge), a family that includes praying and judges. Prayer appears as a matter brought into someone’s hearing, not speech emptied into nowhere.
ALSO GROWS
hitpallel: To pray or intercede.
הִתְפַּלֵּל
The related verb keeps the sense of bringing a matter forward in prayer.
pelilim: Judges or arbiters.
פְּלִילִים
This branch shows the root’s connection to matters presented for another to consider.
הַטֵּה
hatteh
GROWS FROM
נטה
natah
Stretch out, extend, or turn aside.
“incline” in this verse is hatteh. The verse does not picture the ear as merely receiving sound; it asks the ear to stretch toward the cry. This root makes listening an active turning of attention.
ALSO GROWS
natah: To stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
The root verb makes the reaching action beneath “incline” visible.
matteh: A staff or rod; also a tribe.
מַטֶּה
The staff is an extended form, while the word’s wider branch sense carries the image of extension.
THE PATTERN
A cry of need is voiced toward God as something that can arrive and be heard.
A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD. Hear and respond to my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come to you.The eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their cry.Likewise the breath also takes hold alongside our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the breath itself approaches on our behalf with groans too deep for speech.THE THREAD
A Prayer of David. Hear and respond to alignment, O LORD. Attend to my ringing cry, and give ear to my prayer, which does not come from lips of deceit.Psalm 17:1 pairs רִנָּה (rinnah, “ringing cry”) with תְּפִלָּה (tefillah, “prayer”), the same two word-families present here. The pairing makes cry and prayer two expressions of one appeal: a voiced need brought before God.
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