Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Psalms 4:2 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 2. 2O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Psalm 4:2: The line “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my…” reaches Selah inside “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest,” marking an ancient pause of uncertain performance.
Read It With
- Psalms 4:1–8
Read Psalms 4:2 with 4:1–8. Read alone, “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory…” could lose the individual voice, the parallel line or movement it develops, and the psalm's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Within Psalms 4:1–8, the individual voice carries the movement “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest” as part of “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest.” Its lament-confidence form and poetic parallelism hold the petitions, images, memories, or praise together before any single line is applied.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Psalms 4:1–8 opens Psalm 4 with “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in…” and establishes the individual voice and “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest” movement before later lines develop or answer it. Within that relationship, Psalm 4:2 carries “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?…” into the liturgical marker Selah, creating a pause whose exact performance remains uncertain.
What Remains True
Because this verse serves “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest,” its enduring claim is proportionate: People in households and communities bear dignity beyond productivity, fertility, gender role, status, or usefulness; gifts of relationship never make another person property. Psalm 4:2 carries “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?…” into the liturgical marker Selah, creating a pause whose exact performance remains uncertain. The local movement is “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest.” The unit's reviewed limit is: Confidence in peaceful sleep is prayerful trust, not a guarantee that faithful people will never face insomnia, danger, or trauma.
How It Can Shape Life
- Psalm 4:2 contributes to “An evening appeal for hearing and secure rest” in a specific way: Psalm 4:2 carries “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?…” into the liturgical marker Selah, creating a pause whose exact performance remains uncertain. Respond by doing this: Let “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory…” support a household practice of safety, listening, shared responsibility, and care without shaming childlessness, singleness, disability, or a nontraditional circumstance.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Psalms 4:1–8 — An evening appeal for hearing and secure restSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Psalms 4:1–8, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Psalms
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ps.xml, OSIS 4:1–8
Open the fixed Hebrew Psalms file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Notes: Psalms 1-150
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, current official online edition
Supports: Verse-level controls for poetic syntax, imagery, older KJV language, textual issues, headings, and alternatives in Psalms 4:1–8.
Exact location: Official NET Bible Psalm 4 HTML, translator, textual, and study notes attached to Psalms 4:1–8
Open the official NET Psalms notes ↗