The Drowning Voice Becomes a Song for Zion

The heading sets the psalm “upon Shoshannim”, to the tune or instrument called lilies, as with Psalm 45. Nephesh, “soul”, also means throat or neck, so the waters have reached the neck, where one more rise means drowning; Jonah 2:5 uses the same words from inside the sea.

“Deep mire” is yeven metsulah, the slime of the deep, and the only other place yeven occurs is 40:2, “out of the miry clay”. “Floods” is shibbolet, a flowing stream, the same word the Gileadites made the Ephraimites pronounce at the fords of the Jordan in Judges 12:6.

“Dried” is nichar, from a verb meaning to be scorched, used of bones burning with fever in Job 30:30. Eyes that “fail” are eyes worn out with straining for a rescuer who does not come, the picture of Lamentations 4:17, “our eyes as yet failed for our vain help”.

Jesus quotes “They hated me without a cause” in John 15:25 as written in their law; the words stand here and in 35:19. “More than the hairs of mine head” is how 40:12 counts the psalmist’s own iniquities; here the same count is of enemies. “Wrongfully” is sheqer, falsely: they are enemies on the strength of a lie.

“Foolishness” is ivvelet, the word Proverbs uses for moral folly rather than simple ignorance. “Sins” here is ashmot, guilt, from the same root as asham, the guilt offering of Leviticus 5, a debt that had to be paid; set beside verse 4, where he is made to repay what he never took, the word has an edge.

Two full titles frame the verse, “Lord GOD of hosts” and “God of Israel”: the one who commands armies and the one bound by covenant to a people. “Confounded” is kalam, to be humiliated in public, the shame of being seen to have trusted in vain.

Jeremiah says almost the same in his own complaint: “know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke” (Jeremiah 15:15). A covered face was the sign of mourning and disgrace, as when David and his men climbed the Mount of Olives with their heads covered, fleeing Absalom (2 Samuel 15:30).

“Alien” is nokhri, the ordinary word for a foreigner from another country. “My mother’s children” is sharper than “brethren”: in a household with several wives, those born of the same mother were the closest kin of all, and even they treat him as an outsider.

“Zeal” is qin’ah, the same word as jealousy, the burning possessiveness of a husband for his wife and of God for his people (Exodus 20:5). “Hath eaten me up” is akhal, the verb used for fire consuming, so the picture is of a man burned through by his devotion to God’s house.

The Hebrew is compressed, “I wept, my soul in fasting”; the King James supplies “chastened”. Fasting in Israel was called afflicting the soul (Leviticus 16:29), and mourners wept and fasted together, as David and his men did for Saul and Jonathan until evening (2 Samuel 1:12).

Sackcloth was sak, coarse cloth woven from goat hair, worn next to the skin in grief or repentance; the English word sack descends from it. “Proverb” is mashal, here a byword, a name used as a taunt, the fate Deuteronomy 28:37 threatens on a disobedient Israel.

Those who “sit in the gate” are the elders and men of standing, who heard cases and did business at the city entrance, as Boaz does in Ruth 4:1–2. At the other end of the town are the drinkers, and “song” is neginah, a song set to strings: he is mocked in the council and in the tavern.

“Acceptable time” is et ratson, a time of favour, and Isaiah 49:8 uses the same phrase, “In an acceptable time have I heard thee”. “The truth of thy salvation” is emet, firmness or reliability: a rescue that can bear weight when leaned on. “Multitude” measures the mercy by its quantity.

“Mire” here is tit, and “sink” is tava, the two words of Jeremiah 38:6, “so Jeremiah sunk in the mire”, when he was let down into a cistern with no water in it. The prayer takes the images of verse 2 and turns each one into a request.

“Pit” is be’er, a well or cistern, and “shut” is atar, found only here in this sense: the stone rolled across a well’s mouth. A covered cistern was a prison with no way out, like the empty pit Joseph’s brothers threw him into (Genesis 37:24).

“Tender mercies” is rachamim, from rechem, the womb: the feeling of a mother for the child she bore. It is paired with “multitude”, the word already used of mercy in verse 13, so the plea twice asks God to act according to the size of his compassion.

“Thy servant” is eved, the title David uses of himself before God throughout his prayer in 2 Samuel 7. A hidden face means withdrawn favour, the threat of Deuteronomy 31:17: “I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured.” The next psalm opens on the same urgency, “Make haste”.

“Redeem” is ga’al, the duty of the next of kin, who bought back a relative’s land or freedom, as Boaz did for Naomi and Ruth (Ruth 4:4–6). The man disowned by his own brothers in verse 8 asks God to act as his kinsman. “Deliver” is padah, to ransom by payment.

Three words for disgrace are stacked together: cherpah, reproach, the scorn thrown at a person; boshet, shame, the feeling of it; and kelimmah, dishonour, the public humiliation. “All before thee” is literally “in front of thee”, every enemy standing in God’s full view, as in a court.

“Full of heaviness” is a verb meaning to be sick past cure, the word Jeremiah uses of his “wound incurable” (Jeremiah 15:18). The Book of Lamentations turns the second half into a refrain over Jerusalem, “she hath none to comfort her”, repeated five times in its first chapter.

“Vinegar” is chomets, wine gone sour, the cheap drink of field hands, into which Boaz invites Ruth to dip her bread (Ruth 2:14). Offered in place of water to a man whose throat is already parched (verse 3), it mocks the thirst it pretends to meet. “Gall” is rosh, a bitter plant, paired with wormwood in Deuteronomy 29:18.

“That which should have been for their welfare” is one Hebrew word, lishlomim, from shalom; some hear in it the shelamim, the peace offerings eaten at a sacred meal, others “for their friends”. “Snare” is pach, a bird-net, and “trap” is moqesh, the baited trigger that springs it.

The loins, the hips and lower back, were the seat of a man’s strength, which is why a traveller girded them; to have them shake is to be unable to stand or work. The Greek translation read “bow down their back always”, and that is the form Romans 11:10 quotes.

“Indignation” is za’am, foaming, spoken rage, and “wrathful anger” is literally “the burning of thy nostrils”, anger pictured as a hot, flared face. “Take hold” is nasag, to overtake, the verb for pursuers catching up, as Pharaoh’s army “overtook them encamping by the sea” (Exodus 14:9).

“Habitation” is tirah, an encampment ringed with a stone wall, the word used of the settlements of Ishmael’s twelve princes in Genesis 25:16, “by their castles”. A camp with no one in its tents is a clan that has died out or been driven off.

“Talk to the grief” is literally “recount the pain”: they tell over his wounds as gossip, saphar being the verb for telling a tale. The Greek translators read “they added to the pain”, a slightly different Hebrew word, which fits the “add” of the next verse.

“Add” is natan, give: “give iniquity upon their iniquity”, let one guilt be charged on top of another with no release. To “come into thy righteousness” is to be counted in the right when God judges, the verdict the speaker hopes for himself; the plea is that his accusers never receive it.

“Blotted out” is machah, to wipe away writing, the verb Moses uses when he offers himself: “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Exodus 32:32). Isaiah 4:3 speaks of those “written among the living in Jerusalem”, a register like a city’s roll of citizens.

“Poor” is ani, afflicted, and “sorrowful” is ko’ev, in pain. “Set me up on high” is sagav, to place out of reach, the verb behind misgav, the “high tower” and “refuge” of 9:9 and 18:2: the man sinking in mud asks to be put on a height no enemy can climb.

To “magnify” is to make great, not in size but in acclaim, telling others how great God is. “Thanksgiving” is todah, which also names the thank offering of Leviticus 7:12, and the next verse sets this spoken offering against the animal one.

“That hath horns and hoofs” is a rhyming pair of participles in Hebrew, maqrin maphris, a bull old enough to have grown both, the costliest offering a farmer could bring; the parted hoof also marked it clean under Leviticus 11:3. The comparison is the one made in 50:13–14 and 51:16–17.

The verse turns to address the seekers directly, “your heart shall live”, the same promise that closes 22:26, “your heart shall live for ever”. “The humble” are anavim, the lowly, the group that “shall inherit the earth” in 37:11.

“The poor” here is evyonim, the needy, a third word for want after ani in verse 29 and anavim in verse 32. “His prisoners” are asirav, those bound, and the possessive matters: they belong to him, not strays that nobody owns.

“Every thing that moveth” is romes, the creeping, swarming life of Genesis 1:21, “every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly”. The seas that nearly drowned the speaker are now full of creatures called on to praise.

“Build” can mean rebuild, as in Isaiah 44:26, where God says of Judah’s cities, “Ye shall be built”. “Have it in possession” is yarash, the verb for taking possession of Canaan throughout Deuteronomy, so the promise of the land is renewed in miniature.

“Inherit” is nachal, to receive as an allotted share, land passed from parents to children. The man estranged from his mother’s sons in verse 8 ends by picturing a family line settled in the land, and “love his name” is the one qualification given for living there.