What Does Psalm 18:4 Mean in the King James?
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word rendered “sorrows” also means “cords” and “labor pangs,” so death’s distress is pictured as both pain and something tightening around the speaker.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now: death’s threat can feel like cords closing in, while destructive people surge like floodwaters. It names the resulting fear plainly, without diminishing its force.
THE ROOT
חבלי
ḥevlē
GROWS FROM
חבל
ḥ-b-l
To bind or wind tightly; the word family also names cords and pangs.
“sorrows” in this verse is ḥevlē. Here חבלי מות (ḥevlē māvet, “cords or pangs of death”) carries both pain and restraint. The same word family names labor pangs, joining anguish with the body’s travail.
ALSO GROWS
ḥevel: A cord, rope, or binding line.
חֶבֶל
This is the concrete image inside “sorrows of death”: the distress can be heard as cords closing around the speaker.
ḥābal: To bind or wind tightly.
חָבַל
This verb names the tightening carried by the cord image, giving the surrounding pain the feel of restraint.
ḥavalim: Pangs or travail; the word family can also mean cords.
חֲבָלִים
The same word family speaks of bodily travail, so the distress resembles painful passage as well as external restraint.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures death’s threat as binding or engulfing forces, and speaks of its hold as something that can be loosed.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.THE THREAD
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.Psalm 116:3 repeats אֲפָפוּנִי חֶבְלֵי־מָוֶת (ʾăfāfûnî ḥevlē-māvet, “cords of death surrounded me”), echoing the same words and binding image. The speaker’s next words, “I found trouble and sorrow,” give that encircling experience a second voice.
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