What Does Psalm 69:14 Mean in the King James?
Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
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 same Hebrew rescue-root appears twice, binding sinking ground, hostile people, and deep water into one condition: being held where you cannot free yourself.
THE MEANING
This prayer gives words to the moment when circumstances feel like ground that will not hold and other people are actively against you. It names both threats plainly, and its repeated request makes room for rescue while the mire and opposition are still present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being trapped or hated means there is no way out; it voices a plea for rescue from within the danger.
THE ROOT
הַצִּילֵנִי
hatzileni
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
Rescue, take away, or strip free.
“Deliver; be delivered” in this verse is hatzileni. The root נצל (natsal, “rescue”) appears first as a direct plea, “rescue me”, and then as “let me be rescued.” Its range also includes taking something away and stripping it from another’s hold, so deliverance here is an extraction from what has seized the person.
ALSO GROWS
vayyatsel: God took away Jacob’s livestock from his father-in-law.
וַיַּצֵּל
The rescue-root can describe removing something from another’s possession, giving “deliver me” the concrete sense of separation from a grip.
venitzaltem: The people take goods from Egypt.
וְנִצַּלְתֶּם
The same root can describe stripping away what is held, illuminating deliverance as being taken out from under another’s power.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays deliverance as meeting a person in danger and keeping that danger from swallowing them.
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.THE THREAD
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.The same Hebrew root נצל (natsal, “deliver”) appears in “He delivered me,” and the verse names the same threat: people who hate the speaker. Psalm 69 brings that rescue-root together with the deep waters, showing the plea reaching both human opposition and engulfing danger.
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