What Does Psalm 69:15 Mean in the King James?
Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
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 verse traces danger from being swept away to being swallowed and finally sealed inside, until even the pit has a mouth.
THE MEANING
This prayer gives words to the moment you feel pressure gathering around you: the flood can sweep, the deep can swallow, and the pit can close over the speaker. Its repeated “let not” names a real danger without claiming that the danger has already passed.
THE ROOT
תִּבְלָעֵנִי
tivlaʿeni
GROWS FROM
בלע
Swallow, gulp down, devour.
“swallow me up” in this verse is tivlaʿeni. The verse stacks three images of engulfment: the current sweeps, the deep swallows, and the pit closes its mouth. The root בלע makes the middle image bodily and consuming; the danger is not simply difficulty, but being taken out of reach.
ALSO GROWS
livloʿa: To swallow; the great fish is appointed to swallow Jonah.
לִבְלֹעַ
The same root pictures a creature taking a person into its body, echoing the deep that threatens to consume the speaker here.
vattivlaʿ: The earth swallowed them.
וַתִּבְלַע
The earth becomes a mouth that consumes people, linking this verse’s closing pit with the same image of engulfment.
THE PATTERN
Engulfment is pictured as an active force that crosses over or consumes a person, whether the force is water, earth, or a creature.
Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul:And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.THE THREAD
And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.Numbers uses the same Hebrew root בלע, “swallow,” for the earth consuming people. Here the pit closes its mouth; there, the ground opens one, both give the threat a mouth that can take a person in.
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