What Does Psalm 69:15 Mean?
Let not the current of waters sweep me, nor the depth swallow me, nor the pit shut its mouth upon me.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.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” 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 would sweep over us, the torrent would cross over our living soul.And the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men who belonged to Korah, and all their gathered goods.And the LORD appointed 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 its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men who belonged to Korah, and all their gathered 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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