What Does Psalm 86:13 Mean?
For your faithful love is great over me, and you snatch my living soul from the lowest pit.
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
For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.THE KEY
The “soul” brought out is your whole living self, so this deliverance reaches into the deepest place that seems to claim your life.
THE MEANING
Faithful love is great toward you, and deliverance reaches your living self from the lowest depth. The verse speaks of rescue as something already done and still present in what it reveals about your life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lowest depth has the final claim on your life.
THE ROOT
וְהִצַּלְתָּ
wehitzalta
GROWS FROM
נצל
natsal
To take away, snatch free, or rescue.
“snatch” in this verse is wehitzalta. The verb carries the sense of being drawn out of danger, so the rescue reaches into the very place named in the verse. It describes more than comfort while remaining there: the living self is brought out.
ALSO GROWS
natsal: To rescue or take away.
נָצַל
This root meaning gives the verse’s deliverance the force of removal from danger.
nitzal: To be rescued or escape.
נִצַּל
The root can describe the person who is brought out, as well as the act of rescue.
חַסְדְּךָ
chasdecha
GROWS FROM
חסד
chesed
Faithful love, loyal kindness.
The verse’s “mercy” carries the sense of faithful love, joining greatness with enduring care toward you. A related word describes someone marked by that loyalty, so the verse presents rescue within a bond of faithful love.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love or loyal kindness.
חֶסֶד
This is the same word family that gives “mercy” its relational depth in the verse.
chasid: A faithful or loyal one.
חָסִיד
This related form describes a person characterized by the same quality of faithful love.
נַפְשִׁי
nafshi
GROWS FROM
נפש
nefesh
The living self, a life or person.
“my living soul” in this verse is nafshi. The word translated “soul” can name the whole living self, not only an inward part of a person. A related form can describe being refreshed, opening the word toward life restored and sustained.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: A living soul, life, or person.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the singular form behind “my soul,” keeping the verse’s rescue grounded in the speaker’s living self.
vayinnafash: And was refreshed or rested.
וַיִּנָּפַשׁ
This related form extends the root’s reach from living self toward restored vitality.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance reaches the living person even in the depths associated with death.
O LORD, you brought up my living soul from Sheol. You kept me alive from those who go down into the pit.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
For you do not leave my living soul to Sheol; you do not give your faithful one to see the pit.Both verses use the same word for the living self beside the same place of the dead. Psalm 16:10 says that self is not left there; Psalm 86:13 names its deliverance from the depth.
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