Psalms 88:17

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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הִקִּ֖יפוּ

nâqaph

H5362

“to strike”

Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural

Appears 19× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Leviticus 19:27

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1415 , 1416

to strike, strike off - (Piel) to strike off skin - to go around, compass, round - (Qal) to go around - (Hiphil) - to go around, surround, encompass, enclose - to make the round, complete the circuit - to make round, round off

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הִקִּ֖יפוּ to strike H5362 — appearing just 19 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הִקִּ֖יפוּ to strike H5362 occurs in 19 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

סַבּ֣וּנִי Qal · Perfect
הִקִּ֖יפוּ Hiphil · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 12 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 12 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Psalms 88:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Psalms 22:16 For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
Psalms 69:1–2 Save me, God, For the waters have come up to my neck!
Psalms 116:3 The cords of death surrounded me, The pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.
Job 16:12–13 I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.
Job 30:14–15 As through a wide breach they come, In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in.
Psalms 42:7 Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
Psalms 118:10–12 All the nations surrounded me, But in the name of Yahweh, I cut them off.
Psalms 124:4 Then the waters would have overwhelmed us, The stream would have gone over our soul;

Lamentations 3:5–7 He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Matthew 27:39–44 Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads,

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

You’re reading Greek Psalm 87 (Hebrew Psalm 88). The Septuagint counts the superscription, so verse numbers can differ from the Hebrew — chapter-level alignment, not verse-by-verse. Numbering follows Rahlfs.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Psalms 88:17 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

סַבּ֣וּנִי כַ֭מַּיִם כָּל הַיּ֑וֹם הִקִּ֖יפוּ עָלַ֣י יָֽחַד

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Greek Psalm 87:17 Septuagint · lemma form

ἐπί ἐγώ διαἔρχομαι ὁ ὀργή σύ καί ὁ φοβερισμός σύ ἐκταράσσω ἐγώ

They compassed me like water; all the day they beset me together.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Psalms 88:17 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Commentary source

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Psa 88:17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.

Ver. 17. They compassed me about] As the water compasseth the earth like a girdle.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. A. Alexander on Psalms

Joseph Addison Alexander

18. (Psa 88:17) They have surrounded me like waters all the day; they have encompassed me at once (or all together). The figure of overwhelming waves is still continued. The subject of the verbs can only be the indignations and the terrors of Psa 88:16.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 17. They came round about me daily like water] Besides his spiritual conflicts, he had many enemies to grapple with. The waves of God's displeasure broke over him, and his enemies came around him like water, increasing more and more, rising higher and higher, till he was at last on the point of being submerged in the flood.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) They—i.e., the terrors or horrors, now likened to a flood, a figure of frequent occurrence. (See Psa_18:16, &c.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

17. They have surrounded me like water all the day long;

They have encompassed me about together.

The figure of Psa_88:16 is continued. The flood of calamity threatens to engulf him, and there is none (Psa_88:18) to stretch out a helping hand to the drowning man.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

They came round about me daily like water,.... That is, the terrors of the Lord, the sorrows of death and hell, Psa 18:4, this was the Messiah's case, when it was with him as is expressed Psa 69:1,

they compassed me about together; as waters coming from many places, from all quarters, meet together, and together surround a person or place in such circumstances was Christ, when the bulls of Bashan beset him around, and the assembly of the wicked enclosed him, and innumerable evils encompassed him about, Psa 22:12.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They came round about me daily like water - Margin, “as in” Hebrew, all the day. That is, his troubles seemed to be like the waves of the sea cohnstantly breaking on the shore. See Psa 42:7.

They compassed me about together - My troubles did not come singly, so that I could meet them one at a time, but they seemed to have banded themselves together; they all came upon me at once.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

As the waters of the sea encompass him which is in the midst and bottom of it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Treasury of David

Charles H. Spurgeon

Ver. 17. They came round about me daily like water. My troubles, and thy chastisement poured in upon me, penetrating everywhere, and drowning all. Such is the permeating and pervading power of spiritual distress, there is no shutting it out; it soaks into the soul like the dew into Gideon's fleece; it sucks the spirit down as the quicksand swallows the ship; it overwhelms it as the deluge submerged the green earth.

They compassed me about together. Griefs hemmed him in. He was like the deer in the hunt, when the dogs are all around and at his throat. Poor soul! and yet he was a man greatly beloved of heaven!

Ver. 17. Like water; not merely because it drowns, but because it searches every crevice, goes to the very bottom, and makes its way on all sides when once it obtains an entrance, thus fitly denoting the penetrating force of temptation and trouble. Hugo Cardinalis.

Psalms 88:18*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

17. They came round… like water—The figure again changes. The psalmist is enclosed in a flood, and whelmed, as in Psa_88:6-7

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

They came round about me daily like water. God"s terrors encompass the psalmist "daily," or "all day long," like water; i.e. like an overwhelming flood (compare the first clause of ver. 16). They compassed me about together; or, "they compass me about in a mass."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Water - As the waters of the sea encompass him who is in the midst of it.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

They surround me like water all the day long

The writer compares God's "angry actions" and "terrifying deeds" to a flood of water. AT: "All day long they threaten to destroy me like a flood" (See: Simile)

They

The word "They" refers to God's "angry actions" and "terrifying deeds" from the previous verse.

they have all encircled me

The writer speaks of God's "angry actions" and "terrifying deeds" as if they were enemies who were trying to capture and kill him. AT: "they have surrounded me like enemy soldiers" (See: Metaphor)

every friend and acquaintance

"every person I love and know"

My only acquaintance is the darkness

This speaks about darkness as if it were a person that could be friends with someone else. The writer is emphasizing that he feels completely alone. AT: "Everywhere I go it is dark" (See: Personification)

translationWords

darkness

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Psalms, in the Wisdom, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nâqaph (“to strike”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word nâqaph carries the sense “to strike.” How does it shape the verse?
Leviticus 19:27 shares the word «to strike» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «סַבּ֣וּנִי» is Qal Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and J. A. Alexander on Psalms read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 15 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.