Psalms 88:3

Psa 88:3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

Ver. 3. For my soul is full of trouble] Hypotyposis hominis luctuosissime affecti. Here we have the lively picture of a man under bitter affliction. Extraordinary wise he was, and extraordinary troubles he had. None out of hell suffer more than God’s dearest children. This good man felt himself in the suburbs of hell, as it were.

And my life draweth nigh unto the grave] Or, unto hell. The same word signifieth both, because death is hell’s harbinger, and would be so to the elect, but for Christ.

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.

Psa_88:3

For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

Heman: a child of light walking in darkness

(with 1Ch_25:5):--A seer is just a man who sees. Other men also have eyes indeed, but, then, they do not see with their eyes as a seer sees. Now, Heman was a seer. Heman saw constantly a sight that to most men even in Israel was absolutely invisible. Heman saw, and saw nothing else, but his own soul.

1. My soul is full of troubles, says this great seer, speaking about himself. What led Heman to speak and to publish abroad this most melancholy of all the psalms we are not told. It was not Hemans actual sin, like Davids. Neither was this terrible trouble, like Davids, among his large family of sons and daughters. Heman had brought up his sons and daughters more successfully than David had done. For all Hemans children assisted their father in sacred song in the house of the Lord. At the same time Heman cannot take a happy fathers full joy cut of his talented and dutiful children because of the overwhelming trouble of his own soul. It is a terrible baptism into the matters of God to have a soul from his youth up so full of inconsolable troubles as that.

2. My soul is full of troubles, says Heman, till I am driven distracted. Every day we hear of men and women being driven distracted through love, and through fear, and through poverty, and through pain, and sometimes through ever-joy, and sometimes, it is said, through religion. It was thought by some that the Apostle Paul was quite distracted in his day through his too much thought and occupation about Divine things. But be not too much cast down. Comfort My people. Say to them, and assure them, that this is the beginning in them of the wisdom, and the truth, and the love, and the salvation of their God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

3. Now, with all that, this is not to be wondered at that Heman says next (Psa_88:18). Anything else but this is not to be expected from Heman. Heman makes it an additional complaint, but it is a simple and a necessary consequence of his troubled and distracted soul. Friends and lovers, the oldest, and the warmest, and the bests--they all have their several limits. Most men are made with little heart themselves, and they are not at home where there is much heart, and much exercise of heart. They flee in a fright from the heights and the depths of the high and deep heart. It needs a friend that sticketh closer than a brother to keep true to a man who has much heart, and who sees and feels with all his heart. Heman, besides being the Kings seer, was also an eminent type of Christ, both in the distracting troubles of his soul, and in the fewness and in the infidelity of his friends.

4. Now, all that, bad as it is, would have been easily borne had it been a sudden stroke and then for ever over. Had it been a great temptation, a great fall, a great repentance, a great forgiveness, and then the light of Gods countenance brighter than ever all Hemans after days. But Hemans yoke from his youth up has been of that terrible kind that it has eaten into his soul deeper and deeper with every advancing year. Had Heman lived after Pauls day he would have described himself in Pauls way. He would have said that the two-edged sword had become every year more and more spiritual, till it entered more and more deep every year into his soul.

5. There are these four uses out of all that.

(1) The first is to justify such a proceeding as to take a text like this for a Communion evening. What could be more comely in a worthy communicant, who has been stayed with flagons and comforted with apples all day than to say to the outcasts of Israel ere this day closes (Isa_43:1; Isa_43:25).

(2) And then for the use of all Heman-like, all distracted communicants--do not despair. Do not give way to distraction.

(3) Are you quite sure that this deep darkness of yours is quite unaccountable to you short of Gods sovereignty--short of His deep, hidden, Divine will? I doubt it, and I would have you doubt it. I would have you make sure that there is no other possible explanation of this darkness of His face. All the chances are that it is not Gods ways that are so distractingly dark, but your own.

(4) There is a singular use in Heman for ministers. When God is to make a very sinful man into a very able, and skilful, and experimental minister, He sends that man to the same school to which He sent Heman. Now, who can tell what God has laid up for you to do for Him and for mens souls when you are out of your probationer-ship of trouble and distraction, and are promoted to be a comforter of Gods troubled and distracted saints? He may have a second David, and far more, to comfort and to sanctify in the generation to come; and you may be ordained to be the Kings seer in the matters of God. Who can tell? Only, be you ready, for the stone that is fit for the wall is not left to lie in the ditch. (A. Whyte, D. D.)

Hemans elegy

Two Hemans attained eminence in Israel. One was a singer, the other was a sage (1Ch_15:16-22; 1Ch_25:5; 1Ki_4:31). The two facts which filled Hemans soul with trouble were by no means unusual facts. They were--

1. The growing infirmities, the frailties and Sicknesses, of age (verse7); and--

2. The loss of friends, or the supposed alienation of friends, which often accompanies age, especially when it is sick and weary of the world (Psa_88:8-18). These are common facts, but they are none the more welcome for being common when they come home to us personally. Our sage broods over them, resents them, as we all do at times, and laments his feebleness and isolation. Nay, as he traces all the facts and events of human life to the hand of God, he charges God with all the responsibility, all the pains and bitterness of them, and concludes that even this great Friend has forgotten him; or has turned against him. With all his wisdom he has been, as he confesses (Psa_88:5). Of a sceptical and misgiving temperament from his youth up. Two ways in which we may view the contents of the psalm--either making the best of them, or making the worst of them, in so far at least as they bear on the character and aim of the author of the psalm. We are not bound to adopt Hemans views, or even to sympathize with them. Much in the Bible was written for our warning and admonition. If we bring a generous spirit to the interpretation of this song, or elegy, we may recall the familiar maxim: In much wisdom is much sorrow. A thoughtful mind is a pensive mind. The more a man sees of human life, the more he feels how much there is in it which is wrong, foolish, base, disappointing, if not hopelessly corrupt and bad. So we shall begin to make excuse for Heman. Let us remember also that in much sorrow there is much discipline, and discipline by which a wise man should profit. Do you, do all men, resent the wrongs of time? Remember that resentment, then, as well as the wrongs which provoke it; and consider what a happy omen lies in the fact that men do hate and resent that which is wrong, and both love and demand that which is just and right. Those who decry mere human wisdom are very likely to conclude that Heman the sage was punished for his largeness and freedom of thought, that he was abandoned to the guidance of his own wisdom in order that he might learn how little it could do for him in the greatest emergencies of life, how little, therefore, it was worth. I see no reason to judge him thus harshly. I find much in this psalm to lead us to a more kindly judgment. But, doubtless, there are many among us to whom such a description would apply. (Samuel Cox, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. (Psa 88:3) For sated with evils is my soul, and my life to the grave draws near. Evils, sufferings, distresses. As life is plural in Hebrew, it can be construed regularly with the plural verb; but as this is properly a causative, it may also be construed with evils, or with men indefinitely, they have brought my life near to the grave. The first construction is favoured by the analogy of Psa 107:18. The grave, sheol, the state of the dead. See above, on Psa 6:5.

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

3 For my soul is filled with troubles. These words contain the excuse which the prophet pleads for the excess of his grief. They imply that his continued crying did not proceed from softness or effeminacy of spirit, but that from a due consideration of his condition, it would be found that the immense accumulation of miseries with which he was oppressed was such as might justly extort from him these lamentations. Nor does he speak of one kind of calamity only; but of calamities so heaped one upon another that his heart was filled with sorrow, till it could contain no more. He next particularly affirms that his life was not far from the grave. This idea he pursues and expresses in terms more significant in the following verse, where he complains that he was, as it were, dead. Although he breathed still among the living, yet the many deaths with which he was threatened on all sides were to him so many graves by which he expected to be swallowed up in a moment. And he seems to use the word גבר, geber, which is derived from גבר, gabar, he prevailed, or was strong, in preference to the word which simply signifies man, — the more emphatically to show that his distresses were so great and crushing as to have been sufficient to bring down the strongest man.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(3) Grave.—Sheôl. Here, as in Psa_6:4-5; Psa_33:19; Isa_38:10-11, there comes into prominence the thought that death severs the covenant relation with God, and so presents an irresistible reason why prayer should be heard now before it is too late.

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

3. For &c.] He pleads the urgency of his need as the ground for a hearing.

draweth nigh &c.] Hath drawn nigh unto Sheol, the gloomy nether world which is the abode of the departed. Cp. Psa_6:5; Psa_107:18.

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.

For my soul is full of troubles,.... Or "satiated or glutted" (e) with them, as a stomach full of meat that can receive no more, to which the allusion is; having been fed with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, so that he had his fill of trouble: every man is full of trouble, of one kind or another, Job 14:1 especially the saint, who besides his outward troubles has inward ones, arising from indwelling sin, the temptations of Satan, and divine desertions, which was now the case of the psalmist: this may be truly applied to Christ, who himself said, when in the garden, "my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death", Mat 26:38, he was a man of sorrows all his days, but especially at that time, and when upon the cross, forsaken by his Father, and sustaining his wrath: "his soul" was then "filled with evil things" (f), as the words may be rendered:

innumerable evils compassed him about, Psa 40:12, the sins of his people, those evil things, were imputed to him; the iniquity of them all was laid upon him, as was also the evil of punishment for them; and then he found trouble and sorrow enough:

and my life draweth nigh unto the grave: a phrase expressive of a person's being just ready to die, Job 33:22 as the psalmist now thought he was, Psa 88:5, it is in the plural number "my lives" (g); and so may not only denote the danger he was in of his natural life, but of his spiritual and eternal life, which he might fear, being in darkness and desertion, would be lost, though they could not; yea, that he was near to "hell" itself, for so the word (h) may be rendered; for when the presence of God is withdrawn, and wrath let into the conscience, a person in his own apprehension seems to be in hell as it were, or near it; see Jon 2:2. This was true of Christ, when he was sorrowful unto death, and was brought to the dust of it, and under divine dereliction, and a sense of the wrath of God, as the surety of his people.

(e) "saturata", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "satiata", Tigurine version. (f) "in malis", Pagninus, Montanus; "malis", Junius & Tremellius, &c. (g) "vitae meae", Montanus, Michaelis. (h) "ad orcum", Cocceius; "inferno", Gejerus; "ad infernum", Michaelis; so Ainsworth.

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

For my soul is full of troubles - I am full of trouble. The word rendered as “full” means properly to satiate as with food; that is, when as much had been taken as could be. So he says here, that this trouble was as great as he could bear; he could sustain no more. He had reached the utmost point of endurance; he had no power to bear anymore.

And my life draweth nigh unto the grave - Hebrew, to Sheol. Compare the notes at Isa 14:9; notes at Job 10:21-22. It may mean here either the grave, or the abode of the dead. He was about to die. Unless he found relief he must go down to the abodes of the dead. The Hebrew word rendered life is in the plural number, as in Gen 2:7; Gen 3:14, Gen 3:17; Gen 6:17; Gen 7:15; et al. Why the plural was used as applicable to life cannot now be known with certainty. It may have been to accord with the fact that man has two kinds of life; the animal life - or life in common with the inferior creation; and intellectual, or higher life - the life of the soul. Compare the notes at 1Th 5:23. The meaning here is, that he was about to die; or that his life or lives approached that state when the grave closes over us; the extinction of the mere animal life; and the separation of the soul - the immortal part - from the body.

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

My soul, properly so called; for that he was under great troubles of mind from a sense of God’s wrath and departure from him, is evident from Psa 88:14-16.

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

Ver. 3. For my soul is full of troubles. I am satiated and nauseated with them. Like a vessel full to the brim with vinegar, my heart is filled up with adversity till it can hold no more. He had his house full and his hands full of sorrow; but, worse than that, he had his heart full of it. Trouble in the soul is the soul of trouble. A little soul trouble is pitiful; what must it be to be sated with it? And how much worse still to have your prayers return empty when your soul remains full of grief.

And my life draweth nigh unto the grave. He felt as if he must die, indeed he thought himself half dead already. All his life was going, his spiritual life declined, his mental life decayed, his bodily life flickered; he was nearer dead than alive. Some of us can enter into this experience, for many a time have we traversed this valley of death shade, aye and dwelt in it by the month together. Really to die and be with Christ will be a gala day's enjoyment compared with our misery when a worse than physical death has cast its dreadful shadow over us. Death would be welcomed as a relief by those whose depressed spirits make their existence a living death. Are good men ever permitted to suffer thus? Indeed they are; and some of them are even all their life time subject to bondage. O Lord, Be pleased to set free thy prisoners of hope! Let, none of thy mourners imagine that a strange thing has happened unto him, but rather rejoice as he sees the footprints of brethren who have trodden this desert before.

Ver. 3. My soul is full of troubles. The Lord Jesus emptied himself of glory, that he might be full of trouble. His soul, which was free from human sin, was full of human troubles, that we who are full of sin might be free from trouble; his life drew nigh to the terrors of the unseen world, that we might not be its spoil and prey. "Plain Commentary."

Ver. 3. My soul is full of troubles. Hear into what a depth of spiritual distress three worthy servants of God in these later times were plunged and pressed down under the sense of God's anger for sin. Blessed Mistress Brettergh upon her last bed was horribly hemmed in with the sorrows of death; the very grief of hell laid hold upon her soul; a roaring wilderness of woe was within her, as she confessed of herself. She said, her sin had made her a prey to Satan; and wished that she had never been born, or that she had been made any other creature rather than a woman. She cried out many times, woe, woe, woe, etc.; a weak, a woeful, a wretched, a forsaken woman; with tears continually trickling from her eyes. Master Peacock, that man of God, in that his dreadful visitation and desertion, recounting some smaller sins, burst out in these words: "And for these", saith he, "I feel now a hell in my conscience." Upon other occasions he cried out, groaning most pitifully, "Oh me, wretch! Oh mine heart is miserable! Oh, oh, miserable and woeful! The burden of my sin lieth so heavy upon me, I doubt it will break my heart. Oh how woeful and miserable is my state that I am hunted by hell hounds!" When bystanders asked if he would pray, he answered, "I cannot". Suffer us, say they, to pray for you. "Take not", replied he, "the name of God in vain, by praying for a reprobate."

What grievous pangs, what sorrowful torments, what boiling heats of the fire of hell that blessed saint of God, John Glover, felt inwardly in his spirit, saith Foxe, no speech outwardly is able to express. Being young, saith he, I remember I was once or twice with him, whom partly by his talk I perceived, and partly by mine own eyes saw to be so worn and consumed by the space of five years, that neither almost any brooking of meat, quietness of sleep, pleasure of life, yea, and almost no kind of senses was left in him. Upon apprehension of some backsliding, he was so perplexed, that if he had been in the deepest pit of hell, he could almost have despaired no more of his salvation; in which intolerable griefs of mind, saith he, although he neither had, nor could have any joy of his meat, yet was he compelled to eat against his appetite, to the end to defer the time of his damnation so long as he might; thinking with himself, but that he must needs be thrown into hell, the breath being once out of his body. I dare not pass out of this point, lest some child of God should be here discouraged, before I tell you that every one of these three was at length blessedly recovered, and did rise most gloriously out of their several depths of most extreme spiritual misery, before their end.

Hear, therefore, Mistress Brettergh's triumphant songs and ravishments of spirit, after the return of her well beloved: "O Lord Jesus, dost thou pray for me? O blessed and sweet Saviour, how wonderful! How wonderful are thy mercies! Oh thy love is unspeakable, thou hast dealt so graciously with me! O my Lord and my God, blessed be thy name for evermore, which hast showed me the path of life. Thou didst, O Lord, hide thy face from me for a little season, but with everlasting mercy thou hast had compassion on me. And now, blessed Lord, thy comfortable presence is come; yea, Lord, thou hast had respect unto thine handmaid, and art come with fulness of joy, and abundance of consolation. O blessed be thy name, my Lord and my God. O the joys that I feel in my soul! They be wonderful. O Father, how merciful and marvellously gracious art thou unto me! yea, Lord, I feel thy mercy and I am assured of thy love; and so certain am I thereof, as Thou art the God of truth, even so sure do I know myself to be thine, O Lord my God, and this my soul knoweth right well. Blessed be the Lord that hath thus comforted me, and hath brought me now to a place more sweet unto me than the garden of Eden. Oh the joy, the delightsome joy that I feel! O praise the Lord for his mercies, and for this joy which my soul feels full well; praise his name forever more."

Hear with what heavenly calmness and sweet comforts Master Peacock's heart was refreshed and ravished when the storm was over: "Truly, my heart and soul", saith he, (when the tempest was something allayed) "have been far led and deeply troubled with temptations, and stings of conscience, but I thank God they are eased in good measure. Wherefore I desire that I be not branded with the note of a castaway or reprobate. Such questions, oppositions, and all tending thereto, I renounce. Concerning mine inconsiderate speeches in my temptation, I humbly and heartily ask mercy of God for them all." Afterward by little, and little, more light did arise in his heart, and he brake out into such speeches as these: "I do, God be praised, feel such comfort from that, what shall I call it?" "Agony", said one that stood by. "Nay", quoth he, "that is too little; that had I five hundred worlds, I could not make satisfaction for such an issue. Oh, the sea is not more full of water, nor the sun of light, than the Lord of mercy; yea, his mercies are ten thousand times more. What great cause have I to magnify the great goodness of God, that hath humbled such a wretched miscreant, and of so base condition, to an estate so glorious and stately. The Lord hath honoured me with his goodness! I am sure he hath provided a glorious kingdom for me. The joy that I feel in mine heart is incredible." For the third, (namely, John Glover) hear Mr. Foxe: "Though this good servant of God suffered many years so sharp temptations, and strong buffeting of Satan; yet the Lord, who graciously preserved him all the while, not only at last did rid him out of all discomfort, but also framed him thereby to such mortification of life, as the like lightly hath not been seen; in such sort, as he being like one placed in heaven already, and dead in this world both in word and meditation, led a life altogether celestial, abhorring in his mind all profane doings." Robert Bolton (1572-1631), in, "Instructions for a right Comforting afflicted Consciences."

Ver. 3. My life. The Hebrew word rendered life is in the plural number, as in Ge 2:7 3:14, 17 6:17 7:15 et al. Why the plural was used as applicable to life cannot now be known with certainty. It may have been to accord with the fact, that man has two kinds of life; the animal life, or life in common with the inferior creation; and intellectual, or higher life, the life of the soul. The meaning here is, that he was about to die; or that his life or lives approached that state when the grave closes over us; the extinction of the mere animal life; and the separation of the soulthe immortal partfrom the body. Albert Barnes.

Ver. 3. The grave. The word which is rendered "hell" in the Prayer Book translation, and "the grave" in the Bible version, and which is usually translated either as hell or the grave, is in the Hebrew lav and in the Greek "Hades." "Hades" signifies "the unseen world." The word "Sheol" is literally "the Devouring, or the Insatiable." (Compare Hab 2:5) "who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied"; and also (Pr 3:15-16.) "Sheol" seems to have presented itself to the thoughts of the ancient Hebrews as a gloomy, silent, inevitable, and mysterious abode, situated within the earth, whither the souls of the departed were compelled to repair and to dwell, upon their being separated from the body. (Isa 14:9-20). They believed that the spirits of all human kind were contained there in a state of waiting, and there especially dwelt the souls of the giants before the flood (1Pe 3:19-20), and of the great ones of old, the Rephaim, whom they pictured to themselves as fearful and gigantic spectres (Compare Pr 2:18). These ideas became modified and developed with the increasing clearness of divine teaching; and they divided the abode of the dead into different states of hope and comfort, which they called Abraham's bosom and paradise (Lu 16:22-23 23:43); and of misery and suffering, (Pr 3:1). Life and immortality were brought to light by the Saviour, and also judgment and Hellthe Gehenna of everlasting punishment, as distinguished from the Unseen World. (Compare Re 20:13-14). From these speculations of Jewish Rabbis respecting Sheol the church of Rome appears to have developed the doctrine of Purgatory. It should be added that it was a received opinion among the followers of Rabbinical teaching, that all of the seed of Abraham, though they would be dwellers in Sheol before the general resurrection, would finally escape the Gehenna of everlasting fire. The rich man (Lu 16:23) is in Hades in torments when he calls to Abraham his father. "Plain Commentary."

Ver. 3.

1. A good man is exposed to inward troubles.

(a) To soul troubles.

(b) To the soul full of troubles.

2. To outward troubles. "My life", etc.

(a) From outward persecutions.

(b) From inward griefs.

3. To both inward and outward troubles at the same time. "Soul full", etc., "and my life", etc. G.R.

Psalms 88:4*

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

3. For my soul is full of troubles—Life can endure no more. From this to Psa_88:9, the author urges his great distress as an argument for the divine interposition.

My life draweth nigh unto the grave—My life reacheth to, or toucheth, sheol. This proximity to death is called “gates of death,” Psa_9:13; Psa_107:18

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

For my soul is full of troubles. (see Job_10:15) And my life draweth nigh unto the grave; literally, unto Sheol the place of departed spirits. (comp. Job_10:21, Job_10:22)

A soul full of troubles.

These plaints are such as could only be uttered by a diseased man diseased in body or diseased in mind. The man felt "satiated with evils." Hezekiah, suffering from his carbuncle, or Job, as he "scraped himself with his potsherd," might be expected to read life as drearily and despondingly as the psalmist did. "The psalm accumulates images to describe the pressure of trial upon the frailty of human nature." Look at some of the troubles.

I THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. That does not impress us so much when the aged are taken away, because we have become familiar with seventy as man"s allotted years; and the aged seem to have completed their time, and rounded off their lives. Nor does it impress us when young children die, because we have become familiar with the perils of infancy.

We feel it most when men are taken away in the "midst of their days." Hezekiah, smitten in the prime of life, wails over the brevity of life, saying, "I said, in the cutting off of my day, I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my years. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd"s tent. I have cut off like a weaver my life." See the similar plaints of Job. The corrective of this trouble is to measure life by deeds, not by years. He lives long who does much.

II LOSS OF BODILY AND MENTAL STRENGTH. "I am as a man that hath no strength." Perhaps there is nothing harder for active-minded, energetic men to endure than conscious weakness. To many persons mental depression, resulting simply from lowered vitality, is the supreme distress. Yet in these days the human trial often takes this form. It is a triumph of grace to hold fast integrity even when the very mind is clouded with weakness, and "like a mist our vigour flees away," until all that remains to us is "a fragile form, fast hasting to decay." The corrective is to see that even weakness is in the list of God"s disciplinary agents.

III SEPARATION FROM ORDINARY DUTIES AND RELATIONS. From ver. 8 we gather that this was complicated by the fact that disease had taken offensive forms; and this brings to view the very marked and distressing features of Job"s disease. No one can fail. to feel it hard to retire from loved scenes and associations, and to loose out of hand loved duties. We think that no one can do them but ourselves, and no one can be to our friends what we were. The corrective is to remember that God may provide rest times for his servants; but he never bids them put their tools down, once for all, until he knows that their work is done; and then no truehearted man could wish to stay. It may come to be the form of our final struggle with self, that we are called to give up life"s duties and life"s relations at God"s bidding. There is possible triumph even over soul troubles. R.T.

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

grave

Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For I am filled with troubles

The writer speaks of himself as if he were a container and troubles are the contents that fill the container. AT: "For I am very troubled" (See: Metaphor)

my life has reached Sheol

Here "life" represents the writer. And "Sheol" represents death. The writer speaks about himself possibly dying soon as if Sheol were a place and he has arrived at that place. AT: "I am about to die" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)

People treat me like those who go down into the pit

The word "pit" means the same as "Sheol." The phrase "go down into the pit" represents dying. AT: "people treat me like I have already died" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

trouble

life

Hades

pit

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