to sink · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
deep
מְ֭צוּלָהMe.tzu.lah
H4688
a deep place (of water or mud) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
mire
בִּיוֵ֣ןbi.Ven
H3121
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
standing
מָעֳמָ֑דmo.'o.Mad
H4613
literally a foothold · noun, common masculine singular absolute
come
בָּ֥אתִיBa.ti
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
deep
בְמַעֲמַקֵּיve.ma.'a.ma.kei-
H4615
a deep · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
waters
מַ֝֗יִםMa.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
floods
וְשִׁבֹּ֥לֶתve.shi.Bo.let
H7641
a stream (as flowing) · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
overflow
שְׁטָפָֽתְנִיshe.ta.Fa.te.ni
H7857
to gush · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
Matthew 7:25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
Psalms 32:6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall n…
Psalms 88:6-7 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
Jeremiah 38:6 Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let d…
Jeremiah 38:22 And, behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah’s house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those wom…
Genesis 7:17-23 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
Matthew 26:37-38 And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 69:1-12
In these verses David complains of his troubles, intermixing with those complaints some requests for relief.
I. His complaints are very sad, and he pours them out before the Lord, as one that hoped thus to ease himself of a burden that lay very heaven upon him.
1. He complains of the deep impressions that his troubles made upon his spirit (Psa 69:1, Psa 69:2): "The waters of affliction, those bitter waters, have come unto my soul, not only threaten my life, but disquiet my mind; they fill my head with perplexing cares and my heart with oppressive grief, so that I cannot enjoy God and myself as I used to do." We shall bear up under our troubles if we can but keep them from our hearts; but, wh…
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing,.... Which signifies not despair of mind, but difficult and distressed circumstances; the Messiah now bearing the filthy sins of his people, and the punishment of them, and so was got into the horrible pit, the mire and clay; See Gill on Psalm 40:2;
I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me: as afflictions are often compared to waters in Scripture, Christ's sorrows and sufferings are very aptly signified by deep waters and overflowing floods; and therefore rightly called a baptism, as by himself, Luke 12:50, when he was as one immersed in and overwhelmed with water.
John Calvin on Psalms 69:1-5
Psalm 69:1-5
1. Save me, O God! for the waters have entered in unto my soul. 2. I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no footing, [or standing place:] I am come into deep waters, and the flood [65] of the water overfloweth me. 3. I am weary of crying; my throat has become hoarse therewith: my eyes have failed with [or in] waiting for my God. 4. They who hate me without cause are more in number than the hairs of my head: my lying adversaries, who eagerly desire to destroy me, are increased; [66] that which I took not by spoil, then [67] I restored it. 5. O God! thou knowest my foolishness; and my faults are not hidden from thee.
1. Save me, O God! for the waters, etc. Under the figure of w…
For it had previously been said through His passion that when He, according to the flesh, showed the example of humility, the waves of the sea raged against Him, to which He yielded willingly for us, so that the prophecy might be fulfilled: "I have come into deep waters, and the storm overwhelmed me." For He did not repel false witnesses nor the raging clamor of those shouting, "Crucify Him." He did not suppress the rabid hearts and mouths of the furious by force, but endured with patience. They did to Him all they wished; for He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. But after He rose from the dead, so that He might alone pray for the disciples established in the Church as in a ship, and carried by the faith of His cross as by wood, and endangered by the temptations of this world as by the waves of the sea, His name began to be honored in this world, in which He was despised, accused, and killed. So that He who had come in the flesh into the deep waters according to His passion, and had been overwhelmed by the storm, might now trample on the necks of the proud as the foam of the waves by the honor of His name.
"Fixed I am in the clay of the deep, and there is no substance." What called the clay? Is it those very persons that have persecuted? For out of clay man hath been made. But these men by falling from righteousness have become the clay of the deep, and whosoever shall not have consented to them persecuting and desiring to draw him to iniquity, out of his clay doth make gold. For the clay of the same shall merit to be converted into a heavenly form, and to be made associate of those of whom saith the Title of the Psalm, "in behalf of them that shall be changed." But at the time when these were the clay of the deep. I stuck in them: that is, they held Me, prevailed against Me, killed Me. "Fixed" then "I am in the clay of the deep, and there is no substance." What is this, "there is no substance"? Can it be that clay itself is not a substance? What is then, "fixed I am"? Can it be that Christ hath thus stuck? Or hath He stuck, and was not, as hath been said in the book of Job, "the earth delivered into the hands of the ungodly man"? Was He fixed in body, because it could be held, and suffered even crucifixion? For unless with nails He had been fixed, crucified He had not been. Whence then "there is no substance"? Is that clay not a substance? But we shall understand, if it be possible, what is, "and there is no substance," if first we shall have understood what is a substance. For there is substance spoken of even of riches, as we say, he hath substance, and he hath lost substance. ...God made man, He made substance; and O that he had continued in that which God made Him! If man had continued in that which God made him, in him would not have been fixed He whom God begot. But moreover because through iniquity man fell from the substance wherein he was made (for iniquity itself is no substance; for iniquity is not a nature which God formed, but a perverseness which man made); the Son of God came to the clay of the deep, and was fixed; and that was no substance wherein He was fixed, because in the iniquity of them He was fixed. "All things by Him were made, and without Him there was made nothing." All natures by Him were made, iniquity by Him was not made, because iniquity was not made. Those substances by Him were made, which praise Him. ...For vices out of ourselves and out of our own will we have: and vices are not a substance. In these was fixed the Lord, when…
Dictionary and topics
Gall — (1) Heb. mererah, meaning “bitterness” (Job 16:13); i.e., the bile secreted in the liver. This word is also used of the poison of asps (20:14), and of the vitals, the seat of life (25). (2.) Heb.…
Gin — A trap. (1.) Ps. 140:5, 141:9, Amos 3:5, the Hebrew word used, mokesh, means a noose or “snare,” as it is elsewhere rendered (Ps. 18:5; Prov. 13:14, etc.). (2.) Job 18:9, Isa. 8:14, Heb. pah, a plate…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Shoshannim — Lilies, the name of some musical instrument, probably like a lily in shape (Ps. 45; 69, title). Some think that an instrument of six strings is meant.
Mire · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Persecution · OF JESUS — OF JESUS
Rivers · Illustrative: Of heavy afflictions — Illustrative: Of heavy afflictions
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 69:1-13
Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God's sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.e., the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, howe…
Pss 69–72 These last four psalms of Book Two contrast with the psalms describing God’s mighty acts in creation and in redemption, capped by God’s march to Zion (Pss 65–68). Psalms 69–71 portray the king’s anguish, and Ps 72 responds with a prayer for God to bless the king.
Ps 69 In this individual lament, the poet expresses his vulnerability, humiliation, and overwhelming pain, asking God to vindicate him for the sake of the righteous.
69:title to the tune “Lilies”: Psalm 45 also notes this tune, but Ps 45 celebrates the glory of kingship, whereas Ps 69 is the cry of a tired king who feels abandoned by the Lord.
69:1-2 The psalmist sees himself as almost drowning but still surviving chaot…
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
I sink in deep mire. In water one might swim, but in mud and mire all struggling is hopeless; the mire sucks down its victim. Where there is no standing. Everything gave way under the Sufferer; he could not get foothold for support—this is a worse fate than drowning. Here our Lord pictures the close, clinging nature of his heart's woes. "He began to be sorrowful, and very heavy." Sin is as mire for its filthiness, and the holy soul of the Saviour must have loathed even that connection with it which was necessary for its expiation. His pure and sensitive nature seemed to sink in it, for…
