Psalms 30:3

30:3 O Lord, you pulled me ¹  up from Sheol;

you rescued me from among those descending into the grave. ² 

Psalms 40:2

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ³ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁴ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 38:6

38:6 So the officials ⁶  took Jeremiah and put him in the cistern ⁷  of Malkijah, one of the royal princes, ⁸  that was in the courtyard of the guardhouse. There was no water in the cistern, only mud. So when they lowered Jeremiah into the cistern with ropes he sank in the mud. ⁹ 

Luke 16:24

16:24 So ¹⁰  he called out, ¹¹  ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus ¹²  to dip the tip of his finger ¹³  in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish ¹⁴  in this fire.’ ¹⁵ 

Revelation 20:3

20:3 The angel ¹⁶  then ¹⁷  threw him into the abyss and locked ¹⁸  and sealed it so that he could not deceive the nations until the one thousand years were finished. (After these things he must be released for a brief period of time.)

¹ tn Or “my life.”

² tn Heb “you kept me alive from those descending into the pit.” The Hebrew noun בוֹר (bor, “pit, cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. The translation follows the consonantal Hebrew text (Kethib); the marginal reading (Qere) has, “you kept me alive so that I did not go down into the pit.”

³ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

⁴ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

⁵ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

⁶ tn Heb “they.”

⁷ sn A cistern was a pear-shaped pit with a narrow opening. Cisterns were cut or dug in the limestone rock and lined with plaster to prevent seepage. They were used to collect and store rain water or water carried up from a spring.

⁸ tn Heb “the son of the king.” See the translator’s note on Jer 36:26 for the rendering here.

⁹ tn Heb “And they let Jeremiah down with ropes and in the cistern there was no water, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.” The clauses have been reordered and restructured to create a more natural and smoother order in English.

¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous actions in the narrative.

¹¹ tn Grk “calling out he said”; this is redundant in contemporary English style and has been simplified to “he called out.”

¹² sn The rich man had not helped Lazarus before, when he lay outside his gate (v. 2), but he knew him well enough to know his name. This is why the use of the name Lazarus in the parable is significant. (The rich man’s name, on the other hand, is not mentioned, because it is not significant for the point of the story.)

¹³ sn The dipping of the tip of his finger in water is evocative of thirst. The thirsty are in need of God’s presence (Ps 42:1-2; Isa 5:13). The imagery suggests the rich man is now separated from the presence of God.

¹⁴ tn Or “in terrible pain” (L&N 24.92).

¹⁵ sn Fire in this context is OT imagery; see Isa 66:24.

¹⁶ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the angel introduced in v. 1) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

¹⁸ tn Or “and shut.” While the lexical force of the term is closer to “shut,” it is acceptable to render the verb ἔκλεισεν (ekleisen) as “locked” here in view of the mention of the key in the previous verse.