69:14 Rescue me from the mud! Don’t let me sink!
Deliver me 1 from those who hate me,
from the deep water!
69:15 Don’t let the current overpower me!
Don’t let the deep swallow me up!
Don’t let the pit 2 devour me! 3
88:7 Your anger bears down on me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. (Selah)
88:15 I am oppressed and have been on the verge of death since my youth. 4
I have been subjected to your horrors and am numb with pain. 5
88:16 Your anger overwhelms me; 6
your terrors destroy me.
88:17 They surround me like water all day long;
they join forces and encircle me. 7
3:53 They shut me 8 up in a pit
and threw stones at me.
3:54 The waters closed over my head;
I thought 9 I was about to die. 10
ק (Qof)
3:55 I have called on your name, O Lord,
from the deepest pit. 11
2:3 You threw me 12 into the deep waters, 13
into the middle 14 of the sea; 15
the ocean current 16 engulfed 17 me;
all the mighty waves 18 you sent 19 swept 20 over me. 21
1 tn Heb “let me be delivered.”
2 tn Heb “well,” which here symbolizes the place of the dead (cf. Ps 55:23).
3 tn Heb “do not let the well close its mouth upon me.”
4 tn Heb “and am dying from youth.”
5 tn Heb “I carry your horrors [?].” The meaning of the Hebrew form אָפוּנָה (’afunah), which occurs only here in the OT, is unclear. It may be an adverb meaning “very much” (BDB 67 s.v.), though some prefer to emend the text to אָפוּגָה (’afugah, “I am numb”) from the verb פוּג (pug; see Pss 38:8; 77:2).
6 tn Heb “passes over me.”
7 tn Heb “they encircle me together.”
8 tn Heb “my life.”
9 tn Heb “I said,” meaning “I said to myself” = “I thought.”
10 tn Heb “I was about to be cut off.” The verb נִגְזָרְתִּי (nigzarti), Niphal perfect 1st person common singular from גָּזַר (gazar, “to be cut off”), functions in an ingressive sense: “about to be cut off.” It is used in reference to the threat of death (e.g., Ezek 37:11). To be “cut off” from the hand of the living means to experience death (Ps 88:6).
11 tn Heb “from a pit of lowest places.”
12 tn Or “You had thrown me.” Verse 3 begins the detailed description of Jonah’s plight, which resulted from being thrown into the sea.
13 tn Heb “the deep” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “into the ocean depths.”
14 tn Heb “heart” (so many English versions); CEV “to the (+ very TEV) bottom of the sea.”
15 tc The BHS editors suggest deleting either מְצוּלָה (mÿtsulah, “into the deep”) or בִּלְבַב יַמִּים (bilvav yammim, “into the heart of the sea”). They propose that one or the other is a scribal gloss on the remaining term. However, the use of an appositional phrase within a poetic colon is not unprecedented in Hebrew poetry. The MT is therefore best retained.
16 tn Or “the stream”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “the flood.” The Hebrew word נָהָר (nahar) is used in parallel with יַם (yam, “sea”) in Ps 24:2 (both are plural) to describe the oceans of the world and in Ps 66:6 to speak of the sea crossed by Israel in the exodus from Egypt.
17 tn Heb “surrounded” (so NRSV); NAB “enveloped.”
18 tn Heb “your breakers and your waves.” This phrase is a nominal hendiadys; the first noun functions as an attributive adjective modifying the second noun: “your breaking waves.”
19 tn Heb “your… your…” The 2nd person masculine singular suffixes on מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ (mishbarekha vÿgallekha, “your breakers and your waves”) function as genitives of source. Just as God had hurled a violent wind upon the sea (1:4) and had sovereignly sent the large fish to swallow him (1:17 [2:1 HT]), Jonah viewed God as sovereignly responsible for afflicting him with sea waves that were crashing upon his head, threatening to drown him. Tg. Jonah 2:3 alters the 2nd person masculine singular suffixes to 3rd person masculine singular suffixes to make them refer to the sea and not to God, for the sake of smoothness: “all the gales of the sea and its billows.”
20 tn Heb “crossed”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “passed.”
21 sn Verses 3 and 5 multiply terms describing Jonah’s watery plight. The images used in v. 3 appear also in 2 Sam 22:5-6; Pss 42:7; 51:11; 69:1-2, 14-15; 88:6-7; 102:10.