86:13 For you will extend your great loyal love to me, 1
and will deliver my life 2 from the depths of Sheol. 3
88:3 For my life 4 is filled with troubles
and I am ready to enter Sheol. 5
88:4 They treat me like 6 those who descend into the grave. 7
I am like a helpless man, 8
88:5 adrift 9 among the dead,
like corpses lying in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
and who are cut off from your power. 10
88:6 You place me in the lowest regions of the pit, 11
in the dark places, in the watery depths.
88:7 Your anger bears down on me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. (Selah)
88:8 You cause those who know me to keep their distance;
you make me an appalling sight to them.
I am trapped and cannot get free. 12
88:15 I am oppressed and have been on the verge of death since my youth. 13
I have been subjected to your horrors and am numb with pain. 14
88:16 Your anger overwhelms me; 15
your terrors destroy me.
88:17 They surround me like water all day long;
they join forces and encircle me. 16
1 tn Heb “for your loyal love [is] great over me.”
2 tn Or “for he will have delivered my life.” The verb form indicates a future perfect here.
3 tn Or “lower Sheol.”
4 tn Or “my soul.”
5 tn Heb “and my life approaches Sheol.”
6 tn Heb “I am considered with.”
7 tn Heb “the pit.” The noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit,” “cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead.
8 tn Heb “I am like a man [for whom] there is no help.”
9 tn Heb “set free.”
10 tn Heb “from your hand.”
11 tn The noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit,” “cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. See v. 4.
12 tn Heb “[I am] confined and I cannot go out.”
13 tn Heb “and am dying from youth.”
14 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).
15 tn Heb “passes over me.”
16 tn Heb “they encircle me together.”
17 tn Grk “Whom God raised up.”
18 tn Or “having freed.”
19 sn The term translated pains is frequently used to describe pains associated with giving birth (see Rev 12:2). So there is irony here in the mixed metaphor.
20 tn Or “for him to be held by it” (in either case, “it” refers to death’s power).