Jeremiah 38:22

38:22 All the women who are left in the royal palace of Judah will be led out to the officers of the king of Babylon. They will taunt you saying, ¹ 

‘Your trusted friends misled you;

they have gotten the best of you.

Now that your feet are stuck in the mud,

they have turned their backs on you.’ ² 

Genesis 37:24

37:24 Then they took him and threw him into the cistern. (Now the cistern was empty; ³  there was no water in it.)

Psalms 40:2

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ⁴ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁵ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁶ 

Psalms 69:2

69:2 I sink into the deep mire

where there is no solid ground; ⁷ 

I am in ⁸  deep water,

and the current overpowers me.

Psalms 69:14-15

69:14 Rescue me from the mud! Don’t let me sink!

Deliver me ⁹  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 ¹⁰  devour me! ¹¹ 

Lamentations 3:52-55

צ (Tsade)

3:52 For no good reason ¹²  my enemies

hunted me down ¹³  like a bird.

3:53 They shut me ¹⁴  up in a pit

and threw stones at me.

3:54 The waters closed over my head;

I thought ¹⁵  I was about to die. ¹⁶ 

ק (Qof)

3:55 I have called on your name, O Lord,

from the deepest pit. ¹⁷ 

Zechariah 9:11

9:11 Moreover, as for you, because of our covenant relationship secured with blood, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.

[38:22]  ¹ tn Heb “And they will say.” The words “taunt you” are supplied in the translation to give the flavor of the words that follow.

[38:22]  ² tn Heb “The men of your friendship incited you and prevailed over you. Your feet are sunk in the mud. They turned backward.” The term “men of your friendship” (cf. BDB 1023 s.v. שָׁלוֹם 5.a) is used to refer to Jeremiah’s “so-called friends” in 20:10, to the trusted friend who deserted the psalmist in Ps 41:10, and to the allies of Edom in Obad 7. According to most commentators it refers here to the false prophets and counselors who urged the king to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. The verb translated “misled” is a verb that often refers to inciting or instigating someone to do something, often with negative connotations (so BDB 694 s.v. סוּת Hiph.2). It is generally translated “deceive” or “mislead” in 2 Kgs 18:32; 2 Chr 32:11, 15. Here it refers to the fact that his pro-Egyptian counselors induced him to rebel. They have proven too powerful for him and prevailed on him (יָכֹל לְ, yakhol lÿ; see BDB 408 s.v. יָכֹל 2.b) to follow a policy which will prove detrimental to him, his family, and the city. The phrase “your feet are sunk in the mud” is figurative for being entangled in great difficulties (so BDB 371 s.v. טָבַע Hoph and compare the usage in the highly figurative description of trouble in Ps 69:2 [69:3 HT]).

[37:24]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause gives supplemental information that helps the reader or hearer to picture what happened.

[40:2]  ⁴ 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).

[40:2]  ⁵ 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.

[40:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[69:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and there is no place to stand.”

[69:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “have entered.”

[69:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “let me be delivered.”

[69:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “well,” which here symbolizes the place of the dead (cf. Ps 55:23).

[69:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “do not let the well close its mouth upon me.”

[3:52]  ¹² tn Heb “without cause.”

[3:52]  ¹³ tn The construction צוֹד צָדוּנִי (tsod tsaduni, “they have hunted me down”) is emphatic: Qal infinitive absolute of the same root of Qal perfect 3rd person common plural + 1st person common singular suffix.

[3:53]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my life.”

[3:54]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I said,” meaning “I said to myself” = “I thought.”

[3:54]  ¹⁶ 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).

[3:55]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from a pit of lowest places.”