English · KJV

Psalm 18:4

“The Depth of Distress”Psalm 18:4–6

King James Version
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
The sorrows H2256 of death H4194 compassed H661 me, and the floods H5158 of ungodly men H1100 made me afraid H1204.

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of chaos overwhelmed me.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
The cords of death compassed me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
The cords of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
The sorowes of death compassed me, and the floods of wickednes made me afraide.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
Compassed me have cords of death, And streams of the worthless make me afraid.

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
6 Hebrew words
  1. אֲפָפוּנִי'a·fa·Fu·nithey encompassed meH661V-Qal-Perf-3cp ¦ 1csVerb Qal Perfect 3rd Plural common genderאֲפָפוּthey encompassedנִיme
  2. חֶבְלֵיchev·lei[the] cords ofH2256N-cpcNoun Plural common gender Construct
  3. מָוֶתMa·vetdeathH4194N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
  4. וְנַחֲלֵיve·na·cha·Leiand [the] torrents ofH5158Conj-w ¦ N-mpcNoun Plural Masculine Constructוְandנַחֲלֵי[the] torrents of
  5. בְלִיַּעַלve·li·Ya·'alworthlessnessH1100N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
  6. יְבַעֲתוּנִיye·Va·'a·Tu·nithey overwhelmed meH1204V-Piel-Imperf-3mp ¦ 1csVerb Piel Imperfect 3rd Plural Masculineיְבַעֲתוּthey overwhelmedנִיme
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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In the KJVVerse 14,123 of 31,102 · 45.4%

Study this verse

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This verse

David remembers death binding him like a cord and wicked men rushing on him like a torrent in flood, and he says plainly that they terrified him.

“The sorrows of death”

The cords or pangs of death, chebel, a rope or noose and also the pains of labour. Death is pictured as a hunter with its prey bound.

“compassed me,”

Surrounded on every side, ʼâphaph, with no way out.

“and the floods of ungodly men”

Wicked men, bᵉlîyaʻal, rushing on David like a stream in flood, nachal, too many and too strong to withstand.

“made me afraid.”

bâʻath, to terrify. David admits his terror, and that fear becomes the cry of verse 6.

Passage studyPsalm 18:4–6

Out of Death’s Snares David Calls on the LORD

4The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. 5The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. 6In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

Summary

David looks back on a time when death had him in its grip. Its cords were wound around him, wicked men poured over him like a flood, and the traps of the grave sprang up in his path. In that narrow place he called on the LORD, and the LORD heard him from his temple. These three verses are the darkest part of Psalm 18, and they lead straight into the great rescue that fills the rest of the psalm. They show how low one of God’s own servants can be brought, and how surely a cry from that low place reaches God’s ears.

Where these verses stand in Psalm 18

Psalm 18 is David’s song of thanks, which its heading says he spoke to the LORD “in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” Almost the same song stands in 2 Samuel 22. It opens with David’s declaration of love for the LORD and his trust in him (Psalm 18:1–3). Then these verses tell how near to death he came, and how he prayed. From verse 7 onward God answers, coming down in power from heaven with pictures drawn from heaven and earth, to rescue his servant (Psalm 18:7–19). Verse 6 is the hinge between the two halves: David’s cry goes up, and the whole account of the rescue follows from it.

The years behind the song are David’s long flight from King Saul and his wars with enemies such as the Philistines, and the song was likely sung once the LORD had brought him through them. Some would add later troubles, such as the rebellion of Absalom. Whatever the occasion, the depth of the danger in verses 4 and 5 is what makes the rescue so great.

Bound by the cords of death

“The sorrows of death compassed me.” The word for sorrows, chebel, is a rich one. It means a rope, something twisted, and so a cord or a noose, and it also means a throe, especially the pains of childbirth. Both senses fit here. On the first, death is a hunter that has bound David with its cords like a captured animal. On the second, he is in agony like a woman in labour, in a struggle that may end in death. Either way he is caught and helpless. The verb “compassed”, ʼâphaph, means to surround, and it closes the picture: David is hemmed in on every side, with nowhere to turn.

David speaks of death as if it were alive, an enemy closing in on him. Another psalm of rescue uses the same English words: “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow” (Psalm 116:3).

The floods of ungodly men

The second half of verse 4 names the hand death was working through, which was men. “Floods” is nachal, a stream or torrent, the water that runs through a wadi or valley. When such a stream is in full flood it sweeps everything in front of it, and David felt his enemies come at him like that, too many and too strong for him to stand against. “Ungodly men” translates bᵉlîyaʻal, a word meaning worthlessness or wickedness, used here of people given over to evil. These were David’s human enemies, Saul and the Philistines among them. David was the LORD’s anointed king, so the attack on him was also defiance of the God who had chosen him.

“Made me afraid” is bâʻath, to fear or to terrify. David says plainly that he was terrified. A man after God’s own heart, chosen and anointed, could still be overcome with fear. His fear is an honest account of real danger, and it is the very fear that sent him to God in verse 6. Jesus puts the fear of men in its place when he tells his disciples whom to fear: “fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Caught in the snares of death

Verse 5 says the same thing again, and the danger draws closer. “The sorrows of hell compassed me about” uses chebel again, so the cords that bound David in verse 4 belong to the grave itself. “The snares of death” are traps, môwqêsh, the kind a hunter set for animals or an enemy laid as an ambush. In two verses David has gathered cords, floods and snares, and each of them pictures a danger that takes hold of a person suddenly and will not let go.

David was alive to write the psalm, and he speaks of the grave’s grip the way a man does who was brought right to its edge. He felt as if he were already in it. That is why the rescue that follows is so great: God brought him back from the brink of death.

What does “hell” mean in this verse?

Here “hell” translates shᵉʼôwl, Sheol, the world of the dead: the grave, the pit, the place where the dead go down. “The sorrows of hell” are the cords or pangs of death itself, the hold that the grave lays on someone who is about to die. In this verse the word speaks of the power of death rather than of the place of final punishment that “hell” usually means to us today. Jonah uses the same picture when he prays from inside the great fish: “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice” (Jonah 2:2). Like David, he cried from the edge of death and was heard.

What does “prevented” mean?

In the English of 1611, “prevented” meant “came before”, “went out to meet” or “met unexpectedly”, from the Latin praevenire. The Hebrew verb, qâdam, means to go before, to anticipate, to hasten or to meet. So “the snares of death prevented me” means that death’s traps came out to meet David, confronting him before he could react or escape. The phrase pictures a sudden ambush. The modern sense, to stop or hinder, came into English later.

God rescues from the pit

Other servants of God have stood in the same place. David sings in another psalm that the LORD “brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock” (Psalm 40:2). Paul writes of a trouble so heavy that he despaired even of life, and of the God who delivered him from so great a death and in whom he trusted to deliver him again (2 Corinthians 1:8–10). Even from the brink of the grave, God is able to save.

In my distress I called upon the LORD

Verse 6 is where everything turns. “Distress” is tsar, from a root meaning to cramp, and so a narrow, tight place where a person is hemmed in and pressed hard. The word most often means an adversary, and here it means distress, the narrow place itself. After the cords, floods and snares, David sums up his whole plight in this one word.

In that place he did one thing. “I called upon the LORD”: the verb qârâʼ means to call out, to summon, or to address someone by name. David calls on God by his covenant name, the LORD (Yᵉhôvâh), the name of the God who had bound himself to his people. “And cried unto my God” says it again in stronger terms. The verb, shâvaʻ, is a cry for help, loud and urgent, the soul pouring out its anguish. “My God” (ʼĕlôhîym) is personal. The God of all power belongs to David, and David belongs to him. The two lines repeat each other, as Hebrew poetry often does, and the repetition presses home how earnest this prayer was.

“He heard my voice out of his temple.” The verb shâmaʻ means to hear and also to listen with attention, and in Scripture it often leads to action, as it does here, where the next verses tell of the earth shaking as God comes to David’s help. “And my cry came before him, even into his ears” repeats the first line again and makes it closer still. The cry went straight into God’s presence and into his very ears. God speaks of himself in human terms so that we can understand him, and the picture of his ears tells us that he listened closely and personally, ready to act.

The verse holds together both sides of who God is. He hears from his temple, high above all, and he bends his ear to one man’s cry.

Which temple did God hear from?

The word hêykâl means a palace or a temple, a great building, and it can be used of an earthly palace or of the Tabernacle. Here it means God’s heavenly dwelling, the place of his throne. The Temple in Jerusalem had not yet been built in David’s day, since Solomon built it, and the verses that follow show God answering from heaven and coming down from it. So the prayer of a hunted man somewhere on the earth reached the throne of God in heaven. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of Christ as our high priest who serves in that true, heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:1–2).

Does God hear when the answer has not come yet?

David’s words state what God does: “he heard my voice.” That certainty rests on who God is and on his faithfulness to his covenant, so it holds whether or not we feel heard in the moment. Scripture says the same many times. “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles” (Psalm 34:17–19), and John writes that if we ask anything according to God’s will, he hears us (1 John 5:14–15). God invites the call himself: “call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15), and “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (Jeremiah 33:3). He even promises, “before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). His answer may come later than we hope, or in another way than we expect, but every cry reaches his ears, and his hearing always leads to the doing of his good will.

Christ in the cords of death

What David suffered in part, Jesus, the Son of David, suffered in full. In Gethsemane he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38), and in his agony he prayed more earnestly (Luke 22:44). On the cross the cords of death closed around him, and he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). A flood of ungodly men surrounded him too: the hostile religious leaders, the mocking crowds and the Roman soldiers.

His cry was heard as well. Hebrews says that he “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7). David was brought back from the edge of death. Jesus went down into death itself and rose again. Peter says that God raised him up, “having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24). Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more (Romans 6:9–10). He has disarmed the powers of darkness (Colossians 2:15), and he has destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, to deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime in bondage (Hebrews 2:14–15). He now says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18).

He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). By his own blood he has entered once into the holy place in heaven, having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–12), and at the right hand of God he intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). So when we call upon the LORD in our distress, our prayers come before him through Christ, our high priest in the heavenly temple.

A cry that reaches God’s ears

These verses give us words for the worst moments of life. David names his terror honestly, the cords, the floods and the snares, and he shows that a man who loves God can be brought that low. Those words belong to God’s people when despair, sickness or enemies close in.

They also show what David did in the narrow place: he called on the LORD and cried to his God. And they show who God is. He hears from his holy temple, high above the world, and the cry of one hunted man goes into his ears and moves him to act. The rest of Psalm 18 is the story of that answer. In Christ, death’s cords have been broken for good, and the God who heard David hears every cry made to him through his Son.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Psalm 18:1–19. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 19 verses
Passage under commentPsalm 18:1–19
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points(1.) (2.) Details

The title gives us the occasion of penning this psalm; we had it before (2 Samuel 22:1), only here we are told that the psalm was delivered to the chief musician, or precentor, in the temple-songs. Note, The private compositions of good men, designed by them for their own use, may be serviceable to the public, that others may not only borrow light from their candle, but heat from their fire. Examples sometimes teach better than rules. And David is here called the servant of the Lord, as Moses was, not only as every good man is God's servant, but because, with his sceptre, with his sword, and with his pen, he greatly promoted the interests of God's kingdom in Israel. It was more his honour that he was a servant of the Lord than that he was king of a great kingdom; and so he himself accounted it (Psalm 116:16): O Lord! truly I am thy servant. In these verses,

I.He triumphs in God and his relation to him.

The first words of the psalm, I will love thee, O Lord! my strength, are here prefixed as the scope and contents of the whole. Love to God is the first and great commandment of the law, because it is the principle of all our acceptable praise and obedience; and this use we should make of all the mercies God bestows upon us, our hearts should thereby be enlarged in love to him. This he requires and will accept; and we are very ungrateful if we grudge him so poor a return. An interest in the person loved is the lover's delight; this string therefore he touches, and on this he harps with much pleasure (Psalm 18:2): "The Lord Jehovah is my God; and then he is my rock, my fortress, all that I need and can desire in my present distress." For there is that in God which is suited to all the exigencies and occasions of his people that trust in him. "He is my rock, and strength, and fortress;" that is, 1. "I have found him so in the greatest dangers and difficulties." 2. "I have chosen him to be so, disclaiming all others, and depending upon him alone to protect me." Those that truly love God may thus triumph in him as theirs, and may with confidence call upon him, Psalm 18:3. This further use we should make of our deliverances, we must not only love God the better, but love prayer the better - call upon him as long as we live, especially in time of trouble, with an assurance that so we shall be saved; for thus it is written, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, Acts 2:21.

II.He sets himself to magnify the deliverances God had wrought for him, that he might be the more affected in his returns of praise.

It is good for us to observe all the circumstances of a mercy, which magnify the power of God and his goodness to us in it.

1.The more imminent and threatening the danger was out of which we were delivered the greater is the mercy of the deliverance. David now remembered how the forces of his enemies poured in upon him, which he calls the floods of Belial, shoals of the children of Belial, likely to overpower him with numbers. They surrounded him, compassed him about; they surprised him, and by that means were very near seizing him; their snares prevented him, and, when without were fightings, within were fears and sorrows, Psalm 18:4, Psalm 18:5. His spirit was overwhelmed, and he looked upon himself as a lost man; see Psalm 116:3.

2.The more earnest we have been with God for deliverance, and the more direct answer it is to our prayers, the more we are obliged to be thankful. David's deliverances were so, Psalm 18:6. David was found a praying man, and God was found a prayer-hearing God. If we pray as he did, we shall speed as he did. Though distress drive us to prayer, God will not therefore be deaf to us; nay, being a God of pity, he will be the more ready to succour us.

3.The more wonderful God's appearances are in any deliverance the greater it is: such were the deliverances wrought for David, in which God's manifestation of his presence and glorious attributes is most magnificently described, Psalm 18:7, etc. Little appeared of man, but much of God, in these deliverances.

(1.)He appeared a God of almighty power; for he made the earth shake and tremble, and moved even the foundations of the hills (Psalm 18:7), as of old at Mount Sinai. When the men of the earth were struck with fear, then the earth might be said to tremble; when the great men of the earth were put into confusion, then the hills moved.

(2.)He showed his anger and displeasure against the enemies and persecutors of his people: He was wroth, Psalm 18:7. His wrath smoked, it burned, it was fire, it was devouring fire (Psalm 18:8), and coals were kindled by it. Those that by their own sins make themselves as coals (that is, fuel) to this fire will be consumed by it. He that ordains his arrows against the persecutors sends them forth when he pleases, and they are sure to hit the mark and do execution; for those arrows are lightnings, Psalm 18:14.

(3.)He showed his readiness to plead his people's cause and work deliverance for them; for he rode upon a cherub and did fly, for the maintaining of right and the relieving of his distressed servants, Psalm 18:10. No opposition, no obstruction, can be given to him who rides upon the wings of the wind, who rides on the heavens, for the help of his people, and, in his excellency, on the skies.

(4.)He showed his condescension, in taking cognizance of David's case: He bowed the heavens and came down (Psalm 18:9), did not send an angel, but came himself, as one afflicted in the afflictions of his people.

(5.)He wrapped himself in darkness, and yet commanded light to shine out of darkness for his people, Isaiah 45:15. He is a God that hideth himself; for he made darkness his pavilion, Psalm 18:11. his glory is invisible, his counsels are unsearchable, and his proceedings unaccountable, and so, as to us, clouds and darkness are round about him; we know not the way that he takes, even when he is coming towards us in ways of mercy; but, when his designs are secret, they are kind; for, though he hide himself, he is the God of Israel, the Saviour. And, at his brightness, the thick clouds pass (Psalm 18:12), comfort returns, the face of affairs is changed, and that which was gloomy and threatening becomes serene and pleasant.

4.The greater the difficulties are that lie in the way of deliverance the more glorious the deliverance is. For the rescuing of David, the waters were to be divided till the very channels were seen; the earth was to be cloven till the very foundations of it were discovered, Psalm 18:15. There were waters deep and many, waters out of which he was to be drawn (Psalm 18:16), as Moses, who had his name from being drawn out of the water literally, as David was figuratively. His enemies were strong, and they hated him; had he been left to himself, they would have been too strong for him, Psalm 18:17. And they were too quick for him; for they prevented him in the day of his calamity, Psalm 18:18. But, in the midst of his troubles, the Lord was his stay, so that he did not sink. Note, God will not only deliver his people out of their troubles in due time, but he will sustain them and bear them up under their troubles in the mean time.

5.That which especially magnified the deliverance was that his comfort was the fruit of it and God's favour was the root and fountain of it. (1.) It was an introduction to his preferment, Psalm 18:19. "He brought me forth also out of my straits into a large place, where I had room, not only to turn, but to thrive in." (2.) It was a token of God's favour to him, and that made it doubly sweet: "He delivered me because he delighted in me, not for my merit, but for his own grace and good-will." Compare this with 2 Samuel 15:26, If he thus say, I have no delight in thee, here I am. We owe our salvation, that great deliverance, to the delight God had in the Son of David, in whom he has declared himself to be well pleased.

In singing this we must triumph in God, and trust in him: and we may apply it to Christ the Son of David. The sorrows of death surrounded him; in his distress he prayed (Hebrews 5:7); God made the earth to shake and tremble, and the rocks to cleave, and brought him out, in his resurrection, into a large place, because he delighted in him and in his undertaking.

Historical interpretation

Historical reception

1 surviving comment on this verse from the historical church.

1 quote · AD 430
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceExposition on Psalm 18
"The pains of death," that is, of the flesh, have "compassed Me about. And the overflowings of ungodliness have troubled Me" [Psalm 18:4]. Ungodly troubles stirred up for a time, like torrents of rain which will soon subside, have come on to trouble Me.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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