Psalms 69:2: “I sink in deep mire, where [there is] no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.”
This Psalm is attributed to David but many scholars do not believe it was written by David as the style of Hebrew that is used seems to predate David. They conclude it was written by Jeremiah or perhaps started by David and finished by Jeremiah and you know what, I don’t care. The writer was going through something that many of us can really relate to. His experience is buried in metaphoric and poetic language such that we may not really get the full picture of what he is going through without a close examination of these words which give voice to the poetic expression.
He says that he sinks in deep mire. The word sink in Hebrew is from the root word taba. Taba has an interesting history. The Targum (Jewish Aramaic translation of the Old Testament) uses the Aramaic word tama which means to sink or to be covered up or buried. Both words are derived from an Old Persian word which means to cover up a planet. The Persians were astrologers who believed that your life was guided by the stars and planets. Tama would express an Old Persian idiom which would say that his planet is covered. It would be like our idiomatic expression, the cards are stacked against him. In other words the person is a sort of a hapless person, one who finds himself in trouble through no fault of his own. This would fit the context for in verse 5 we learn the writer is saying that he is hated without a cause, through no fault of his own. He is just quietly serving God and everyone seems to be coming against him.
Do you ever feel that way? You are just quietly serving God, trying to express your love for God to Him and to others and bam, you are hit with criticism, back biting, jealousy, people saying things about you that are not true you are tama. You are stuck and there is nothing you can do except close your eyes want wait for the crash. The writer says it is like being stuck in deep mire. The English word deep appears two times in this verse, yet they are two different words. This deep which is an adjective to mire is from the root word tsula which is deep in the sense of a deep swamp or deep waters. The Targum uses the Aramaic word sui which means to contract. This is a depth which is not just water but one that crushes you. You will notice as you sink you feel the pressure contracting or pressing against you. This is more than a deep mire it is a contracting mire like quick sand.
The word mire is yon which means mire or clay. Strong’s Concordance relates this word to yayin which is wine or the process of making wine. I won’t argue that. Wine was made by walking on grapes in a vat and squeezing the grape juice out. You get a sense of that squishy suction building like you do when walking on mud. As this is poetry I feel the writer may also be making a play on the feminine form of yon which is yonah. Yonah is the word for a dove. The ancients observed something very interesting about the dove when it was in flight. In the Genesis Rabba s. 39 we are told that when the dove is flying and tires he will flap one wing and glide with the other wing resting that wing while gliding. The bird needs to keep flapping at least one wing to stay in the air. If he stops for any length of time or lower his wings he will come crashing to earth. This is really the origin of the word for dove. It implies the idea that you must keep moving in order to maintain your balance. My study partner pointed out that when trapped in mud or quicksand you must keep lifting your legs, keep moving otherwise you will sink just as the dove must keep flapping one wing to stay in flight. The writer of this Psalm is not saying that he is stuck in the mud and sinking, he is desperately working at trying not to sink and he is getting tired. He rest one leg while he lifts the other but soon he is not getting enough rest to keep moving his legs. Can you relate yet? Are all the pressures of life surrounding you and you are desperately trying to stay above it all and you have to keep moving but you feel you are just sinking deeper and deeper? Perhaps you are suffering some physical problem that came as a result of no fault of your own. Perhaps it is a financial problem that was no fault of your own like the loss of a job. Now you are sinking, stuck in that miry clay through no fault of your own desperately trying to keep from sinking out of sight.
Then the writer says he has come into deep waters where the floods overflow him. There is another word used for deep here, it comes from the root word ‘amaq. This word is used for deep water but it is also an idiomatic expression which is even used in our English language today. I heard that expression often in my theology classes, “Well, that is just too deep for me.” The meaning is that it is just too difficult to understand or that you have no understanding. In ancient times men always pondered what was beneath the seas. They knew life existed beneath the seas as they caught fish that lived beneath the seas, but what the world underneath the sea was like, was a mystery. They had no diving equipment and they could only swim so far under the water so no one had ever explored the depths of the oceans. The world beneath the seas was a mystery, something no one understood and sailors lived in fear of what might lurk under the sea. So when the writer say that he was come into deep waters that overflowed him he was expressing another idiom for “I don’t understand.”
Do you ever go through a difficulty that was no fault of your own and you just don’t understand why? If you could at least have a reason or some understanding for all that madness you could endure it, but not knowing why is almost as bad if not worse than the difficulty itself.
What I find interesting about this Psalm is that the writer is right in the midst of the miry clay, these problems that come through no fault of his own and he has no understanding as to why but he says in verse 30 “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.” He concludes this Psalm with “The seed also of his servants shall inherit it (Zion): and they that love his name shall dwell therein.” The writer knew that if he continued to love the name of the Lord, he would one day rejoice again.
We hear it all the time and it sounds so pat, yet it is pure Scripture and having walk this earth for three score and four years, having been trapped in the mire and coming into the deep waters I learned that it is true, it is so true and I have learned to practice it every day no matter how yon the mire or how ‘amaq the waters I, like the Apostle Paul have learned In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I Thessalonians 5:18.
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