Psalm 86:13

For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Lowest hell.—Literally, sheôl, beneath, a fuller expression for the usual sheôl, underworld. (See Note, Psalm 6:5.) There is no comparison implied as in the Authorised Version. It is evident from the next verse that what is meant is danger of death from violence.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

86:8-17 Our God alone possesses almighty power and infinite love. Christ is the way and the truth. And the believing soul will be more desirous to be taught the way and the truth. And the believing soul will be more desirous to be taught the way and the truth of God, in order to walk therein, than to be delivered out of earthly distress. Those who set not the Lord before them, seek after believers' souls; but the compassion, mercy, and truth of God, will be their refuge and consolation. And those whose parents were the servants of the Lord, may urge this as a plea why he should hear and help them. In considering David's experience, and that of the believer, we must not lose sight of Him, who though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For great is thy mercy toward me - In respect to me; or, Thou hast manifested great mercy to me; to wit, in past times. He makes use of this now as an argument or reason why God should interpose again.

(a) He had shown on former occasions that he had power to save;

(b) the fact that he had thus treated him as his friend was a reason why he should now befriend him.

And thou hast delivered my soul - My life. The meaning is, that he had kept him alive in times of imminent danger. At the same time David could say, as every child of God can say, that God had delivered his soul in the strict and proper sense of the term - from sin, and death, and hell itself.

From the lowest hell - Margin, grave; Hebrew, שׁאול she'ôl; Greek, ᾅδης Hadēs. See the word explained in the notes at Isaiah 14:9. Compare the notes at Job 10:21-22. The word rendered "lowest" means simply under, or beneath: the grave or hades beneath. The idea of lowest, or the superlative degree, is not necessarily implied in the word. The idea of the grave as deep, or as under us, however, is implied, and the psalmist means to say that he had been saved from that deep dwelling-place - from the abode of departed spirits, to which the dead descend under ground. The meaning is, that he had been kept alive; but the greatness of the mercy is designed to be set forth by having before the mind a vivid idea of the darkness, the horror, and the gloom of the world to which the dead descend, and where they dwell.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. The reason: God had delivered him from death and the power of insolent, violent, and godless persecutors (Ps 54:3; Eze 8:12).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

My soul; my person or life, as in the next verse.

From the lowest hell; either,

1. From hell properly so called. Or rather,

2. From extreme and desperate dangers and miseries, by comparing this with Deu 32:22, and with Psalm 88:6. Thou hast laid me in the lowest (the same word in the Hebrew which is here) pit; where by the pit he means, as is evident and confessed, the grave, which is commonly called sheol, the word here used.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For great is thy mercy toward me,.... Both in things temporal and spiritual; an instance of which follows:

and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell; from a very distressed and disconsolate condition, being almost in despair, under a deep sense of sin, and a fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, as, particularly, when he was charged by Nathan; or from hell itself, and the severest punishment in it; from the second and eternal death, which every man is deserving of, and are only delivered from by the grace of God, and blood of Christ: this shows the sense the psalmist had of the just demerit of sin, and his thankfulness for deliverance from it; see Psalm 56:13. Kimchi interprets it of the grave; but says, there are some that interpret it of the judgment, or condemnation of hell: such who have escaped great dangers in long and perilous journeys, or have been delivered from threatening diseases, are said to be saved from hell (r).

(r) Vide Heraclit. de Incredib. c. 21. p. 86.

Geneva Study Bible

For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from {i} the lowest hell.

(i) That is, from most great danger of death: out of which none but the almighty hand of God could deliver him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - For great is thy mercy toward me (see ver. 5). And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. The actual deliverance was from death (ver. 14); but death involved descent into Hades, so that those who were delivered from the one were at the same time delivered from the other. The expression translated "the lowest hell" means no more than "Hades which is beneath the earth." No comparison is made of one part of Hades with another. Psalm 86:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms and of the Law; viz., Psalm 86:7 follows Psalm 17:6 and other passages; Psalm 86:8 is taken from Exodus 15:11, cf. Psalm 89:9, where, however, אלהים, gods, is avoided; Psalm 86:8 follows Deuteronomy 3:24; Psalm 86:9 follows Psalm 22:28; Psalm 86:11 is taken from Psalm 27:11; Psalm 86:11 from Psalm 26:3; Psalm 86:13, שׁאול תּחתּיּה from Deuteronomy 32:22, where instead of this it is תּחתּית, just as in Psalm 130:2 תּחנוּני (supplicatory prayer) instead of תּחנוּנותי (importunate supplications); and also Psalm 86:10 (cf. Psalm 72:18) is a doxological formula that was already in existence. The construction הקשׁיב בּ is the same as in Psalm 66:19. But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Revelation 15:4. "All nations, which Thou hast made" - they have their being from Thee; and although they have forgotten it (vid., Psalm 9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it. כּל־גּוים, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities); cf. Jeremiah 16:16 with Psalm 22:18; Tobit 13:11, ἔθνη πολλά, with ibid. Psalm 14:6, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in Psalm 86:11 : uni cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate: laetetur (יחדּ from חדה). The meaning, however, is not so much "keep my heart near to the only thing," as "direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing." The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (שׁאול תּחתּיּה, like ארץ תּחתּית, the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Ezekiel 31:14.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (כּי, Psalm 86:13, as in Psalm 56:14).