Psalm 30:3

O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) Grave.—Sheôl (See Note to Psalm 6:5.)

That I should not go down to the pit.—This follows a reading which is considered by modern scholars ungrammatical. The ordinary reading, rightly kept by the LXX. and Vulg., means from these going down to the pit, i.e., from the dead. (Comp. Psalm 28:1.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:1-5. The great things the Lord has done for us, both by his providence and by his grace, bind us in gratitude to do all we can to advance his kingdom among men, though the most we can do is but little. God's saints in heaven sing to him; why should not those on earth do the same? Not one of all God's perfections carries in it more terror to the wicked, or more comfort to the godly, than his holiness. It is a good sign that we are in some measure partakers of his holiness, if we can heartily rejoice at the remembrance of it. Our happiness is bound up in the Divine favour; if we have that, we have enough, whatever else we want; but as long as God's anger continues, so long the saints' weeping continues.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O, Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave - My life; me. The meaning is, that he had been in imminent danger of death, and had been brought from the borders of the grave. The word here rendered "grave" is "Sheol" - a word which, properly used, commonly denotes the region of the dead; the underworld which is entered through the grave. Compare Isaiah 14:9, note; Psalm 6:5, note.

Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit - More literally, "thou hast caused me to live from them which go down to the pit;" that is, thou hast distinguished me from them by keeping me alive. The word "pit" here means the same as the grave. See the notes at Psalm 28:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. The terms describe extreme danger.

soul—or, "myself."

grave—literally, "hell," as in Ps 16:10.

hast kept me … pit—quickened or revived me from the state of dying (compare Ps 28:1).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; my deliverance is a kind of resurrection from the grave, upon the very brink whereof I was.

Thou hast kept me alive: this he adds to explain the former phrase, which was ambiguous.

To the pit, i.e. into the grave, which is oft called the pit, as Psalm 28:1 69:15 88:4 Isaiah 38:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave,.... When his life being in danger, was near unto it, Job 33:22; otherwise the soul dies not, nor does it lie and sleep in the grave; or "thou hast brought up my soul from hell" (m); that is, delivered him from those horrors of conscience and terrors of mind, by reason of sin, which were as hell itself unto him; see Psalm 116:3;

thou hast kept me alive: preserved his corporeal life when in danger, and maintained his spiritual life; and quickened him by his word, under all his afflictions, and kept him from utter and black despair;

that I should not go down to the pit; either of the grave or hell. There is in this clause a "Keri" and a "Cetib"; a marginal reading, and a textual writing: according to the latter it is, "from them that go down to the pit"; which some versions (n) follow; that is, thou hast preserved me from going along with them, and being where and as they are: our version follows the former; the sense is the same.

(m) "ab inferno", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth. (n) So Sept. V. L. Pagninus, Musculus, Gejerus, Michaelis, Ainsworth.

Geneva Study Bible

O LORD, thou hast brought up my {d} soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

(d) Meaning, that he escaped death most narrowly.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. So desperate was his sickness that his recovery was as life from the dead, a veritable resurrection from the grave.

from the grave] R.V. from Sheol. See note on Psalm 6:5. Cp. 1 Samuel 2:6.

thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit] Better, thou hast restored me to life from among them that go down to the pit. He was already as good as dead, when Jehovah raised him up again. Cp. Psalm 9:13; Psalm 88:4 ff. This is the reading of the Kthîbh, which is supported by the LXX and Syr., and by Psalm 28:1. The A.V. that I should not go down follows the Qrç, which is supported by the Targ. and Jer., but involves an anomalous grammatical form, and gives a less vigorous sense.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; i.e. when I was on the verge of the grave, just ready to depart to the unseen world, thy interposition saved me, and brought me, as it were, back to life. Thou hast kept me alive. Lest the hyperbole of the preceding clause should be misunderstood, the writer appends a prosaic account of what had happened. God had "kept him alive" when he was in peril of death, and saved him, that he should not go down to the pit. Psalm 30:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 30:2-4) The Psalm begins like a hymn. The Piel דּלּה (from דּלה, Arab. dlâ, to hold anything long, loose and pendulous, whether upwards or downwards, conj. V Arab. tdllâ equals , to dangle) signifies to lift or draw up, like a bucket (דּלי, Greek ἀντλίον, Latin tollo, tolleno in Festus). The poet himself says what that depth is into which he had sunk and out of which God had drawn him up without his enemies rejoicing over him (לי as in Psalm 25:2), i.e., without allowing them the wished for joy at his destruction: he was brought down almost into Hades in consequence of some fatal sickness. חיּה (never: to call into being out of nothing) always means to restore to life that which has apparently or really succumbed to death, or to preserve anything living in life. With this is easily and satisfactorily joined the Kerמ מיּרדי בור (without Makkeph in the correct text), ita ut non descenderem; the infinitive of ירד in this instance following the analogy of the strong verb is ירד, like יבשׁ, ישׁון, and with suffix jordi (like josdi, Job 38:4) or jaaredi, for here it is to be read thus, and not jordi (vid., on Psalm 16:1; Psalm 86:2).

(Note: The Masora does not place the word under יו וחטפין קמציןאלין תיבותא יתירין ו (Introduction 28b), as one would expect to find it if it were to be read mijordi, and proceeds on the assumption that mijārdi is infinitive like עמדך (read ‛amādcha) Obadiah 1:11, not participle (Ewald, S. 533).)

The Chethb מיורדי might also be the infinitive, written with Cholem plenum, as an infinitive Genesis 32:20, and an imperative Numbers 23:8, is each pointed with Cholem instead of Kamtez chatuph; but it is probably intended to be read as a participle, מיּורדי: Thou hast revived me from those who sink away into the grave (Psalm 28:1), or out of the state of such (cf. Psalm 22:22) - a perfectly admissible and pregnant construction.