Bible Strands
Isaiah 38:17
Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Hezekiah speaks from his recovered state, addressing God after being granted extended life following a terminal illness. He contrasts his previous near-death agony with his current survival, attributing the reversal entirely to divine action.
The words — חָשַׁקְתָּ (cha.shak.ta) indicates a decisive love that actively rescues the speaker from שַׁחַת (sha.chat), the pit of decay or oblivion. These lexical choices ground the verse’s claim that deliverance comes through divine commitment rather than human preservation.
The thread — The explicit theme of God remembering sins no more appears in Isaiah 43:25. Jonah 2:6 and Micah 7:18 parallel the rescue from the pit and the act of pardoning iniquity, respectively.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that both physical restoration and moral pardon originate from God’s unilateral action. It demands the conclusion that survival and forgiveness depend on divine intervention, not on the speaker’s own merit or endurance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 43:25 I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.
- Jonah 2:6 To the roots of the mountains I descended; the earth beneath me barred me in forever! But You raised my life from the pit, O LORD my God!
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- Psalms 30:3 O LORD, You pulled me up from Sheol; You spared me from descending into the Pit.
- Jeremiah 31:34 No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
- Psalms 86:13 For great is Your loving devotion to me; You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol.
- Job 3:25 For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me.
- Psalms 30:6 In prosperity I said, “I will never be shaken.”
- Psalms 40:2 He lifted me up from the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock, and made my footsteps firm.
- Psalms 85:2 You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You covered all their sin. Selah