Bible Strands
Psalms 107:27
They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and all their skill was useless.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist describes mariners trapped in a violent storm, narrating their panic at the peak of the tempest before they cry out to the LORD. The words — יָח֣וֹגּוּ (yaḥōgū) literally means they stagger or reel in circles, while תִּתְבַּלָּֽע (titbalaʿ) denotes being swallowed up or confused, describing the collapse of their navigational expertise. The thread — This motif of divinely induced disorientation appears in Job 12:25 and Isaiah 19:14, where God confuses the plans of nations or makes them grope in darkness. Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that human expertise collapses in crisis, requiring a direct appeal to God for rescue rather than continued self-reliance.
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
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Cross-references
- Job 12:25 They grope in the darkness without light; He makes them stagger like drunkards.
- Isaiah 19:14 The LORD has poured into her a spirit of confusion. Egypt has been led astray in all she does, as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit.
- Isaiah 19:3 Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them, and I will frustrate their plans, so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead, to mediums and spiritists.
- Isaiah 29:9 Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.
- Job 37:20 Should He be told that I want to speak? Would a man ask to be swallowed up?
- Isaiah 24:20 The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.
- Acts 27:15 Unable to head into the wind, the ship was caught up. So we gave way and let ourselves be driven along.