Bible Strands
Psalms 118:13
I was pushed so hard I was falling, but the LORD helped me.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist speaks directly to God while recounting a past crisis where hostile forces threatened to overwhelm him. This declaration follows his testimony of divine intervention against swarming enemies and immediately precedes his affirmation of Yahweh as his strength and salvation.
The words — The Hebrew דְחִיתַנִי (de.chitanî) literally renders "you pushed me," paired with לִנְפֹּל (linpōl) meaning "to fall," describing a near-collapse. The response clause uses עֲזָרַנִי (ʿazarānî), "he helped me," marking the pivot from impending defeat to deliverance.
The thread — This pattern of near-fall followed by divine rescue appears in Psalms 140:4 and 86:17, where Yahweh protects from those who scheme to make the speaker stumble and actively helps and comforts him. It also aligns with Micah 7:8, which contrasts enemy gloating with the certainty that the LORD will be light after a fall.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that survival against overwhelming opposition depends on external intervention rather than personal resilience. It requires the reader to identify the specific moment of failure and attribute the subsequent stability to divine action.
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
Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the Lord helped me.
Cross-references
- Psalms 140:4 Guard me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked. Keep me safe from men of violence who scheme to make me stumble.
- Psalms 86:17 Show me a sign of Your goodness, that my enemies may see and be ashamed; for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
- Micah 7:8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.
- Psalms 18:17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from foes too mighty for me.
- Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
- 1 Samuel 25:29 And should someone pursue you and seek your life, then the life of my lord will be bound securely by the LORD your God in the bundle of the living. But He shall fling away the lives of your enemies like stones from a sling.
- 2 Samuel 17:1 Furthermore, Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David.
- Psalms 56:1 For the choirmaster. To the tune of “A Dove on Distant Oaks.” A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Be merciful to me, O God, for men are hounding me; all day they press their attack.
- 1 Samuel 20:3 But David again vowed, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or he will be grieved.’ As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”
- Hebrews 2:14 Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,