Bible Strands
Psalms 69:2
I have sunk into the miry depths, where there is no footing; I have drifted into deep waters, where the flood engulfs me.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David speaks to God as a worship leader, immediately following his plea in Psalms 69:1 about waters reaching his neck and preceding his description in Psalms 69:3 of physical exhaustion from crying.
The words — The Hebrew טָבַ֤עְתִּי (taVa'ti) translates literally to "I have sunk," paired with מָעֳמָ֑ד (mo'oMad), meaning "a foothold," to state the complete absence of stable ground.
The thread — The miry depths and engulfing waters motif appears in Psalms 40:2, where God lifts the speaker from miry clay, and in Psalms 32:6, where rising floodwaters are promised not to reach the godly.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to acknowledge that distress can remove all personal stability, making direct appeal to God the only viable response rather than 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
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
Cross-references
- 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.
- Matthew 7:25 The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.
- Psalms 32:6 Therefore let all the godly pray to You while You may be found. Surely when great waters rise, they will not come near.
- Psalms 88:6 You have laid me in the lowest Pit, in the darkest of the depths.
- Jeremiah 38:6 So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
- Jeremiah 38:22 All the women who remain in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon, and those women will say: ‘They misled you and overcame you—those trusted friends of yours. Your feet sank into the mire, and they deserted you.’
- Genesis 7:17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth.
- Matthew 26:37 He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.
- Ezekiel 27:26 Your oarsmen have brought you onto the high seas, but the east wind will shatter you in the heart of the sea.