I was pushed so hard I was falling, but the LORD helped me.
Parallel translations
- WEB You pushed me back hard, to make me fall, but Yahweh helped me.
- KJV Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the LORD helped me.
- NKJV You pushed me violently, that I might fall, But the Lord helped me.
- NASB You pushed me violently so that I was falling, But the Lord helped me.
- NLT My enemies did their best to kill me, but the Lord rescued me.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Though pushed hard to make him fall, the Lord helped him. It matters because God upholds his people at the very point of collapse.
Overview
Addressing his attacker, the psalmist admits he was nearly toppled, but God intervened to sustain him. Deliverance comes precisely when human strength gives way. This rescue at the brink mirrors the gospel, where God's help meets us in our helplessness through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 140:4Guard me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked. Keep me safe from men of violence who scheme to make me stumble.
- Ps 86:17Show me a sign of Your goodness, that my enemies may see and be ashamed; for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
- Mic 7:8Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.
- Ps 18:17–18He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from foes too mighty for me.
- Matt 4:1–11Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
- 1 Sam 25:29And 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 Sam 17:1–3Furthermore, Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David.
- Ps 56:1–3For 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 Sam 20:3But 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.”
- Heb 2:14Now 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,
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 118:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.