Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.
Parallel translations
- WEB I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
- KJV I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
- BSB I have sunk into the miry depths, where there is no footing; I have drifted into deep waters, where the flood engulfs me.
- NKJV I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me.
- NASB I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows 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
David feels himself sinking in deep mire with no foothold, engulfed by floods. It vividly expresses the helplessness of overwhelming trouble.
Overview
Continuing the water imagery, David describes a sense of having no solid ground and being swept away by deep waters. The picture conveys utter helplessness apart from God's intervention. As a psalm pointing toward Christ, it anticipates the depths of suffering the Savior would endure to rescue us from sin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 40:2He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.
- Matt 7:25The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock.
- Jer 38:6Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.
- Ps 88:6–7You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.
- Ps 32:6For this, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. Surely when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach to him.
- Jer 38:22‘Behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah’s house will be brought out to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women will say, “Your familiar friends have turned on you, and have prevailed over you. Your feet are sunk in the mire, they have turned away from you.”
- Matt 26:37–38He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.
- Gen 7:17–23The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.
- Ezek 27:26–34Your rowers have brought you into great waters: the east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 69:2 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.