I am counted with those who go down to the pit; I am like a man who has no strength,
Parallel translations
- WEB I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,
- KJV I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:
- BSB I am counted among those descending to the Pit. I am like a man without strength.
- NASB I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength,
- NLT I am as good as dead, like a strong man with no strength left.
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
He feels counted among the dead, a man with no strength or help. His suffering leaves him utterly weak and helpless.
Overview
Heman sees himself as already numbered with those descending to the pit, devoid of strength. This sense of helplessness expresses the depth of his affliction. Such utter weakness foreshadows the helplessness Christ embraced in His suffering, that He might rescue the helpless.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 28:1By David. To you, Yahweh, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me; lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit.
- 2 Cor 1:9Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,
- Ps 143:7Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails. Don’t hide your face from me, so that I don’t become like those who go down into the pit.
- Ps 31:12I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
- Job 17:1“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
- Ps 30:9“What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?
- Isa 38:17–18Behold, for peace I had great anguish, but you have in love for my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for you have cast all my sins behind your back.
- Ps 109:22–24for I am poor and needy. My heart is wounded within me.
- 2 Cor 13:4For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him through the power of God toward you.
- Ezek 26:20then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living:
- Jonah 2:6I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God.
- Rom 5:6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
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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 88:4 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.