3
The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
4
Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”
My Thoughts
The psalmist describes his profound agony, surrounded by death’s pains and sorrow. In this moment of despair, he earnestly cries out to the Lord, seeking deliverance for his troubled soul. The commentaries explore the depth of this distress, linking it to physical suffering and spiritual anguish. Ultimately, his prayer exemplifies a heartfelt appeal to God during extreme trials, emphasizing trust in divine mercy and the importance of turning to God in dire circumstances for rescue and solace. Bill
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Commentaries
Enduring Word
The pains of death surrounded me: In the painful grip of death, the psalmist knew nothing but trouble and sorrow. This death crisis may have come from sickness, injury, or persecution. (Guzik)
i. Pains of death…pangs of Sheol: “In Old Testament poetry death and Sheol are aggressive, clutching at the living to waste them with sickness or crush them with despondency; so the singer’s plight may equally have been a desperate illness or (as Psalm 116:11 suggests) a wounding and disillusioning experience. Like Job’s, it could well have been both together.” (Kidner)
ii. Many centuries later Peter used the phrase the pains of death to describe the peril from which God the Father delivered Jesus Christ through His resurrection (Acts 2:24). It adds a powerful prophetic and messianic meaning to the psalm since this was one of the psalms Jesus would have sung with His disciples at the last supper (Matthew 26:30, Mark 14:26). (Guzik)
iii. Perhaps while singing this phrase Jesus considered the linen windings that would soon be wrapped around His dead body. “…the cables or cords of death; alluding to their bonds and fetters during their captivity; or to the cords by which a criminal is bound who is about to be led out to execution; or to the bandages in which the dead were enveloped when head, arms, body, and limbs were all laced down together.” (Clarke)
Then I called upon the name of the LORD: In his deadly danger, the psalmist cried out to God in light of all He is and represents (the name of the LORD). His cry was:
· Delivered straight to God: O LORD.
· Deeply felt: I implore You.
· Directly stating the need: Deliver my soul.
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Charles Spurgeon
The Psalmist now goes on to describe his condition at the time when he prayed unto God.
“The sorrows of death compassed me. As hunters surround a stag with dogs and men so that no way of escape is left, so was David enclosed in a ring of deadly griefs. The bands of sorrow, weakness, and terror with which death is accustomed to bind men ere he drags them away to their long captivity were all around him. Nor were these things around him in a distant circle, they had come close home, for he adds,
“and the pains of hell gat hold upon me.” Horrors such as those which torment the lost seized me, grasped me, found me out, searched me through and through, and held me a prisoner. He means by the pains of hell those pangs which belong to death, those terrors which are connected with the grave; these were so closely upon him that they fixed their teeth in him as hounds seize their prey.
“I found trouble and sorrow.”—trouble was around me, and sorrow within me. His griefs were double, and as he searched into them they increased. A man rejoices when he finds a hid treasure; but what must be the anguish of a man who finds, where he least expected it, a vein of trouble and sorrow? The Psalmist was sought for by trouble and it found him out, and when he himself became a seeker he found no relief, but double distress.
“Then I called upon the name of the LORD.” Prayer is never out of season, he prayed then, when things were at their worst. When the good man could not run to God, he called to him. In his extremity his faith came to the front: it was useless to call on man, and it may have seemed almost as useless to appeal to the Lord, but yet he did with his whole soul invoke all the attributes which make up the sacred name of Jehovah, and thus he proved the truth of his confidence. We can some of us remember certain very special times of trial of which we can now say, “then called I upon the name of the Lord.” The Psalmist appealed to the Lord’s mercy, truth, power, and faithfulness, and this was his prayer,—
“O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.” This form of petition is short, comprehensive, to the point, humble, and earnest. It were well if all our prayers were molded upon this model; perhaps they would be if we were in similar circumstances to those of the Psalmist, for real trouble produces real prayer. Here we have no multiplicity of words, and no fine arrangement of sentences; everything is simple and natural; there is not a redundant syllable, and yet there is not one lacking.
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Barnes
The sorrows of death – What an expression! We know of no intenser sorrows pertaining to this world than those which we associate with the dying struggle – whether our views in regard to the reality of such sorrows be correct or not. We may be – we probably are – mistaken in regard to the intensity of suffering as ordinarily experienced in death; but still, we dread those sorrows more than we do anything else, and all that we dread may be experienced then. Those sorrows, therefore, become the representation of the intensest forms of suffering; and such, the psalmist says, he experienced on the occasion to which he refers. There would seem in his case to have been two things combined, as they often are:
(1) actual suffering from some bodily malady which threatened his life, Psalms 116:3, Psalms 116:6, Psalms 116:8-10;
(2) mental sorrow as produced by the remembrance of his sins, and the apprehension of the future, Psalms 116:4. See the notes at Psalms 18:5.
And the pains of hell – The pains of Sheol – Hades; the grave. See Psalms 16:10, note; Job 10:21-22, notes; Isaiah 14:9, note. The pain or suffering connected with going down to the grave, or the descent to the nether world; the pains of death. There is no evidence that the psalmist here refers to the pains of hell, as we understand the word, as a place of punishment, or that he means, to say that he experienced the sorrows of the damned. The sufferings which he referred to were those of death – the descent to the tomb.
Gat hold upon me – Margin, as in Hebrew, “found me.” They discovered me – as if they had been searching for me, and had at last found my hiding place. Those sorrows and pangs, ever in pursuit of us, will soon find us all. We cannot long escape the pursuit Death tracks us, and is upon our heels.
I found trouble and sorrow – Death found me, and I found trouble and sorrow. I did not seek it, but in what I was seeking I found this. Whatever we fail to “find” in the pursuits of life, we shall not fail to find the troubles and sorrows connected with death. They are in our path wherever we turn, and we cannot avoid them.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord – Upon the Lord. I had no other refuge. I felt that I must perish unless he should interpose, and I pleaded with him for deliverance and life. Compare the notes at Psalms 18:6.
O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul – My life. Save me from death. This was not a cry for salvation but for life. It is an example for us, however, to call on God when we feel that the soul is in danger of perishing, for then, as in the case of the psalmist, we have no other refuge but God.
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John Gill
The sorrows of death compassed me,…. Christ, of whom David was a type, was a man of sorrows all his days; and in the garden, he was surrounded with sorrow; exceeding sorrowful even unto death, in a view of the sins of his people imputed to him, and under a sense of wrath for them, he was about to bear; and his agonies in the article of death were very grievous, he died the painful and accursed death of the cross. This was true of David, when Saul and his men compassed him on every side, threatening to cut him off in a moment; when he despaired of life, and had the sentence of death in himself, and saw no way to escape; and such a case is that of the people of God, or they may be said to be compassed about with the sorrows of death when through a slavish fear of it they are all their lifetime subject to bondage; and especially when under dreadful apprehensions of eternal death.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord,…. Upon the Lord himself in prayer for speedy deliverance; or “in the name of the Lord”, in the name of the Messiah, the only Mediator between God and man; “saying,” as follows, and which word may be supplied,
O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul; from these sorrows and pains, from these afflictions and distresses, from death and the grave, and from wrath, and a sense of it, and fears about it.
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Matthew Henry
He was in great distress and trouble (v. 3): The sorrows of death compassed me, that is, such sorrows as were likely to be his death, such as were thought to be the very pangs of death. Perhaps the extremity of bodily pain, or trouble of mind, is called here the pains of hell, terror of conscience arising from a sense of guilt. Note that the sorrows of death are great sorrows, and the pains of hell great pains. Let us therefore give diligence to prepare for the former, that we may escape the latter. These compassed him on every side; they arrested him, got hold upon him, so that he could not escape. Without were fightings, within were fears. “I found trouble and sorrow; not only they found me, but I found them.” Those that are melancholy have a great deal of sorrow of their own finding, a great deal of trouble which they create to themselves, by indulging fancy and passion; this has sometimes been the infirmity of good men. When God’s providence makes our condition bad let us not by our own imprudence make it worse.
In his trouble he had recourse to God by faithful and fervent prayer, v. 4. He tells us that he prayed: Then called I upon the name of the Lord; then, when he was brought to the last extremity, then he made use of this, not as the last remedy, but as the old and only remedy, which he had found a salve for every sore. He tells us what his prayer was; it was short, but to the purpose: “O Lord! I beseech thee, deliver my soul; save me from death, and save me from sin, for that is it that is killing to the soul.” Both the humility and the fervency of his prayer are intimated in these words, O Lord! I beseech thee. When we come to the throne of grace we must come as beggars for an alms, for necessary food.
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The Pulpit Commentaries
The sorrows of death compassed me; literally, the cords of death (comp. Psalms 18:4, where the same expression is used). Death is pictured as seizing his victim and binding him with cords. And the pains of hell gat hold upon me; or, “the straits of hell” (comp. Psalms 118:5; Lamentations 1:3). Death and hell (shell) are closely connected together in the prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:10, Isaiah 38:18). I found trouble and sorrow; or, “anguish and woe” (comp. Isaiah 38:12-17).
ITS ALWAYS PRESENT AND MOST PRECIOUS REFUGE. “Then called I upon the Name of the Lord,” etc. (Psalms 116:4). Him whom we are apt to overlook in the light, we remember when the shadows fall. To him who, though unperceived, is ever at our right hand we gladly turn, when human helpers and our own resources fail us. God is “our very present Help in trouble.” We are sure of his pity, and we may ask for the exercise of his power. We know that he who is interested in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air (Matthew 6:1-34.) will not suffer one of his own children to die until his hour has fully come; that “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalms 116:15). Who shall estimate the measure of comfort and relief which afflicted humanity has found in submission to the will and prayer for the succor of the heavenly Friend!
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Cross-References
Psalm 18:4–6 (KJV)
4 The sorrows of death compassed me,
And the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about:
The snares of death prevented me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried unto my God:
He heard my voice out of his temple,
And my cry came before him, even into his ears.
Acts 2:24 (KJV)
24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Psalm 118:5 (KJV)
5 I called upon the Lord in distress:
The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
Jonah 2:2 (KJV)
2 And said,
I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;
Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
Romans 8:35 (KJV)
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
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KJV W/Strongs Bible
116:3 The sorrows 2256 of death 4194 compassed 661 8804 me, and the pains 4712 of hell 7585 gat hold 4672 8804 upon me: I found 4672 8799 trouble 6869 and sorrow 3015.(gat…: Heb. found me)
116:4 Then called 7121 8799 I upon the name 8034 of the LORD 3068; O LORD 3068, I beseech 577 thee, deliver 4422 8761 my soul 5315.
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Geneva Bible 1560
Psalm 116:3-4
3 When the snares of death compassed me, and the griefs of the grave caught me: when I found trouble and sorrow,
4 Then I called upon the Name of the Lord, saying, I beseech thee, ô Lord, deliver my soul.
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Closing Thoughts
‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 NASB1995
I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me. Jeremiah 33:8 NKJV
‘In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David a Branch of Righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. Jeremiah 33:15 NKJV
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