(15) Pit.--Properly, well. A stone usually covered the wells (Genesis 29:10), which explains the phrase, "shut her mouth." Is this merely figurative; or have we here a reminiscence of some terrible crime, analogous to that of Cawnpore?
Verse 15. - Let not the waterflood overflew me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. The reference is still to vers. 1, 2; and the prayer is for deliverance from the dangers and entanglements there spoken of.
69:13-21 Whatever deep waters of affliction or temptation we sink into, whatever floods of trouble or ungodly men seem ready to overwhelm us, let us persevere in prayer to our Lord to save us. The tokens of God's favour to us are enough to keep our spirits from sinking in the deepest outward troubles. If we think well of God, and continue to do so under the greatest hardships, we need not fear but he will do well for us. And if at any time we are called on to suffer reproach and shame, for Christ's sake, this may be our comfort, that he knows it. It bears hard on one that knows the worth of a good name, to be oppressed with a bad one; but when we consider what a favour it is to be accounted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus, we shall see that there is no reason why it should be heart-breaking to us. The sufferings of Christ were here particularly foretold, which proves the Scripture to be the word of God; and how exactly these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, which proves him to be the true Messiah. The vinegar and the gall given to him, were a faint emblem of that bitter cup which he drank up, that we might drink the cup of salvation. We cannot expect too little from men, miserable comforters are they all; nor can we expect too much from the God of all comfort and consolation.
Let not the water flood overflow me,.... The enemy, Satan, that came in like a flood upon him, with his whole posse of devils; or the wrath of God, which came upon him like a flood overwhelming him:
neither let the deep swallow me up: as Jonah by the whale, and Dathan and Abiram in the earth:
and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me; either the pit of hell; so the Targum interprets it: for Christ, when he endured the curses of the law, and the wrath of God, suffered the same for kind as the damned in hell; only the mouth of this pit could not be shut upon him, or he be continued under such wrath and curse: or else the pit of the grave, where his divine Father left him not, or suffered him to be so long in it as to see corruption; this pit was not shut upon him, but he was delivered out of it, and will die no more.
neither let the deep swallow me up: as Jonah by the whale, and Dathan and Abiram in the earth:
and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me; either the pit of hell; so the Targum interprets it: for Christ, when he endured the curses of the law, and the wrath of God, suffered the same for kind as the damned in hell; only the mouth of this pit could not be shut upon him, or he be continued under such wrath and curse: or else the pit of the grave, where his divine Father left him not, or suffered him to be so long in it as to see corruption; this pit was not shut upon him, but he was delivered out of it, and will die no more.