Psalm 107:18

Psalm 107:18, in plain English

Their rebellion has brought them to the brink of death—they're so broken that they can't even eat, and they're facing the literal end of their lives.

Why it's here

This represents spiritual and physical deterioration. The loss of appetite for food becomes a symbol of complete emptiness and loss of will to live. They're at rock bottom.

Who's speaking

The psalmist, describing the final depth of desperation

Where it sits in the story

This connects to biblical images of death and the grave. The point is that human rebellion leads to death; only God offers life.

The scholarly reading

The fools' self-destructive behavior manifests as sickness and approach to death: they lose appetite (loathing food) and draw near to mortality's gates.

Language and setting

The verb 'loathed' (ta'alu) employs language of visceral repulsion: food, the fundamental sustenance of life, becomes abhorrent. This psychosomatic manifestation—loss of appetite indicating profound spiritual and physical sickness—depicts someone consumed by despair. The phrase 'gates of death' (sha'arei mavet) pictures death as a fortified place the fool approaches, echoing the language of verse 10 but here the bondage is interior rather than imposed externally.

Voice

Still the liturgical voice, now describing the condition of the self-destructively foolish.

Significance

This recalls biblical depictions of despair unto death: Jonah's suicidal ideation in the belly of the fish, Job's death-wish, or the spiritual death imagery in Paul's letters. The psalm suggests that rebellion against God produces a kind of death-in-life.

16For He has broken down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

17Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.

18They loathed all food and drew near to the gates of death.

19Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.

20He sent forth His word and healed them; He rescued them from the Pit.

Read all of Psalm 107 — Four stories of people in trouble — lost, imprisoned, sick, storm-tossed. Each time they cry out. Each time God delivers. Let the redeemed say so.