Psalm 69:14

Psalm 69:14, in plain English

David asks God to pull him out of the mire and the deep waters—to rescue him from sinking further and to deliver him from his enemies.

Why it's here

David is using the same drowning imagery from earlier, but now he's directly asking God to act as his rescuer. He's not asking for comfort or explanation—he's asking for deliverance.

Who's speaking

David, making his specific request for rescue.

Where it sits in the story

Throughout Scripture, God is portrayed as the rescuer of those in distress. This isn't wishful thinking—it's David calling on God's character and God's pattern of intervention.

The scholarly reading

The psalmist directly petitions God to rescue him from the mire and prevent his sinking, to deliver him from his foes and from drowning in deep waters—returning to and intensifying the aquatic imagery of verses 1-2.

Language and setting

The request employs three imperative verbs—chalats (rescue), al tisgab (do not let sink), palat (deliver)—creating rhythmic urgency. Significantly, the verse pairs physical rescue ('from the mire,' 'from deep waters') with personal deliverance ('from my foes'), suggesting that his enemies and his apparent abandonment by God are interconnected aspects of a single crisis. The repetition of water imagery from the psalm's opening creates a kind of lyric return, but now the supplicant approaches as one who has made his case.

Voice

The psalmist, now directly addressing God in urgent imperative, having established the justice and severity of his situation.

Significance

The rescue from water imagery becomes thoroughly Christianized: baptismal theologians (Tertullian, Augustine) understood water as both threat and salvation, death and rebirth. More immediately, the Gospels' rescue narratives (Jesus calming the storm, walking on water) fulfill precisely this logic—the threat that appears as divine abandonment becomes the occasion for recognizing divine power.

12Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of drunkards.

13But my prayer to You, O LORD, is for a time of favor. In Your abundant loving devotion, O God, answer me with Your sure salvation.

14Rescue me from the mire and do not let me sink; deliver me from my foes and out of the deep waters.

15Do not let the floods engulf me or the depths swallow me up; let not the Pit close its mouth over me.

16Answer me, O LORD, for Your loving devotion is good; turn to me in keeping with Your great compassion.

Read all of Psalm 69 — David is drowning — literally and figuratively. The waters have come up to my neck. A psalm of desperation that Jesus made His own.