Month: March 2026

Week 13  Jonah 2

Yesterday I read where David said that the Lord spared me from going down to the pit.
Today the prayer of Jonah had a similar sound: the engulfing waters threatened me…seaweed was wrapped around my head…I sank down. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
I checked some other versions and most of them used the word pit. A couple capitalized it: the Pit. A couple called it the pit of death.
Pit sometimes just means a deep hole in the ground. But the bible also uses it in a figure-of-speech kind of way:
…let’s swallow them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit
…you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit
I will make you dwell in the earth below…with those who go down to the pit, and you will not return or take your place in the land of the living.
So the Pit is one of the names of the place where dead people go. It’s the place where some people – like Jonah (who was right on the doorstep of doom) – were rescued from at the-very-last-second.
People can come very close to the netherworld without landing inside. But – barring a miracle – once a person is there they’re there for good.

Note: quotes from Psalm 30:3 (NIV) Jonah 2:5-6 (NIV CSB RSV EXB & NCV) Proverbs 1:12 Isaiah 14:15 Ezekiel 26:20 (NIV)

 

Week 13  Psalm 30

The psalm starts with David saying thank-you because the Lord lifted me out of the depths. A couple of seconds later David expands on that idea: you, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit.
I wondered about this place – this realm-of-the-dead. I checked a couple of other versions. Several used the word Sheol. Others used the grave or the nether world. So Sheol is the place where dead people go. And David said that’s where the Lord had brought me up from. Which sounds like David had died. Gone to Sheol. Then been revived by the Lord and relocated in the land-of-the-living.
I don’t think that’s what happened here. I’m not saying the Lord couldn’t bring someone back from death – that actually happened on a few occasions. But I don’t think that’s the situation here because David says in the next breath: you spared me from going down to the pit. I’m assuming that the pit is another way of saying Sheol. Which makes it sound now like David didn’t die and go to Sheol. More like the Grim Reaper had David in his sights. But then the Lord intervened.
I’ve seen this kind of divine intervention other places so it’s not totally unexpected. I figure David was talking about one of those last-second rescues.

Note: quotes from Psalm 30:1 & 3 (NIV). (I’m still curious about the nether world, so I’ll be keeping it in mind.)