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.)