Psalm 40:2
King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.
Psalm 28:1; Psalm 30:4; Psalm 88:4; Isaiah 38:18; Isaiah 14:19.
It may refer to any calamity – or to trouble, like being in a pit – or it may refer to the grave. The word rendered “horrible” – שׁאון shâ’ôn – means properly “noise, uproar, tumult,” as of waters; of a crowd of men; of war. Then it seems to be used in the sense of “desolation” or “destruction,” as applicable to the grave. DeWette understands it here of a pit, a cavern, or an abyss that roars or is tumultuous; that is, that is impassable. Perhaps this is the idea – a cavern, deep and dark, where the waters roar, and which seems to be filled with horrors. So Rosenmuller understands it. The Septuagint renders it: ἐκ λάκκου ταλαιπωρίας ek lakkou talaipōrias, “a lake of misery.” It is a deep and horrid cavern, where there is no hope of being rescued, or where it would seem that there would be certain destruction…