Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 116:3

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Psalms 116:3. The sorrows of death — חבלי מות chebley maveth, the cables or cords of death; alluding to their bonds and fetters during their captivity; or to the cords by which a criminal is bound who is about to be led out to execution; or to the bandages in which the dead were enveloped, when head, arms, body, and limbs were all laced down together.

The pains of hell — מצרי שאול metsarey sheol, the straitnesses of the grave. So little expectation was there of life, that he speaks as if he were condemned, executed, and closed up in the tomb. Or, he may refer here to the small niches in cemeteries, where the coffins of the dead were placed.

Because this Psalm has been used in the thanksgiving of women after safe delivery, it has been supposed that the pain suffered in the act of parturition was equal for the time to the torments of the damned. But this supposition is shockingly absurd; the utmost power of human nature could not, for a moment, endure the wrath of God, the deathless worm, and the unquenchable fire. The body must die, be decomposed, and be built up on indestructible principles, before this punishment can be borne.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 115-117 Saved from death

God was always faithful to Israel, though the Israelites were often unfaithful to him. Their sins brought God’s punishment upon them, causing their pagan neighbours to mock them with the accusation that their God was unable to help them and had deserted them (115:1-2). The Israelites reply that their God is alive and in full control. The pagan gods, by contrast, are useless, and the reason they are useless is that they are lifeless. Those who trust in them will achieve nothing (3-8).
Israel’s people will therefore trust in God for help and protection (9-11). They know that he will bless them and their descendants after them, for he is the almighty Creator (12-15). He has given the earth to humankind as a dwelling place, but has limited the number of years that each person may live on it. Therefore, God’s people should make sure that they fill their few short years with praise to him (16-18).

In Psalms 116:0 an individual worshipper brings a sacrifice to God to pay his vows and offer thanks (see v. 17-18). Before offering his sacrifice, he pauses to think quietly on the great mercy and love of God. As he does so, he finds that his own love towards God increases, particularly when he recalls how God has answered his prayers and saved his life (116:1-4). He has personally experienced God’s compassion and goodness (5-7). When he was unable to help himself and when so-called friends proved useless, he still trusted God. He prayed, and God gave him new life (8-11). He will now publicly thank God by offering prayers and sacrifices in fulfilment of his vow (12-14). He sees how highly God values the life of the believer. God does not allow him to die, as if death is a thing of no importance in God’s sight. God preserves him alive, and for this he offers overflowing thanks (15-19).

God’s loyal love to Israel should cause his people to spread the good news of his love to other nations. This, in turn, will cause the people of those nations to bring their praise to him (117:1-2).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

HOW PRECARIOUS HIS SITUATION WAS

"The cords of death compassed me, And the pains of Sheol gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of Jehovah: O Jehovah, I beseech thee, deliver my soul."

Leupold noted that "Psalms 116:3 here is based upon Psalms 18:4."H. C. Leupold, p. 805. This verse describes his illness (or whatever the crisis was) in figurative language. "In the Old Testament, death is represented as a hunter with a cord and a net. In any lingering sickness, the cord gets tighter and tighter until all possibility of escape is cut off."J. W. Burn, Vol. II, p. 230.

"I called upon the name of Jehovah… I beseech thee, deliver my soul" This is a concise and very brief summary of his prayers to the Lord. In the throes of the terrible threat of death which was upon him, he did not cease to cry unto the Lord night and day.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

The sorrows of death - What an expression! We know of no intenser sorrows pertaining to this world than those which we associate with the dying struggle - whether our views in regard to the reality of such sorrows be correct or not. We may be - we probably are - mistaken in regard to the intensity of suffering as ordinarily experienced in death; but still we dread those sorrows more than we do anything else, and all that we dread may be experienced then. Those sorrows, therefore, become the representation of the intensest forms of suffering; and such, the psalmist says, he experienced on the occasion to which he refers. There would seem in his case to have been two things combined, as they often are:

(1) actual suffering from some bodily malady which threatened his life, Psalms 116:3, Psalms 116:6,Psalms 116:8-10;

(2) mental sorrow as produced by the remembrance of his sins, and the apprehension of the future, Psalms 116:4. See the notes at Psalms 18:5.

And the pains of hell - The pains of Sheol - Hades; the grave. See Psalms 16:10, note; Job 10:21-22, notes; Isaiah 14:9, note. The pain or suffering connected with going down to the grave, or the descent to the nether world; the pains of death. There is no evidence that the psalmist here refers to the pains of hell, as we understand the word, as a place of punishment, or that he mean, to say that he experienced the sorrows of the damned. The sufferings which he referred to were these of death - the descent to the tomb.

Gat hold upon me - Margin, as in Hebrew, “found me.” They discovered me - as if they had been searching for me, and had at last found my hiding place. Those sorrows and pangs, ever in pursuit of us, will soon find us all. We cannot long escape the pursuit Death tracks us, and is upon our heels.

I found trouble and sorrow - Death found me, and I found trouble and sorrow. I did not seek it, but in what I was seeking I found this. Whatever we fail to “find” in the pursuits of life, we shall not fail to find the troubles and sorrows connected with death. They are in our path wherever we turn, and we cannot avoid them.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 116

An unnamed writer gave thanks to God for delivering him from imminent death and for lengthening his life. He promised to praise God in the temple for these blessings. This is a hymn of individual thanksgiving.

". . . if ever a psalm had the marks of spontaneity, this is surely such a one." [Note: Kidner, Psalms 73-150, p. 407.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Evidently the writer had been very close to death. He pictured Death as reaching out to him with cords and almost trapping him, as a hunter snares an animal.

Imagine how the Lord Jesus must have felt as He sang these words during His last Passover in the Upper Room. He knew He was facing death.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The psalmist’s account of his deliverance 116:3-11

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

The sorrows of death compassed me,.... Christ, of whom David was a type, was a man of sorrows all his days; and in the garden he was surrounded with sorrow; exceeding sorrowful even unto death, in a view of the sins of his people imputed to him, and under a sense of wrath for them, he was about to bear; and his agonies in the article of death were very grievous, he died the painful and accursed death of the cross. This was true of David, when Saul and his men compassed him on every side, threatening to cut him off in a moment; when he despaired of life, and had the sentence of death in himself, and saw no way to escape; and such a case is that of the people of God, or they may be said to be compassed about with the sorrows of death, when through a slavish fear of it they are all their lifetime subject to bondage; and especially when under dreadful apprehensions of eternal death.

And the pains of hell gat hold upon me; or "found me" e; overtook him, and seized upon him; meaning either the horrors of a guilty conscience under a sense of sin, without a view of pardon; which is as it were a hell in the conscience, and like the pains and torments of it: or "the pains of the grave" f; not that there are any pains felt there, the body being destitute of life, and senseless; but such sorrows or troubles are meant which threaten to bring down to the grave, which was the case of Jacob on the loss of his children,

Genesis 37:35. This applied to Christ may design the wrath of God and curse of the law, which he endured in the room and stead of his people, as their surety; and which were equivalent to the pains of the damned in hell; or it may refer to his being laid in the grave, in a strait and narrow place, as the word g signifies; where he lay bound in grave clothes, till he was loosed from the pains and cords of death, it being not possible he should be held by them, Acts 2:24,

Acts 2:24- : Acts 2:24- :

I found trouble and sorrow; without seeking for them; they seized and took hold of him, on David, and his antitype, when in the above circumstances; and often do the saints find trouble and sorrow from a body of sin and death, from the temptations of Satan, divine desertions, and afflictive providences. Aben Ezra refers the one to the body, the other to the soul.

e מצאוני "invenerunt me", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. f שאל "sepulchri", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. g מצרי "augustiae", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.   2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.   3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.   4 Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.   5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.   6 The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.   7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.   8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.   9 I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

      In this part of the psalm we have,

      I. A general account of David's experience, and his pious resolutions (Psalms 116:1; Psalms 116:2), which are as the contents of the whole psalm, and give an idea of it. 1. He had experienced God's goodness to him in answer to prayer: He has heard my voice and my supplications. David, in straits, had humbly and earnestly begged mercy of God, and God had heard him, that is, had graciously accepted his prayer, taken cognizance of his case, and granted him an answer of peace. He has inclined his ear to me. This intimates his readiness and willingness to hear prayer; he lays his ear, as it were, to the mouth of prayer, to hear it, though it be but whispered in groanings that cannot be uttered. He hearkens and hears,Jeremiah 8:6. Yet it implies, also, that it is wonderful condescension in God to hear prayer; it is bowing his ear. Lord, what is man, that God should thus stoop to him!-- 2. He resolved, in consideration thereof, to devote himself entirely to God and to his honour. (1.) He will love God the better. He begins the psalm somewhat abruptly with a profession of that which his heart was full of: I love the Lord (as Psalms 18:1); and fitly does he begin with this, in compliance with the first and great commandment and with God's end in all the gifts of his bounty to us. "I love him only, and nothing besides him, but what I love for him." God's love of compassion towards us justly requires our love of complacency in him. (2.) He will love prayer the better: Therefore I will call upon him. The experiences we have had of God's goodness to us, in answer to prayer, are great encouragements to us to continue praying; we have sped well, notwithstanding our unworthiness and our infirmities in prayer, and therefore why may we not? God answers prayer, to make us love it, and expects this from us, in return for his favour. Why should we glean in any other field when we have been so well treated in this? Nay, I will call upon him as long as I live (Heb., In my days), every day, to the last day. Note, As long as we continue living we must continue praying. This breath we must breathe till we breathe our last, because then we shall take our leave of it, and till then we have continual occasion for it.

      II. A more particular narrative of God's gracious dealings with him and the good impressions thereby made upon him.

      1. God, in his dealings with him, showed himself a good God, and therefore he bears this testimony to him, and leaves it upon record (Psalms 116:5; Psalms 116:5): "Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. He is righteous, and did me no wrong in afflicting me; he is gracious, and was very kind in supporting and delivering me." Let us all speak of God as we have found; and have we ever found him otherwise than just and good? No; our God is merciful, merciful to us, and it is of his mercies that we are not consumed.

      (1.) Let us review David's experiences. [1.] He was in great distress and trouble (Psalms 116:3; Psalms 116:3): The sorrows of death compassed me, that is, such sorrows as were likely to be his death, such as were thought to be the very pangs of death. Perhaps the extremity of bodily pain, or trouble of mind, is called here the pains of hell, terror of conscience arising from sense of guilt. Note, The sorrows of death are great sorrows, and the pains of hell great pains. Let us therefore give diligence to prepare for the former, that we may escape the latter. These compassed him on every side; they arrested him, got hold upon him, so that he could not escape. Without were fightings, within were fears. "I found trouble and sorrow; not only they found me, but I found them." Those that are melancholy have a great deal of sorrow of their own finding, a great deal of trouble which they create to themselves, by indulging fancy and passion; this has sometimes been the infirmity of good men. When God's providence makes our condition bad let us not by our own imprudence make it worse. [2.] In his trouble he had recourse to God by faithful and fervent prayer, Psalms 116:4; Psalms 116:4. He tells us that he prayed: Then called I upon the name of the Lord; then, when he was brought to the last extremity, then he made use of this, not as the last remedy, but as the old and only remedy, which he had found a salve for every sore. He tells us what his prayer was; it was short, but to the purpose: "O Lord! I beseech thee, deliver my soul; save me from death, and save me from sin, for that is it that is killing to the soul." Both the humility and the fervency of his prayer are intimated in these words, O Lord! I beseech thee. When we come to the throne of grace we must come as beggars for an alms, for necessary food. The following words (Psalms 116:5; Psalms 116:5), Gracious is the Lord, may be taken as part of his prayer, as a plea to enforce his request and encourage his faith and hope: "Lord deliver my soul, for thou art gracious and merciful, and that only I depend upon for relief." [3.] God, in answer to his prayer, came in with seasonable and effectual relief. He found by experience that God is gracious and merciful, and in his compassion preserves the simple,Psalms 116:6; Psalms 116:6. Because they are simple (that is, sincere, and upright, and without guile) therefore God preserves them, as he preserved Paul, who had his conversation in the world not with fleshly wisdom, but in simplicity and godly sincerity. Though they are simple (that is, weak, and helpless, and unable to shift for themselves, men of no depth, no design) yet God preserves them, because they commit themselves to him and have no confidence in their own sufficiency. Those who by faith put themselves under God's protection shall be safe.

      (2.) Let David speak his own experience. [1.] God supported him under his troubles: "I was brought low, was plunged into the depth of misery, and then he helped me, helped me both to bear the worst and to hope the best, helped me to pray, else desire had failed, helped me to wait, else faith had failed. I was one of the simple ones whom God preserved, the poor man who cried and the Lord heard him," Psalms 34:6. Note, God's people are never brought so low but that everlasting arms are under them, and those cannot sink who are thus sustained. Nay, it is in the time of need, at the dead lift, that God chooses to help, Deuteronomy 32:36. [2.] God saved him out of his troubles (Psalms 116:8; Psalms 116:8): Thou hast delivered, which means either the preventing of the distress he was ready to fall into or the recovering of him from the distress he was already in. God graciously delivered, First, His soul from death. Note, It is God's great mercy to us that we are alive; and the mercy is the more sensible if we have been at death's door and yet have been spared and raised up, just turned to destruction and yet ordered to return. That a life so often forfeited, and so often exposed, should yet be lengthened out, is a miracle of mercy. The deliverance of the soul from spiritual and eternal death is especially to be acknowledged by all those who are now sanctified and shall be shortly glorified. Secondly, His eyes from tears, that is, his heart from inordinate grief. It is a great mercy to be kept either from the occasions of sorrow, the evil that causes grief, or, at least, from being swallowed up with over-much sorrow. When God comforts those that are cast down, looses the mourners' sackcloth and girds them with gladness, then he delivers their eyes from tears, which yet will not be perfectly done till we come to that world where God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. Thirdly, His feet from falling, from falling into sin and so into misery. It is a great mercy, when our feet are almost gone, to have God hold us by the right hand (Psalms 72:2; Psalms 72:23), so that though we enter into temptation we are not overcome and overthrown by the temptation. Or, "Thou hast delivered my feet from falling into the grave, when I had one foot there already."

      2. David, in his returns of gratitude to God, showed himself a good man. God had done all this for him, and therefore,

      (1.) He will live a life of delight in God (Psalms 116:7; Psalms 116:7): Return unto thy rest, O my soul! [1.] "Repose thyself and be easy, and do not agitate thyself with distrustful disquieting fears as thou hast sometimes done. Quiet thyself, and then enjoy thyself. God has dealt kindly with thee, and therefore thou needest not fear that ever he will deal hardly with thee." [2.] "Repose thyself in God. Return to him as thy rest, and seek not for that rest in the creature which is to be had in him only." God is the soul's rest; in him only it can dwell at ease; to him therefore it must retire, and rejoice in him. He has dealt bountifully with us; he has provided sufficiently for our comfort and refreshment, and encouraged us to come to him for the benefit of it, at all times, upon all occasions; let us therefore be satisfied with that. Return to that rest which Christ gives to the weary and heavy-laden,Matthew 11:28. Return to thy Noah; his name signifies rest, as the dove, when she found no rest, returned to the ark. I know no word more proper to close our eyes with at night, when we go to sleep, nor to close them with at death, that long sleep, than this, Return to thy rest, O my soul!

      (2.) He will live a life of devotedness to God (Psalms 116:9; Psalms 116:9): I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living, that is, in this world, as long as I continue to live in it. Note, [1.] It is our great duty to walk before the Lord, to do all we do as becomes us in his presence and under his eye, to approve ourselves to him as a holy God by conformity to him as our sovereign Lord, by subjection to his will, and, as a God all-sufficient, by a cheerful confidence in him. I am the almighty God; walk before me,Genesis 17:1. We must walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing. [2.] The consideration of this, that we are in the land of the living, should engage and quicken us to do so. We are spared and continued in the land of the living by the power, and patience, and tender mercy of our God, and therefore must make conscience of our duty to him. The land of the living is a land of mercy, which we ought to be thankful for; it is a land of opportunity, which we should improve. Canaan is called the land of the living (Ezekiel 26:20), and those whose lot is cast in such a valley of vision are in a special manner concerned to set the Lord always before them. If God has delivered our soul from death, we must walk before him. A new life must be a new life indeed.