15 Don't let the flood waters overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Don't let the pit shut its mouth on me.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Let not the waterflood overflow me - The stream; the volume of waters. The idea is that of a flood or stream rolling along, that threatened to drown him.
Neither let the deep swallow me up - The abyss; the deep waters.
And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me - In his anguish and distress he passes here from the idea of running streams, and deep waters, to that of a well, pit, or cavern - representing himself as "in" that pit, and praying that it might not be closed upon him, leaving him in darkness and in mire, from which he could not then escape. The general idea in all these expressions is the same - that of overwhelming calamities from which he prayed to be delivered.
Let not the water flood overflow me,.... The enemy, Satan, that came in like a flood upon him, with his whole posse of devils; or the wrath of God, which came upon him like a flood overwhelming him:
neither let the deep swallow me up: as Jonah by the whale, and Dathan and Abiram in the earth:
and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me; either the pit of hell; so the Targum interprets it: for Christ, when he endured the curses of the law, and the wrath of God, suffered the same for kind as the damned in hell; only the mouth of this pit could not be shut upon him, or he be continued under such wrath and curse: or else the pit of the grave, where his divine Father left him not, or suffered him to be so long in it as to see corruption; this pit was not shut upon him, but he was delivered out of it, and will die no more.
*More commentary available at chapter level.