John Gill Commentary Psalms 30:3

"O Jehovah, thou hast brought up my soul from Sheol; Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit." — Psalms 30:3 (ASV)

O Lord, you have brought up my soul from the grave
When his life being in danger, was near to it (Job 33:22Job 33:28); otherwise the soul dies not, nor does it lie and sleep in the grave; or "you have brought up my soul from hell" ^F13; that is, delivered him from those horrors of conscience and terrors of mind, by reason of sin, which were as hell itself to him; see (Psalms 116:3) (Jonah 2:4);

you have kept me alive :
preserved his corporeal life when in danger, and maintained his spiritual life; and quickened him by his word, under all his afflictions, and kept him from utter and black despair;

that I should not go down to the pit ;
either of the grave or hell. There is in this clause a "Keri" and a "Cetib"; a marginal reading, and a textual writing: according to the latter it is, "from them that go down to the pit"; which some versions ^F14 follow; that is, you have preserved me from going along with them, and being where and as they are: our version follows the former; the sense is the same.

---

FOOTNOTES:

• F13: (lwav Nm) "ab inferno", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth.
• F14: So Sept. V. L. Pagninus, Musculus, Gejerus, Michaelis, Ainsworth.