Mire

Mire — a sticky, foothold-less mud — is used figuratively in two psalms of David. In each it stands for the condition the psalmist cannot escape on his own; in one God has already lifted him out, in the other the deliverance is still being cried for.

Lifted out of the miry clay

In Psalm 40, David looks back on a rescue already accomplished. "I waited patiently for Yahweh; And he inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet on a rock, and established my goings" (Ps 40:1-2). The miry clay is the place of no traction; rescue is described as feet exchanged from sinking ground for rock. The new song in his mouth follows from that change of footing.

Sinking with no standing

In Psalm 69 the same image recurs at an earlier stage of trouble — the cry is going up, the answer not yet in. "Save me, O God; For the waters have come in to my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is dried: My eyes fail while I wait for my God" (Ps 69:1-3). Here the mire is paired with overwhelming water; the picture is double — sinking from below and engulfed from above — and the speaker is exhausted from the long wait for rescue.