This prayer is based on the thanks from King Hezekiah, King David’s heir, who had been very ill & was stricken with a terminal illness. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give instructions to your household, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’”
Heartsick about the news from the Lord’s messenger, Hezekiah does as Isaiah commands and lo and behold, he is healed. In the tradition of his forefather, David, he gives up a psalm of thanksgiving. The book gives v. 14 as the prayer, which this time comes from the NET version. Their site btw, has been greatly been revamped.
“I thought,
‘In the middle of my life I must walk through the gates of Sheol,
I am deprived of the rest of my years.’
11“I thought,
‘I will no longer see the Lord in the land of the living,
I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world.
12My dwelling place is removed and taken away from me
like a shepherd’s tent.
I rolled up my life like a weaver rolls cloth;
from the loom he cuts me off.
You turn day into night and end my life.
13 I cry out until morning;
like a lion he shatters all my bones;
you turn day into night and end my life.
14 Like a swallow or a thrush I chirp,
I coo like a dove;
my eyes grow tired from looking up to the sky.
O Adonai [sovereign master], I am oppressed;
help me!
In my anguish... 