Psalms 107:18 Meaning and Explanation
“Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Sickbeds have a vocabulary of their own, and this verse speaks it fluently. Anyone who has watched a loved one turn away from a favorite meal knows that the refusal is a signal. Scripture keeps its eyes on that scene. It records the room in detail, so to speak, and then tells us who came near.
Serious illness is described from the inside: food becomes repulsive, strength drains away, and the sufferers arrive at the threshold of the grave. The psalm places them there just before God's healing word arrives.
The Context of Psalms 107:18
This is the second line of Psalm 107's third scene. Verse 17 has named the cause of the trouble, and verse 18 shows what the trouble looks like day to day. The pattern of the chapter is fixed: distress described, then a cry to the LORD, then rescue, then the refrain of praise. Here the description reaches its lowest point right before verse 19 turns to prayer. 'Meat' in the KJV means food of any kind, as the phrase 'all manner of meat' makes plain. 'Gates of death' pictures the entrance to the realm of the dead, a familiar Old Testament image.
What Does Psalms 107:18 Mean?
The verb translated 'abhorreth' is strong. It describes a reaction of disgust, the sort of word Israel used for things detestable, and here it is aimed at ordinary bread. Sickness has reversed a basic appetite. 'All manner of meat' widens the failure to every kind of food, so no favorite dish and no gentle broth gets through. The second half of the line moves from the table to the doorway. Drawing near to the gates of death gives the trouble a direction and a speed. The sufferers are traveling, and the destination is in sight, which is why the next verse arrives as urgently as it does.
Gates hold this section of the psalm together. Six verses earlier God shattered gates of brass to release prisoners, and now another set of gates stands open in front of the sick. The chapter is quietly asking which gate has the final say. Israel's poets often spoke of death as a walled place with entrances, and they prayed to be lifted up from those doors while breath remained. That prayer assumes something important about God: his reach extends to the very edge of the grave. The scene also honors the body. Appetite, strength, and breath matter to the psalmist, and their loss is worth crying about.
Verse 20 answers this verse with a line of enormous reach, reporting that God sent his word and healed them. Healing arrives as something sent, and it comes as speech. Centuries later a centurion asked Jesus to speak the word only, confident that his servant would be healed at a distance, and Jesus praised that faith and did exactly so. John's Gospel opens by naming the Word who was sent and who came to give life. The line from Psalm 107 to those pages is a real one, drawn by the psalm itself. Where death's gates are in view, God sends his word toward them.
Psalms 107:18 in the Original Language
ta'av (תָּעַב), 'abhorreth' -- to treat something as loathsome or detestable. Elsewhere the word covers what Israel was to reject as unclean, so applying it to plain food shows how thoroughly illness had turned the body against its own nourishment.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 107:18
“So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.”
- Job 33:20
“Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:”
- Psalm 9:13
“I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.”
- Isaiah 38:10
“He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”
- Psalm 107:20
Where Psalms 107:18 Echoes in Scripture
Isaiah 38 records Hezekiah's illness and the written prayer he composed afterward. In verse 10 he speaks of arriving at the gates of the grave in the middle of his years, and the chapter ends with recovery and a promise of praise in the house of the LORD. That sequence matches Psalm 107's third scene step for step: a body failing, a doorway in view, a cry, a healing word sent by God, and thanksgiving offered publicly once strength returns.
How to Apply Psalms 107:18 Today
This verse gives us permission to describe illness honestly in prayer. Vague spirituality has no room for a refused meal or a sleepless night; the Psalter has room for both. When we are the ones ill, we can pray with this level of detail and trust that it is welcome. When we sit beside someone else's bed, the verse trains our attention. Notice appetite, notice fear, notice the doorway they can see and we cannot. Practical help and steady presence are their own kind of prayer, and reading a psalm like this one aloud may say what the sufferer lacks strength to say.
Reflection & Prayer
What would honest prayer sound like if we described our present weakness as plainly as this verse does? A prayer: Lord, you are near even to the gates of death. Hear me where I actually am, in the body I actually have. Send your word into this weakness, and if healing tarries, hold me at the threshold.