Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your anger, neither discipline me in your wrath.
Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul is also in great anguish. But you, Yahweh—how long?
Return, Yahweh. Deliver my soul, and save me for your loving kindness’ sake.
For in death there is no memory of you. In Sheol, who shall give you thanks?
I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.
My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows old because of all my adversaries.
Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for Yahweh has heard the voice of my weeping.
Yahweh has heard my supplication. Yahweh accepts my prayer.
May all my enemies be ashamed and dismayed. They shall turn back, they shall be disgraced suddenly.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 The calamity which David now experienced had, perhaps, been…
The calamity which David now experienced had, perhaps, been inflicted by men, but he wisely considers that he has to deal with God. Those persons are very unsuitably exercised under their afflictions who do not immediately take a near and a steady view of their sins, in order thereby to produce the conviction that they have deserved the wrath of God. And yet we see how thoughtless and insensible almost all men are on this subject; for while they cry out that they are afflicted and miserable, scarcely one among a hundred looks to the hand which strikes. From whatever quarter, therefore, our afflictions come, let us learn to turn our thoughts instantly to God, and to acknowledge him as the Judge who summons us as guilty before his tribunal, since we, of our own accord, do not anticipate his judgment. But as men, when they are compelled to feel that God is angry with them, often indulge in complaints full of impiety, rather than find fault with themselves and their own sins, it is to be particularly noticed that David does not simply ascribe to God the afflictions under which he is now suffering, but acknowledges them to be the just recompense of his sins. He does not take God to task as if he had been an enemy, treating him with cruelty without any just cause; but yielding to him the right of rebuking and chastening, he desires and prays only that bounds may be set to the punishment inflicted on him. By this he declares God to be a just Judge in taking vengeance on the sins of men. “En faisant vengence des forfaits des hommes.” — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 Though I deserve destruction, yet let thy mercy pity…
Though I deserve destruction, yet let thy mercy pity my frailty.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Psa 6:1 « To the chief Musician on Neginoth…
Psa 6:1 « To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. » O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
To the chief Musician on Neginoth] {See Trapp on title "Psa 4:1"}
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Upon Sheminith] Or, upon the eight, i.e. Intentissimo sono et clarissima voce, to be sung aloud. An eight is the highest note in music. See 1Ch 15:21. Others say, that hereby is meant the bass and tenor, as fittest for a mourner.
Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger] In this and some other psalms David begins so heavily, ends so merrily, that one might think they had been composed by two men of a contrary humour, as Merlin observeth. {De l’ Amour Divin.} Every new man is two men, Rom 7:9-25 The Shulamite hath in her, as it were, the company of two armies, Son 6:13. The Lord also chequereth his providence white and black, he speckleth his work (represented by those speckled horses, Zec 1:8). Mercies and crosses are interwoven.
Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure] Chastened David desires to be, as Jer 10:24 1Co 11:32 Heb 12:7-8; but in mercy, and in measure, 1Co 10:13. "Fury is not in me," saith God, however it may sometimes seem to be, Isa 27:4. Of furious people the philosopher giveth this character, that they are angry, 1. οις ου δει, against those whom they should not; 2. εφ ου δει, for matters they should not; 3. μαλλον η δει, more than they should be. But none of all these can be affirmed of God. Anger is not in him secundum affectum, but seemeth so to be secundum effectum, when he chideth and smiteth (as angry people use to do) when there is no other remedy, 2Ch 36:13. His anger is in Scripture put, 1. For his threatenings, Hos 11:9 Jon 3:10 2. For his punishments, Mat 3:7 Rom 2:8. But as God therefore threateneth that he may not punish, Amo 6:12, so in the midst of judgment he remembereth mercy, and it soon repenteth him concerning his people.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Rebuke me not, i.e. do not chasten or correct…
Rebuke me not, i.e. do not chasten or correct me, as the next clause explains it, and as this word is frequently used, as Job 22:4; Psa 50:21; Isa 37:4; Rev 3:19.
In thine anger; with rigour or severity, as my sins deserve, but with gentleness and moderation, Jer 10:24; 46:28, or so as it may not be the effect of thy strict justice or anger, but of thy mercy and faithfulness.
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Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure; the same thing repeated, after the manner.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 These verses speak the language of a heart truly…
These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled under humbling providences, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent on purpose to awaken conscience and mortify corruption. Those heap up wrath who cry not when God binds them; but those are getting ready for mercy who, under God's rebukes, sow in tears, as David does here. Let us observe here,
I. The representation he makes to God of his grievances. He pours out his complaint before him. Whither else should a child go with his complaints, but to his father? 1. He complains of bodily pain and sickness (Psa 6:2): My bones are vexed. His bones and his flesh, like Job's, were touched. Though David was a king, yet he was sick and pained; his imperial crown could not keep his head from aching. Great men are men, and subject to the common calamities of human life. Though David was a stout man, a man of war from his youth, yet this could not secure him from distempers, which will soon make even the strong men to bow themselves. Though David was a good man, yet neither could his goodness keep him in health. Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. Let this help to reconcile us to pain and sickness, that it has been the lot of some of the best saints, and that we are directed and encouraged by their example to show before God our trouble in that case, who is for the body, and takes cognizance of its ailments. 2. He complains of inward trouble: My soul is also sorely vexed; and that is much more grievous than the vexation of the bones. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, if that be in good plight; but, if that be wounded, the grievance is intolerable. David's sickness brought his sin to his remembrance, and he looked upon it as a token of God's displeasure against him; that was the vexation of his soul; that made him cry, I am weak, heal me. It is a sad thing for a man to have his bones and his soul vexed at the same time; but this has been sometimes the lot of God's own people: nay, and this completed his complicated trouble, that it was continued upon him a great while, which is here intimated in that expostulation (Psa 6:3), Thou, O Lord! how long? To the living God we must, at such a time, address ourselves, who is the only physician both of body and mind, and not to the Assyrians, not to the god of Ekron.
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II. The impression which his troubles made upon him. They lay very heavily; he groaned till he was weary, wept till he made his bed to swim, and watered his couch (Psa 6:6), wept till he had almost wept his eyes out (Psa 6:7): My eye is consumed because of grief. David had more courage and consideration than to mourn thus for any outward affliction; but, when sin sat heavily upon his conscience and he was made to possess his iniquities, when his soul was wounded with the sense of God's wrath and his withdrawings from him, then he thus grieves and mourns in secret, and even his soul refuses to be comforted. This not only kept his eyes waking, but kept his eyes weeping. Note, 1. It has often been the lot of the best of men to be men of sorrows; our Lord Jesus himself was so. Our way lies through a vale of tears, and we must accommodate ourselves to the temper of the climate. 2. It well becomes the greatest spirits to be tender, and to relent, under the tokens of God's displeasure. David, who could face Goliath himself and many another threatening enemy with an undaunted bravery, yet melts into tears at the remembrance of sin and under the apprehensions of divine wrath; and it was no diminution at all to his character to do so. 3. True penitents weep in their retirements. The Pharisees disguised their faces, that they might appear unto men to mourn; but David mourned in the night upon the bed where he lay communing with his own heart, and no eye was a witness to his grief, but the eye of him who is all eye. Peter went out, covered his face, and wept. 4. Sorrow for sin ought to be great sorrow; so David's was; he wept so bitterly, so abundantly, that he watered his couch. 5. The triumphs of wicked men in the sorrows of the saints add very much to their grief. David's eye waxed old because of his enemies, who rejoiced in his afflictions and put bad constructions upon his tears. In this great sorrow David was a type of Christ, who often wept, and who cried out, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, Heb 5:7.
III. The petitions which he offers up to God in this sorrowful and distressed state. 1. That which he dreads as the greatest evil is the anger of God. This was the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery; it was the infusion of this that made it indeed a bitter cup; and therefore he prays (Psa 6:1), O Lord! rebuke me not in thy anger, though I have deserved it, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. He does not pray, "Lord, rebuke me not; Lord, chasten me not;" for, as many as God loves he rebukes and chastens, as a father the son in whom he delights. He can bear the rebuke and chastening well enough if God, at the same time, lift up the light of his countenance upon him and by his Spirit make him to hear the joy and gladness of his loving-kindness; the affliction of his body will be tolerable if he have but comfort in his soul. No matter though sickness make his bones ache, if God's wrath do not make his heart ache; therefore his prayer is, "Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath; let me not lie under the impressions of that, for that will sink me." Herein David was a type of Christ, whose sorest complaint, in his sufferings, was of the trouble of his soul and of the suspension of his Father's smiles. He never so much as whispered a complaint of the rage of his enemies - "Why do they crucify me?" or the unkindness of his friends - "Why do they desert me?" But he cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Let us thus deprecate the wrath of God more than any outward trouble whatsoever and always beware of treasuring up wrath against a day of affliction. 2. That which he desires as the greatest good, and which would be to him the restoration of all good, is the favour and friendship of God. He prays, (1.) That God would pity him and look upon him with compassion. He thinks himself very miserable, and misery is the proper object of mercy. Hence he prays, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord! in wrath remember mercy, and deal not with me in strict justice." (2.) That God would pardon his sins; for that is the proper act of mercy, and is often chiefly intended in that petition, Have mercy upon me. (3.) That God would put forth his power for his relief: "Lord, heal me (Psa 6:2), save me (Psa 6:4), speak the word, and I shall be whole, and all will be well." (4.) That he would be at peace with him: "Return, O Lord! receive me into thy favour again, and be reconciled to me. Thou hast seemed to depart from me and neglect me, nay, to set thyself at a distance, as one angry; but now, Lord, return and show thyself nigh to me." (5.) That he would especially preserve the inward man and the interests of that, whatever might become of the body: "O Lord! deliver my soul from sinning, from sinking, from perishing for ever." It is an unspeakable privilege that we have a God to go to in our afflictions, and it is our duty to go to him, and thus to wrestle with him, and we shall not seek in vain.
IV. The pleas with which he enforces his petitions, not to move God (he knows our cause and the true merits of it better than we can state them), but to move himself. 1. He pleads God's mercy; and thence we take some of our best encouragements in prayer: Save me, for thy mercies' sake. 3. He pleads God's glory (Psa 6:5): "For in death there is no remembrance of thee. Lord, if thou deliver me and comfort me, I will not only give thee thanks for my deliverance, and stir up others to join with me in these thanksgivings, but I will spend the new life thou shalt entrust me with in thy service and to thy glory, and all the remainder of my days I will preserve a grateful remembrance of thy favours to me, and be quickened thereby in all instances of service to thee; but, if I die, I shall be cut short of that opportunity of honouring thee and doing good to others, for in the grave who will give the thanks?" Not but that separate souls live and act, and the souls of the faithful joyfully remember God and give thanks to him. But, (1.) In the second death (which perhaps David, being now troubled in soul under the wrath of God, had some dreadful apprehensions of) there is no pleasing remembrance of God; devils and damned spirits blaspheme him and do not praise him. "Lord, let me not lie always under this wrath, for that is sheol, it is hell itself, and lays me under an everlasting disability to praise thee." Those that sincerely seek God's glory, and desire and delight to praise him, may pray in faith, "Lord, send me not to that dreadful place, where there is no devout remembrance of thee, nor are any thanks given to thee." (2.) Even the death of the body puts an end to our opportunity and capacity of glorifying God in this world, and serving the interests of his kingdom among men by opposing the powers of darkness and bringing many on this earth to know God and devote themselves to him. Some have maintained that the joys of the saints in heaven are more desirable, infinitely more so, than the comforts of saints on earth; yet the services of saints on earth, especially such eminent ones as David was, are more laudable, and redound more to the glory of the divine grace, than the services of the saints in heaven, who are not employed in maintaining the war against sin and Satan, nor in edifying the body of Christ. Courtiers in the royal presence are most happy, but soldiers in the field are more useful; and therefore we may, with good reason, pray that if it be the will of God, and he has any further work for us or our friends to do in this world, he will yet spare us, or them, to serve him. To depart and be with Christ is most happy for the saints themselves; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the church. This David had an eye to when he pleaded this, In the grave who shall give thee thanks? Psa 30:9; Psa 88:10; Psa 115:17; Isa 38:18. And this Christ had an eye to when he said, I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world.
We should sing these verses with a deep sense of the terrors of God's wrath, which we should therefore dread and deprecate above any thing; and with thankfulness if this be not our condition, and compassion to those who are thus afflicted: if we be thus troubled, let it comfort us that our case is not without precedent, nor, if we humble ourselves and pray, as David did, shall it be long without redress.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–10 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, The…
O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, The Lord sometimes rebukes or reproves men by his spirit, and sometimes by his word and ministers, and sometimes by his providences, and that on account of sin; to bring to a sense and acknowledgment of it; and particularly for remissness in duty, or neglect of it; and for trusting in the creature, or in any outward enjoyment, boasting of it, and loving it too much; and these rebukes of his own people are always in love, and never in wrath, though they sometimes fear they are; see Psa 88:7, Lam 3:1; and therefore deprecate them, as the psalmist here does; not the thing itself, but the manner in which it is apprehended it is done, or doing;
neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure; when God chastens his own people it is not in a way of vindictive wrath, or as a proper punishment for sin; for this would be contrary to Christ's suretyship engagements and performances, and to the doctrine of his satisfaction for sin; it would draw a veil over it, and render it of none effect; it would be contrary to the justice of God to punish both surety and principal; and to the everlasting love of God to them, in which he always rests, and from which there can be no separation; nor would they be dealt with as children; and besides would be condemned with the world, and killed with the second death; whereas they will not, though chastened of God, it is the chastening of a father, is very instructive to them, and is always for their good, spiritual and eternal; is in measure, in judgment, and in love; and never in fury and hot displeasure; but this being feared, is deprecated.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 David being sick both in body and mind, because…
David being sick both in body and mind, because he had offended God, presents his misery before him, ver. 1-3. Begs the return of his favour, ver. 4-7. Assures himself of an answer of peace, ver. 8-10. To the chief musician on Neginoth, upon Sheminith, A psalm of David Title of the psalm. Upon Sheminith - Or, upon the eighth. It is thought to be the loftiest note, as Alamoth is the lowest; but this is only conjecture; the Jews themselves have no certain knowledge of their own ancient musick.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 This Psalm contains a deprecation of eternal vengeance, 1;
PSALM VI
This Psalm contains a deprecation of eternal vengeance, 1;
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a petition to God for mercy, 2.
This is enforced from a consideration of the psalmist's
sufferings, 3;
from that of the Divine mercy, 4;
from that of the praise and glory which God would fail to
receive if man were destroyed, 5;
from that of his humiliation and contrition, 6, 7.
Being successful in his supplication, he exults in God, 8, 9;
and predicts the downfall of all his enemies, 10.
NOTES ON PSALM VI
This Psalm has the following inscription: To the chief Musician on Neginoth, upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David; which the Chaldee translates, "To be sung on neginoth, a harp of eight strings." The various interpretations given to this inscription, both by ancients and moderns, show us that nothing is known concerning it. We have already seen that neginoth probably signifies all instruments which emitted sounds by strokes, or stringed instruments in general. This Psalm was to be accompanied with such instruments; but one of a particular kind is specified, viz., sheminith; so called from its having eight strings. The chief musician is directed to accompany the recital of this Psalm with the above instrument.
Verse 1. O Lord, rebuke me not] This Psalm, Which is one of the seven Penitential Psalms, is supposed to have been written during some grievous disease with which David was afflicted after his transgression with Bath-sheba. It argues a deep consciousness of sin, and apprehension of the just displeasure of God. It is the very language of a true penitent who is looking around for help, and who sees, as Bishop Horne well expresses it, "above, an angry God, ready to take vengeance; beneath, the fiery gulf, ready to receive him; without, a world in flames; within, the gnawing worm." Of all these, none so dreadful as an angry God; his wrath he particularly deprecates. God rebukes and chastens him, and he submits; but he prays not to be rebuked in anger, nor chastened in hot displeasure, because he knows that these must bring him down to total and final destruction.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 Psa 6:1. O Lord, rebuke me not — That…
Psa 6:1. O Lord, rebuke me not — That is, do not chasten or correct me, as the next clause explains it; in thine anger — With rigour or severity, as my sins deserve, but with gentleness and moderation, Jer 10:24; or, in such a manner that the chastisement may not be the effect of thy strict justice, or anger, but of thy mercy and faithfulness.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–10 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger -…
O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger - As if God was rebuking him by the affliction which he was bringing upon him. This is the point on which the attention of the psalmist is now fixed. He had been apparently contemplating his afflictions, and inquiring into their cause, and he was led to the conclusion that it might be for his sins, and that his trials were to be interpreted as proof that God was angry with him. He speaks, therefore, of God as visiting him in his “anger,” and in his “hot displeasure,” and pleads with him that he would “not” thus rebuke and chasten him. The word “rebuke” here, like the word rendered “chasten,” properly refers to the reproof of an offender “by words,” but may also be used to denote the reproof which God administers by his providential dealings when he brings judgment upon anyone for his sins. This is the meaning here. The psalmist did not apprehend that God would openly “reprove” him for his sins; but he regarded his dealings with him as such a reproof, and he pleads that the tokens of the reproof might be taken away. The whole language is that which indicates a connection between suffering and sin; the feeling which we have when we are afflicted that it must be on account of our sins.
Neither chasten me - A word denoting substantially the same thing; used here in the sense of “punishing.”
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In thy hot displeasure - literally, “in thy heat.” We speak of anger or wrath as “burning,” or “consuming.” Compare Gen 39:19; Num 11:33; Deu 11:17; Psa 106:40; Job 19:11; Job 32:2-3; Psa 2:12.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 6
Psalms 6
To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith. A Psalm of David
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1 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger,
Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak:
O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
3 My soul is also sore vexed:
But thou, O Lord, how long?
4 Return, O Lord, deliver my soul:
Oh save me for thy mercies’ sake.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee:
In the grave who shall give thee thanks?
6 I am weary with my groaning;
All the night make I my bed to swim;
I water my couch with my tears.
7 Mine eye is consumed because of grief;
It waxeth old because of all mine enemies.
8 Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity;
For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The Lord hath heard my supplication;
The Lord will receive my prayer.
10 Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed:
Let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Respecting the title, compare the Introduction. The Church has with propriety made this Psalm the first of the seven penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143.). For we recognize here, not the prayer of one who was greatly troubled (Francke Introductio p. 64), but the supplication of a man who has been brought by Divine chastisements (Psa_6:1) to the border of the grave (Psa_6:5-7), who yet is assured of being heard (Psa_6:8-9), directed (Psa_6:2), and sustained (Psa_6:4) by grace. And yet he feels the wrath of God not in sickness (Aben Ezra, Ewald), but in distress through ungodly enemies (Psa_6:7-8; Psa_6:10), and he grieves so much, that bodily weakness is the consequence of his anguish of soul (Psa_6:2-3; Psa_6:6-7). The opinion, that the description of sickness is only a highly colored illustration of trouble (to which Hupfeld inclines), is not supported by the text, still less the conjecture that the sufferer is the Jewish nation, or the better part of it which was in exile (Aben Ezra prophetically, De Wette historically). The points of contact with Jeremiah (Hitzig, Maurer, Olsh.) are of the kind that they presuppose rather the greater antiquity of the Psalm; for Jer_10:24, corresponding with this Psalm, is directly followed, Psalm 6:25, with words from Psa_39:6 sq. (Delitzsch). Hengstenberg, very properly against Hitzig, refers to 1Sa_30:6; 2Sa_12:16 sq.; 1Sa_15:30, as historical proofs of a similar disposition in David, and Delitzsch reminds us of the consequences of his intercourse with Bathsheba, whilst Ruding refers to the rebellion of Absalom. Not a few of the penitential hymns of the Church have grown out of this Psalm.
Str. I. Psa_6:1. Rebuke me not in Thine anger.—The position of the words shows that an emphasis is to be put upon “anger.” But in the course of the Psalm the Psalmist supplicates for the deliverance of his soul and body, and is finally convinced of his complete deliverance from the power of those who afflict him. He prays moreover not for a loving chastisement (Psa_94:12; Psa_118:18; Pro_3:11 sq.), for the sake of training the favored one, in contrast to a chastisement in anger as it comes upon the unconverted ungodly; so also not for a moderate punishment in contrast to a severe passionate treatment; but simply for a prevention of the chastisement, which because it is received as the punishment of sin, has an essential connection with the wrath of God, and would bring about the ruin of the one thus punished, unless it should be prevented by grace, Jer_10:24 sq. (Calv., Hengstenberg, Hupf.). Domine quousque? was Calvin’s motto.1 [Riehm: “In his present condition it is as if he prayed, ‘punish me no longer.’ ” Perowne: “The Psalmist prays that the rod may altogether be removed, and that because body and mind are alike growing weary. The chastisement has been so heavy and has endured so long, and his sense of sin is so grievous, that he begins to fear lest God should shut up His tender mercies in displeasure and should consume him in His wrath.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_6:2. [I am weak—אֻמְלַל אָנִי, umlal ani. The pronoun ânî was supposed by Gesenius to be for the affirmative = אֻמְלַלְתִּי first pers. perf. of the pulal of אָמַל = to languish, to droop as plants and flowers, and thus by transfer, of trouble and care. Others (Hupfeld, Hitzig) regard it as part. pulal = מַאֻמְלָל, the מ being omitted, as not unfrequently in this participle, and the kametz shortened into pathach on account of the accentuation, the two words having in fact but one accent. It is better, however, with Ewald (Lehrbuch, § 157 b) and Delitzsch to regard it as an adjective, like the form רַעֲנָן, with the same change in the kametz, kindred to אֲמֵלָל, Neh. 3:34. Barnes: “Here applied to a sick person whose strength is withered and gone. The condition of such an one is beautifully compared with a plant that withers for lack of moisture; and the word is here used in this sense as referring to the Psalmist himself when sick, as the result of his outward and mental sorrows.”—C. A. B.]
Bones.—Hupfeld shows that this in poetical usage denotes, not only the frame of the body or the entire body, in all that concerns the feelings of life, but also the entire man as a sensitive being, and indeed also in spiritual or ethical and religious relations and expressions of life, comp. Psa_35:10; Psa_51:8. Yet there is here a reference to a shaking of the body, because the still more violent commotion of the soul is directly mentioned (Psa_6:3). Therefore also the soul (Psa_6:3) is not a circumlocution for the person, or substratum of the suffering subject (Hupf.); so also not a designation of the life which is endangered (J. H. Michael., Hengst.); but that real soul, which after death continues its existence with departed spirits in Hades, but yet has no complete life in itself. [Wordsworth: “The Septuagint has here ἡ ψυχή μου ἐταράχθη. words adopted by our Lord Himself in His sufferings (Joh_12:27; Psa_42:3-7).”—C. A. B.]
Str. II. [Psa_6:4. Return.—Perowne: “For it seems to the sufferer as if God had been absent during his affliction; and there is no hope for him but in God. Therefore the repeated prayer, ‘Do Thou be gracious unto me: how long wilt Thou be absent? Return Thou,’ etc. And observe not only ‘be gracious for I languish,’ but ‘deliver me for Thy loving-kindness’ sake.’ Any man may use the first; only one who has tasted that the Lord is gracious can use the last.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_6:5. For in death there is no remembrance of Thee.—The petition has as its motive the fact that the Divine interest itself is concerned in the deliverance of the man who can render thanks well-pleasing to God, only as living and not as one lost in death and swallowed up in Hades. Yet this is only one side of the thought. The other side (which is frequently overlooked) is likewise brought into view, namely, that the petitioner has at heart, to render thanks and praise to the glory of God. The relation is therefore in no respect a selfish one, in which the interests of selfishness prevail, but a moral and religious one. The etymology of Sheol [incorrectly rendered in A. V. “grave.”—C. A. B.] is doubtful, but not the idea which the Old Testament has of it as the gathering-place of departed spirits in a gloomy and Sorrowful place under the earth, from which there is no possible escape by human help, and in which the departed lead a shadowy existence rather than a real and complete life. Christ has not only made a change in the ideas concerning the condition of the dead, but has also partly brought about and partly made possible a change in the condition itself.2
Psa_6:6. I make of my bed a flood of tears [“I water my couch with my tears,” A. V.].—Camphausen literally: “I make my bed to flow away.” We are not to substitute countenance for eye (most interpreters since Vatabl ). The life of the soul as well as the body is mirrored in the eye; therefore in descriptions of bodily and spiritual condition and qualities it is often mentioned as the representative of the countenance and the entire man (Hupf.).
Psa_6:7. Hupfeld justifies the signification grief against Hengstenberg as a poetical generalization of the word which certainly in Hebrew means primarily indignation and ill-will, particularly with respect to another’s folly and unfaithfulness. [Alexander: “Mine eye has failed, grown dim, a common symptom both of mental and bodily distress; from vexation, not mere grief, but grief mixed with indignation at my enemies.” Barnes: “It waxeth old, experiences the effects commonly produced by age in blunting the power of vision. This is not an uncommon effect of grief and sadness.”—C. A. B.]
Str. III. [Psa_6:8. Alexander: “Here the key abruptly changes from the tone of sorrowful complaint to that of joyful confidence. No gradual transition could have so successfully conveyed the idea, that the prayer of the Psalmist has been heard and will be answered. The effect, is like that of a whisper in the sufferer’s ear, while still engrossed with his distresses, to assure him that they are about to terminate. This he announces by a direct and bold address to his persecuting enemies.” Perowne: “Mark the sudden change as of sunrise upon night. Already the prayer and the weeping have been heard. Already faith has triumphed.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_6:10. They will be ashamed.—The imperfects are not to be taken as optatives [“Let all mine enemies be ashamed,” etc., A. V.], but as futures, for the hearing of his prayer is so certain to the Psalmist that he has already, on this account, called out to those who afflict him in a tone of triumph: depart from me (Psa_6:8).
שוּב [A. V., return] means not penitential turning back of his enemies to the Psalmist (Aben Ezra, Kimchi), is moreover not an auxiliary to express the adverb, again, anew (Venema, Paul), but it means the external side of the failure of their attack, as בוֹש [A. V., be ashamed], the internal. Delitzsch calls our attention to the musical cadence.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Sin draws after it punishment, and the judgment of an angry God is terrible; but only the impenitent sinner is lost, not the penitent. It is true, in bitter, heartfelt grief over his sins, he experiences a sorrow, which not only grieves the soul, but also withers the body; but he feels at the same time that he is mightily drawn towards God by this godly sorrow. He confesses his guilt and the justice of the punishment with which the holy God visits him, and makes known that he is well aware how richly he deserves the disfavor and wrath of God, and how he has forfeited his life with his sins. But he perceives in this very punishment that God is still interested in him, and he himself has still a longing after God. He can still believe in grace, and therefore pray for life; and in this consists the saving change which takes place in his condition. Ne desperando augeamus peccata, propositus est pœnitentiæ portus; rursus, ne sperando augeamus, datus est dies mortis incertus (Augustine)
2. As long as nothing is to be expected after death, but a realm of shades in the world below for the gathering of departed souls, so long fear of death is the prevailing power with the sinner, and his prayer for deliverance is chiefly directed towards the preservation of his life which is threatened. A germ of further development lies in the recognition of the fact that this preservation is a work of grace. But as long as communion with God is not yet recognized and desired as the true good in the life which has been saved by grace, and there is not found at the same time in this deliverance which is longed for, a restoration to this communion which has been destroyed by sin, so long there is lacking the assurance that there is a life higher than the earthly, and that life with, for, and in God is the only true life. But such assurance now forms the fruitful soil for thoughts of eternal life, and for faith in the resurrection of the dead. Yet this does not come into consideration here. However a step in this direction is taken by the expression of the conviction that God can receive the recognition, honor and praise due Him, only from the living, and not from the dead.
3. The relation of man to the world in general, and to other men in particular, very much depends upon the relation in which he stands to God. If a man is regarded as forsaken of God, the number and audacity of his enemies increase, he is regarded as an easy prey, and those who are themselves evil-doers think that they can judge, condemn and crush their opponent on account of his sins. But if God turns His grace upon the penitent, and accepts the contrite again, so that the hand of God is seen in his affairs delivering and blessing him, then people look more to the change of his condition than the reason for it, and but seldom does it accomplish their conversion; but they feel ashamed and retire. Quanto benignius de Deo, tanto indignius de me sentire cogor (Anselm).—Egrediente natura ingreditur Deus (Tauler).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The severest afflictions are turned into blessings, if they (1) remind us of our guilt by which we have drawn upon us the wrath of God; (2) if they urge us to the godly sorrow of repentance; (3) if they stir us up to believing supplication for the grace of God.—It is better to fall into the hands of God than of men, for God punishes earnestly in His righteous wrath; but He likewise is gracious towards those who turn to Him in repentance.—The most bitter part of affliction is the sense of Divine wrath; but this bitterness is a healing remedy, if it excites us to seek with penitence and lay hold of the grace of God by faith.—We learn to overcome even the peril of death, if we attain to the point of seeking life with God and gaining the preservation of life from God.—Prayer and tears are the strongest weapons man can have; by them God allows Himself to be overcome.—The most fortunate turns in life take place (1) when we turn to God as converts; (2) when God turns again His grace upon us; (3) when our enemies turn away ashamed.
Luther: To realize sin aright is torment above all other torments.—To wait, is in all the movements of the heart very hard and irksome.—Starke: God lays hold of the ungodly with the punishment of His wrath, but the pious with the chastisement of discipline, in order that those who bring forth fruit, may bring forth more fruit.—No one can be strengthened by God, or rightly experience the grace of God, without first experiencing his own weakness (2Co_12:9).—We do not deserve any grace by the toil and anguish of our penitence for sin; yet we can present it before God, because He has promised in such disposition of the bruised heart for Christ’s sake to bestow His grace.—How long? how long? are the usual words of lamentation of cross-bearers in general, but especially of those who are inexperienced, which God is ready to receive favorably, if only they are not without faith and tranquillity.—When God turns away with His grace from man, it is the soul’s greatest sorrow; when God turns again to man with His grace, that is the redemption and hope of the soul.—The children of the world desire a long life for the sake of carnal gratification: but the children of God in order to glorify the Divine name; and thus a Christian may ask for a prolongation of his life.—Christians should not be ashamed of tears; in those who are truly penitent they are the witnesses of a painful sorrow for sin.—It is not for the laughing mouth to be truly penitent; it demands the inner repentance of the heart, body, and soul, and all the powers.—O great folly to make so much of the external beautiful form of the body, and make a show of it! how soon may it be destroyed by sickness of body or of spirit.—What sad consequences sin has when conscience awakes!—Truly he must be a loving Father who hears the supplication, weeping, and prayers of His children, even when He seems to be angry and punishes them on account of their sins.—Let no one delay to repent and be converted; for God’s punishments descend suddenly.—August.: Woe to human life, be it never so estimable and precious, if the mercy of God is not there.—Osiander: We need the chastisement of God; but we should pray that this may not be too hard for us to bear (1Co_10:13).—Thus it happens, that as good days swiftly pass, one day spent in trouble and anguish appears to be a year long. Trouble and internal vexation consume all the powers of body and spirit; but God can give us new powers again.—Bugenhagen: Only he who implores the mercy of God can escape the wrath of God.—Selnekker: When thou art frightened on account of thy sins, and know not how to get rid of them, flee to God, and confess thy sins to Him; uncover them to Him, in order that He may cover them.—Eccard: It is very dangerous for a man, when it comes to this, that God punishes him in His wrath, and scourges him in His fury.—Oh and woe are among all men the best teachers and tuners of prayer.—We should flee from the angry God to the reconciled God, and we should appeal from His strong righteousness to His paternal goodness and mercy.—Three heart breakers most violently assail us: (1) When God lays hold of that part of us which gives the most pain; (2) when many needs and sorrows come together; (3) when they last long, and as it seems to us, without end.—Baumgarten: As God’s grace is better than life, so is His wrath worse than death itself.—Renschel: God has two modes of punishment: (1) The punishment of wrath; (2) that of discipline.—We may very properly pray for the prolongation of temporal life, chiefly for this purpose, that we may declare the praise, honor, and name of God.—Frisch: God sees not so much the weeping eye as the broken heart.—Herberger: On the sick bed there is no work more sacred than con fession and repentance.—When misfortune hurts the body, the soul has its consolation; when it hurts the soul it only lasts a little while to the pious.—Not to be in favor with God is the greatest pain.—Thinking and thanking belong together.—The best and the most profitable sorrow in the world is for the sins we have committed.—The prayers of the pious do not vanish in the air, but press through the clouds of heaven.—Rieger: Where a man has not attained the experience of his nothingness and weakness, and that all carnal ability, strength, and wisdom, go to ruin in him, he cannot share in the grace of God.—The sighing of the soul includes the whole of repentance, painful regret, faith, desire of Divine grace, hunger and thirst after righteousness.—Tholuck: To the man of God the bitterest drop in the cup of trouble is the sense of the wrath of God, which he experiences in the chastisements of God—Guenther: It very naturally happens that when we will not humble ourselves under the strong hand of God, the first affliction is only the weak beginning of a chain of afflictions, in which we will at last be choked unto eternal death.
[Matth. Henry: Those heap up wrath who cry not when God binds them; but those are getting ready for mercy who, under God’s rebukes, sow in tears.—David, that could face Goliath himself, and many another threatening enemy, with an undaunted bravery, yet melts into tears at the remembrance of sin, and under the apprehension of Divine wrath; and it is no diminution at all to his character.—Spurgeon: This is the right way to plead with God if we would prevail. Urge not your goodness or your greatness, but plead your sin and your bitterness. Cry, “I am weak,” therefore, O Lord, give me strength, and crush me not.—Send not forth the fury of Thy tempest against so weak a vessel. Temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Be tender and pitiful to a poor withering flower, and break it not from its stem.—When we seek pardon, we are not asking God to do that which will stain His banner, or put a blot on His escutcheon. He delighteth in mercy. It is His peculiar, darling attribute.—Repentance is a practical thing. It is not enough to bemoan the desecration of the temple of the heart, we must scourge out the buyers and sellers, and overturn the tables of the money changers. A pardoned sinner will hate the sins which cost the Saviour His blood. Grace and sin are quarrelsome neighbors, and one or the other must go to the wall. Weeping is the eloquence of sorrow. It is an unstammering orator, needing no interpreter, but understood of all. Is it not sweet to believe that our tears are understood even when words fail? Let us learn to think of tears as liquid prayers, and of weeping as a constant dropping of importunate intercession which will wear its way right surely into the very heart of mercy, despite the stony difficulties which obstruct the way.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[1][It is said the most intense grief and trouble could not extract from him another word.—C. A. B.]
[2][שׁאוֹל. Gesenius, Ewald, Böttch., Maurer, e’ al., regard it as from the r*ot שאל = שעל = to dig, hollow out, like שׂעַל= hollow of the hand. מִשְׁעוֹל = hollow way, thus meaning a hollow, subterranean place. Germ., Hölle = Höhle = hollow, cavern; Eng., hell. Hupfeld derives it from שאל, an old root similar to נשׁל ,שׁלה ,שׁלל ,שׁוֹל, the radical letter being ל, with the idea of loose, lax, hanging down, in a double direction, expressing the idea of sinking down and separation (as χάω. hio χαλάω, etc.), hence the derivative idea of being swallowed up, abyss, depth (as in the poetical תַחְתִיוֹת הארץ), and also that of chasm. hollow empty space, as in Germ. Hölle and in χάσμα, χαος (also used for hell). So also Delitzsch. The former derivation is preferable. Delitzsch: “The Psalmist knows only one gathering-place for the dead in the depths of the earth, where they indeed live, but only a quasi life, because they have departed from the light of this world, and what is more lamentable, from the light of the Divine presence.” The Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades were alike. As the grave was the place of the dead body, Sheol or Hades was the place of departed spirits. This was taken for granted in the Old Testament, together with the doctrine of immortality, and there is a remarkable absence of revelation concerning it. The joy of God’s people was in the theocracy as existing in this world, and in the Messianic future, and it was not until the Messiah came, and died, and passed through the grave to a resurrection, that light shone upon the abode of the departed spirits, and even here a light only so far as that the light of a glorious resurrection shines through the riven grave and Hades (2Ti_1:10). Perowne: “The argument here employed is no doubt characteristic of the old dispensation. They who then feared and loved God, nevertheless walked in shadows, and their hope was not yet full of immortality. Hence their earnest clinging to life, so different from St. Paul’s ‘desire to depart,’ to which there is nothing parallel in the Old Testament. It was not that they dreaded annihilation, but rather a kind of disembodied existence apart from the light of God’s presence.—The Old Testament saints pleaded with God for life, in order that life might be consecrated to His service. And it is very touching to see how, with the weakness of man’s heart, trembling at dissolution, there mingles the child-like confidence which fears not to advance the plea that God’s glory is concerned in granting its request.” Compare Hezekiah’s sickness, Isa_38:18-19, also Moses’ prayer for the life of the people, Num_14:13-21.—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 I am weak--as a culled plant (Isa 24:4).
I am weak--as a culled plant (Isa 24:4).
my bones--the very frame.
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are vexed-- (Psa 2:5) --shaken with fear.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 1. Rebuke me not—The strong depreciations of this verse…
1. Rebuke me not—The strong depreciations of this verse indicate that the heavy affliction was a divine judgment for sin. The words “rebuke,” “chasten,” “anger,” “hot displeasure,” fully corroborate this view.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1. The emphasis in the original lies on the…
1. The emphasis in the original lies on the words not in Thine anger, neither in Thy hot displeasure. The Psalmist pleads that his present suffering exceeds the measure of loving correction (Job_5:17; Pro_3:11-12; Jer_10:24; Rev_3:19). He can only interpret it as a sign that the wrath of God is resting upon him. Perhaps, like Job, he can detect no special sin to account for it. At least it is noteworthy that the Psalm contains no explicit confession of sin, and in this respect it is a remarkable contrast to the kindred Psalms 38, which opens with the same words.
1–3. The Psalmist pleads for mercy, deprecating the severity of God’s visitation.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (1) O Lord, rebuke me not.—Repeated with change of…
(1) O Lord, rebuke me not.—Repeated with change of one word in Psa_38:1. The sublime thought that pain and sorrow are a discipline of love might be found in these words (as in Psa_94:12; Pro_3:11-12; Jer_10:24; Heb_12:3; Heb_12:11; Rev_3:19), did not the context show that the sufferer in this case is praying for the chastisement to be altogether removed.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–10 This is the first of what have been called…
This is the first of what have been called "the Penitential Psalms." It has been said that "there is much of grief in it, but nothing of penitence." The grief, however such grief (see ver. 6) can scarcely be supposed to have arisen from any other source than consciousness of sin. dud grief of this kind is a main element in penitence. The title ascribes the psalm to David, and declares it to be addressed, like Psalm 4, "to the Chief Musician on Neginoth," by which we are probably to understand that it is intended to be set to an accompaniment of stringed instruments (see introductory paragraph to Psalm 4). The further statement, that it is to be "upon Sheminith," is very obscure, but perhaps refers to some form of musical time (see Hengstenberg). The psalm seems to divide into four stanzas the first and last of three, the intermediate ones of two verses each.
O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger. The psalmist begins by deprecating God"s wrath and displeasure. He is conscious of some grievous sin, deserving rebuke and chastisement, and he does not ask to be spared his chastisement; but he would fain be chastised in love, not in anger. (comp. Jer_10:24, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure; or, in thy wrath. In its primary sense, humah (hmj) is no doubt "heat," "glow;" but the secondary sense of "anger," "wrath," is quite as common.
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HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-10. The moan of a saint, and the mercy of his God.
For the significance of the title of this psalm, see the Exposition. An expositor well remarks that the confessed uncertainty on the part of the best Hebrew scholars as to the meaning or many of the titles is a striking proof of their antiquity, since it shows that the clue thereto is lost in oblivion. This psalm belongs to those specified under the first head of our introductory homily, as one of those in which we have the strugglings and wrestlings of a saint in devotional exercises; not the words of God to man, but the words of man to God, and as such they must be studied. We must not fall into the anachronism to which in our last homily we referred, of interpreting a psalm like this as if it had been written in full New Testament light; for we shall see. as we proceed abundant indication of the contrary. Yet there is here a priceless record of an early believer"s experience, from which troubled souls through all time may draw an abundance of comfort.Here are a moan, a prayer, a plea, an issue.
I THE MOAN. It is not that of an impenitent man; at the same time, it bears no very clear indication of being a penitential wail over sin. It is the plaint of one who is overwhelmed with sorrow with sorrow that has come upon him through his enemies. So intense is his anguish that it haunts him by night and by day; it exhausts his frame, consumes his spirit. Note the various expressions: "withered away," "bones vexed," "sore vexed," "weary with groaning," "make my bed to swim," "water my couch with my tears, eyes dim" "eyesight wasting away," etc. What caused such overwhelming sorrow, we cannot tell. But this is of no consequence. The point to be noted is this there are not unfrequently times in the experience of God"s people when some care, or trouble, or perplexity is felt, and that so severe that they are haunted by it night and day; they cannot shake it off; and they cannot, even when at prayer, forget it. What are they to do? Let them not try to forget it; let them turn their prayers in that direction, so that the perplexity and the prayer are concurrent and not contrary forces. This is what the psalmist did. This is what we should do. "Give others the sunshine; tell Jesus the rest.
II THE PRAYER. It is twofold.
1. Deprecatory. (Ver. 1, "Rebuke me not," etc.; "nor chasten me in thine hot displeasure.") Here is one of the traces of the Old Testament saints" thinking about God: they regarded their afflictions as indications of God"s anger. We are now taught rather to regard them as a part of the gracious training which our Father sees that we need. The sharpest trials often force out the most fervid prayers; yet, at the same time, we are permitted to cry to our Father to ask him to deal gently with us, and to "throw away his rod," since "love will do the work.
2. Supplicatory. "Mercy," "healing," "deliverance," "salvation, for these he pleads. Probably his yearning is mainly for temporal relief and deliverance from his foes. But we, under similar circumstances, as we know more than the psalmist did, should rise higher than he could. We should regard temporal deliverances as entirely subordinate to the higher spiritual improvement, which ought to be earnestly prayed for as the result of every trial. We should always be more anxious to have our trials sanctified than to have them removed.
III THE PLEA. This also is twofold.
1. The psalmist feels that his burden is so great, it will soon bring him to the grave, if not removed. Hence he says, "In death there is no remembrance of thee; and in Sheol who shall give thee thanks?" Here is another proof that, in dealing with this specimen of the devotion of an Old Testament saint, we have to do with one to whom, as yet, life and immortality had not been brought to light; to whom death was but the passage to a dim and gloomy state of being; although, as we shall see in dealing with Ps 16 Ps 17, there was the hope of an awakening. Still, "Sheol," the all-demanding realm, was not as yet lit up with gospel light. The Greek word "Hades" and the Hebrew word "Sheol" both refer to the state after death, though under different symbolic expressions. Historically, there are three conceptions of Hades, or Sheol.
(1) The pagan: all gloom and no hope.
(2) The Hebrew: gloom, with hope of a blest awaking in the morning.
(3) The Christian: no gloom at all, so far as the godly are concerned.
"Absent from the body; at home with the Lord." Hence we cannot now adopt ver. 5 of this prayer, knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him; that hence our death is the gateway to rest, and that the time of our departure may be peacefully left in wiser hands than ours.
2. The psalmist grounds a second plea on the loving-kindness of God. This is better, surer ground (ver. 4). Very often is this plea used. It cannot be used too often. It takes hold of God"s strength.
IV THE ISSUE.
1. The psalmist receives an answer to his prayer. (See Psa_34:6) Thousands can say the same. "The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
2. Consequently, there is:
(1) New confidence Godward (ver. 9). "The Lord will receive my prayer." As he has done in the past, so he will continue to do. New courage manward (ver. 10, Revised Version). Yea, by prayer the spirit is calmed. Trouble is turned to rest, fear to bravery, and despair to hope. Note: How much care and worry good people would save themselves if they did but take all their troubles to God at once, without waiting till they obtained such hold upon them.
(2) It is infinitely better to tell God everything, than to go about moaning and groaning to our fellows! God knows all. He never misunderstands us. He knows exactly how to help us. He will help us, at the right moment, in the best way, and to the full extent of our need; yea, he will do "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-10. A cry to God, and its response.
I THE CRY OF THE FAINTING SOUL. Circumstances are adverse. There is gloom without and within. Conscience accuses. God seems full of wrath. Death is regarded, not as a release, but as the minister of judgment; and the grave, not as a quiet resting-place, but as a "pit," loathsome and terrible. Amidst the darkness, and with fears on every side:
1. God"s indignation is deprecated. Affliction is hard to bear; but with God"s wrath it would be overwhelming.
2. God"s pity is appealed to. Weakness is pleaded, and the hope expressed that in deserved wrath God will remember mercy. His smile will turn the darkness to light.
3. God"s deliverance is entreated. It is craved on the ground of God"s mercies (ver. 4). It is urged on account of the brevity of life, and because death will put an end to the power of serving God in this world (ver. 5). It is claimed as the only relief for the helpless and miserable (ver. 7).
II THE RESPONSE OF A GRACIOUS GOD. It is said the darkest hour is that before the dawn. So here the psalmist, in his utter weakness and woe, turning from sin unto God, finds help. A light surprises him like sunrise breaking in suddenly on a dark night (vers. 8, 9). The answer from God is not only quick and timely, but effectual. Thrice the glad heart says, "God has heard," thus confirming to itself the news which seems almost too good to be true. W.F.
Vers. 1-10. Night and morning in the soul.
I NIGHT. There is darkness. God hides himself. There is dreariness. The soul is left alone with sad and distressing thoughts. There is depression. The ghosts of past misdeeds rise up. There are nameless terrors. But though perplexed, there need not be despair. God is near. He can help. He can even give songs in the night.
II MORNING. Light comes, bringing hope and peace. God has beard the cry of his child. Such deliverances are comforting. They not only show God"s mercy and truth, but they prophesy of complete redemption. If there be night, let us wait for the morning. The weary traveller, the tempest-tossed mariner, the city watchman dreading the assault of the foe, comfort themselves with the thought that the morning cometh. So let us look up, for our redemption draweth nigh. W.F. (Luk_21:28)
Vers. 1-10. Great afflictions, greater consolation.
The language m this psalm may seem exaggerated and unreal. But it is not so. Want of imagination and sympathy in some, and want of experience in others, make them unfit judges. We neither know our strength nor our weakness till we are tried. The man who may have stood up to help others in their troubles may be cast down and disconsolate when visited with trouble himself. (Job_4:3-5) Learn
I THAT THERE ARE WORSE AFFLICTIONS THAN WE KNOW OF. We must not make our life the limit, nor our experience the standard. Besides what we see, there is what we only hear of, and besides all these, there are miseries beyond our wildest imaginings. Even as to ourselves, let our case be ever so bad, we can conceive of its becoming worse. What a glimpse have we of the dread possibilities of the future in that solemn word of our Lord to the man who had for thirty and eight years been a helpless cripple, Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee"! (Joh_5:14)
II THAT THERE ARE ADEQUATE CONSOLATIONS FOR THE SEVEREST TRIALS. Come what will, God is our Refuge and our Strength. Let us therefore be patient and trust. Let us also be thankful. Things might be far worse than they are. Let us also bear ourselves gently and kindly to others who suffer. It is those who have themselves been sorely tried who can best sympathize, as it is those who have themselves been comforted who can best comfort others. W.F. (2Co_1:3-5)
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-10. Deliverance from sore trouble.
"In the malice of his enemies David sees the rod of God"s chastisement, and, therefore makes his prayer to God for deliverance. The struggle has lasted so long, the grief is so bitter, that his health has given way, and he has been brought to the gates of the grave. But ere long light and peace visit him, and he breaks forth into the joy of thanksgiving.
I A PICTURE OF COMPLICATED DISTRESS.
1. Danger from outward foes. Producing constant fear and anxiety, and perhaps threatening his life.
2. A sense of being under the chastising hand of God. The malice of his enemies was regarded as the rod by which God in his anger was punishing him an Old Testament view. "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten the New Testament view.
3. These two things caused the prostration of both body and soul. Mental troubles are the causes of our severest afflictions and sufferings. Threatened by man, frowned upon by God, laid low by disease, that is the picture here given.
II ARGUMENTS USED IN SUPPORT OF THE CRY FOR DELIVERANCE. "Let thine anger cease;" "Forgive my sins.
1. Because of the extremity of my sufferings. He "languished" (ver. 2). His "bones were terrified" (ver. 2). His "soul sore vexed" (ver. 3). His bed swam with his tears (ver. 6). His eye wasted and grew dim with his grief (ver. 7). It is an appeal to the Divine pity. "He will not keep his anger for ever.
2. His power of endurance was exhausted. "O Jehovah, how long?" I cannot endure the severity of thy judgments. "How long?" was all Calvin said in his most intense grief. Here it means, "Do not quite destroy me, for I am well-nigh spent. Still a cry for mercy.
3. Because his death would put an end to his power to praise God. "There is here the childlike confidence which fears not to advance the plea that God"s glory is concerned in granting his request." And that is the ground of all true prayer the granting will honour thee. Those in Sheol lived a spectral, shadowy life, apart from the light of God"s presence, and could not praise him. "The living, the living, he shall praise thee." The meaning here is it is pleasing to God to be praised, and pleasing to himself to praise.
III THE TRIUMPH OF RELIEVING, PENITENTIAL PRAYER. Salvation from his enemies had become a patent fact. God had forgiven, and he was safe, and could now rejoice. The psalm epitomizes his experience, and that accounts for the sudden change in the eighth verse. Our sins are our greatest foes, and when God, through Christ, forgives them, that is the hour of our greatest triumph. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1–10 This Psalm is commonly known as the first of…
This Psalm is commonly known as the first of the PENITENTIAL PSALMS, (The other six are Ps 32:1-11 38: 1-22 51: 1-19 102: 1-7 Ps 130:1-8 143: 1-12) and certainly its language well becomes the lip of a penitent, for it expresses at once the sorrow, (Ps 6:3, 6, 7), the humiliation (Ps 6:2, 4), and the hatred of sin (Ps 6:8), which are the unfailing marks of the contrite spirit when it turns to God. O Holy Spirit, beget in us the true repentance which needeth not to be repented of. The title of this Psalm is "To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith (1Ch 15:21), A Psalm of David," that is, to the chief musician with stringed instruments, upon the eighth, probably the octave. Some think it refers to the bass or tenor key, which would certainly be well adapted to this mournful ode. But we are not able to understand these old musical terms, and even the term "Selah," still remains untranslated. This, however, should be no difficulty in our way. We probably lose but very little by our ignorance, and it may serve to confirm our faith. It is a proof of the high antiquity of these Psalms that they contain words, the meaning of which is lost even to the best scholars of the Hebrew language. Surely these are but incidental (accidental I might almost say, if I did not believe them to be designed by God), proofs of their being, what they profess to be, the ancient writings of King David of olden times.
You will observe that the Psalm is readily divided into two parts. First, there is the Psalmist's plea in his great distress, reaching from the first to the end of the seventh verse. Then you have, from the eighth to the end, quite a different theme. The Psalmist has changed his note. He leaves the minor key, and betakes himself to sublimer strains. He tunes his note to the high key of confidence, and declares that God hath heard his prayer, and hath delivered him out of all his troubles.
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Ver. 1. Having read through the first division, in order to see it as a whole, we will now look at it verse by verse.
O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger. The Psalmist is very conscious that he deserves to be rebuked, and he feels, moreover, that the rebuke in some form or other must come upon him, if not for condemnation, yet for conviction and sanctification. "Corn is cleaned with wind, and the soul with chastenings." It were folly to pray against the golden hand which enriches us by its blows. He does not ask that the rebuke may be totally withheld, for he might thus lose a blessing in disguise; but, "Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger." If thou remindest me of my sin, it is good; but, oh, remind me not of it as one incensed against me, lest thy servant's heart should sink in despair. Thus saith Jeremiah, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing." I know that I must be chastened, and though I shrink from the rod yet do I feel that it will be for my benefit; but, oh, my God, chasten me not in thy hot displeasure, lest the rod become a sword, and lest in smiting, thou shouldest also kill. So may we pray that the chastisements of our gracious God, if they may not be entirely removed, may at least be sweetened by the consciousness that they are "not in anger, but in his dear covenant love."
Whole Psalm. David was a man that was often exercised with sickness and troubles from enemies, and in all the instances almost that we meet with in the Psalms of these his afflictions, we may observe the outward occasions of trouble brought him under the suspicion of God's wrath and his own iniquity; so that he was seldom sick, or persecuted, but this called on the disquiet of conscience, and brought his sin to remembrance; as in this Psalm, which was made on the occasion of his sickness, as appears from verse eight, wherein he expresseth the vexation of his soul under the apprehension of God's anger; all his other griefs running into this channel, as little brooks, losing themselves in a great river, change their name and nature. He that at first was only concerned for his sickness, is now wholly concerned with sorrow and smart under the fear and hazard of his soul's condition; the like we may see in Ps 38:1-22, and many places more. Richard Gilpin, 1677.
Ver. 1. Rebuke me not. God hath two means by which he reduceth his children to obedience; his word, by which he rebukes them; and his rod, by which he chastiseth them. The word precedes, admonishing them by his servants whom he hath sent in all ages to call sinners to repentance: of the which David himself saith, "Let the righteous rebuke me;" and as a father doth first rebuke his disordered child, so doth the Lord speak to them. But when men neglect the warnings of his word, then God as a good Father, takes up the rod and beats them. Our Saviour wakened the three disciples in the garden three times, but seeing that served not, he told them that Judas and his band were coming to awaken them whom his own voice could not waken. A. Symson, 1638.
Ver. 1. Jehovah, rebuke me not in thine anger, etc. He does not altogether refuse punishment, for that would be unreasonable; and to be without it, he judged would be more hurtful than beneficial to him; but what he is afraid of is the wrath of God, which threatens sinners with ruin and perdition. To anger and indignation David tacitly opposes fatherly and gentle chastisement, and this last he was willing to bear. John Calvin, 1509 - 1564.
Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger.
The anger of the Lord? Oh, dreadful thought! How can a creature frail as man endure The tempest of his wrath? Ah, whither flee To 'scape the punishment he well deserves? Flee to the cross! the great atonement there Will shield the sinner, if he supplicate For pardon with repentence true and deep, And faith that questions not. Then will the frown Of anger pass from off the face of God, Like a black tempest cloud that hides the sun.
Anon.
Ver. 1. Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, etc.; that is, do not lay upon me that thou hast threatened in thy law; where anger is not put for the decree nor the execution, but for the denouncing. So (Mt 3:11, and so Ho 11:9), "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger," that is, I will not execute my wrath as I have declared it. Again, it is said, he executes punishment on the wicked; he declares it not only, but executeth it, so anger is put for the execution of anger. Richard Stock, 1641.
Ver. 1. Neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure.
O keep up life and peace within, If I must feel thy chastening rod! Yet kill not me, but kill my sin, And let me know thou art my God. O give my soul some sweet foretaste Of that which I shall shortly see! Let faith and love cry to the last, "Come, Lord, I trust myself with thee!"
Richard Baxter, 1615-1691.
Ver. 1. A sermon for afflicted souls.
1. God's twofold dealings. (1) Rebuke, by a telling sermon, a judgment on another, a slight trial in our own person, or a solemn monition in our conscience by the Spirit. (2) Chastening. This follows the other when the first is disregarded. Pain, losses, bereavements, melancholy, and other trials.
2. The evils in them to be most dreaded, anger and hot displeasure.
3. The means to avert these ills. Humiliation, confession, amendment, faith in the Lord, etc.
Ver. 1. The believer's greatest dread, the anger of God. What this fact reveals in the heart? Why is it so? What removes the fear?
A Godly and Fruitful Exposition on the Sixt Psalme, the First of the Penitentials; in a sacred Septenarie; or, a Godly and Fruitful Exposition on the Seven Psalmes of Repentance. by MR. ARCHIBALD SYMSON, late Pastor of the Church at Dalkeeth in Scotland. 1638.
Sermones on the Penetential Psalms, in "The Works of John Donne, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's," 1621 - 1631. Edited by HENRY ALFORD, M.A. In six volumes. 1839.
On Verse 6. The Sick Man's Couch; a Sermon preached before the most noble Prince Henry, as Greenwich, Mar. 12., ann. 1604. by THOMAS PLAYFERE. &c., in Playfere's Sermons.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger.
Psa_6:1-10
O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger.
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A song of sorrow
It is needless to look for a historical occasion of the Psalm; but to an oar that knows the tones of sorrow, or to a heart that has itself uttered them, the supposition that in these pathetic cries we hear only a representative Israelite bewailing the national ruin sounds singularly artificial. If ever the throb of personal anguish found tears and a Voice, it does so in this Psalm. Whoever wrote it wrote with his blood. There are in it no obvious references to events in the recorded life of David, and hence the ascription of it to him must rest on something else than the interpretation of the Psalm. The worth of this little plaintive cry depends on quite other considerations than the discovery of the name of the singer, or the nature of his sorrow. It is a transcript of a perennial experience, a guide fern road which all feet have to travel. Its stream runs turbid and broken at first, but calms and clears as it flows. It has four curves or windings, which can scarcely be called strophes without making too artificial a framework for such a simple and spontaneous gush of feeling. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The cry of the penitent
The strains of this Psalm are two-- Psa_6:1-7, the petition to God for himself; and Psa_6:8-10, an insultation over his enemies.
I. The petition.
1. A deprecation of evil. He prays God to avert His wrath.
2. A petition of good. He entreats to be partaker of Gods favour, both to his body and to his soul. The petition he enforceth upon divers and weighty reasons: from the quantity and degrees of his calamity; from the continuance of it; from the consequences that were like to follow. That he was brought to deaths door is seen by three symptoms, sighs and groans, tears, eyes melted away. Moreover, he had many ill-willers.
II. The insultation. At last, receiving joy and comfort from his penitential tears, he begins to look up, and from his complaint he turns upon his enemies, who gaped after his death, and over them he insults (an old word for he glories). He rejects these reprobates from him with scorn and indignation. He assigns the cause in effect, because God had been moved by his prayer to reject them. Then follows his imprecation; made up of three ingredients, which he prays may light on them--shame and confusion, vexation, eversion. These two last he aggravates by the weight and speed. He desires that their vexation should be nor easy, nor mild, but very sore; and that their shame and overthrow linger not, but be present, hasty, and sudden. (William Nicholson, D. D.)
The penitent suppliant
Though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sins, when God hath so far expressed His love as to bring that sinner to that repentance, and so to mercy, yet, that He may perfect His own care, He exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinal corrections as may enable him to stand upright for the future.
I. The person upon whom David turned for succour. His first access is to God only. It is to God by name, not to any universal God. That name in which he comes to Him here is the name Jehovah, His radical, fundamental, primary, essential name.
II. For what he supplicates. His prayer is but deprecatory; he does but pray that God would forbear him. He pretends no error, he enterprises no reversing of judgment; at first he dares not sue for pardon, he only desires a reprieve, a respite of execution, and that not absolutely either; but he would not be executed in hot blood, not in Gods anger, not in His hot displeasure. To be rebuked was but to be chidden, to be chastened, to be beaten; and yet David was heartily afraid of the first, of the least of them, when it was done to him in anger. Rebuke here means reprove, convince by way of argument and disputation. What David deprecates is not the disputing, impleading, correcting, but that anger which might change the nature of all and make the physic poison. When there was no anger in the case David was a forward scholar to hearken to Gods reasoning. Both these words chasten and hot displeasure are words of a heavy, vehement significance. David foresees that if God rebuke in anger it will come to chastening in hot displeasure. (John Donne.)
The prayer of the a afflicted soul
1. In our afflictions we must look to God, and not to secondary causes.
2. To go to God for help in our distresses. When, then, we are wounded, we must go to one who can cure us, even Him who hath heaved us up, and cast us down again, and will again raise us up.
3. Prayer is our wings to fly to God in our affliction.
4. Means by which God brings us to obedience.
(1) His Word.
(2) His rod. If we refuse to be ruled by Gods Word, then God will not fail to correct us with His rod. (A. Symson.)
Rebuke needed
As I deserve it for my sin, so I need it for my amendment, for without rebuking what amending?--what amending, indeed, without Thy rebuking? for, alas! the flesh flatters me, the world abuseth me, Satan deludes me; and now, O God, if Thou also shouldst hold Thy peace and wink at my follies, whom should I have--alas I whom could I have--to make me sensible of their foulness? If Thou shouldst not tell me, and tell me roundly, I went astray, how should I ever--alas I how could I ever--be brought to return into the right way? To Thy rebuking, therefore, I humbly submit myself. I know Thou intendest it for my amendment, and not for my confusion; for my conversion, and not for my subversion. It may be bitter in the tasting, but is most comfortable in the working; hard, perhaps, to digest, but most sovereign being digested. Yet I cannot endure Thou shouldst rebuke me in anger; I cannot endure it in affection, but I can less endure it in ability. When I consider with myself the many favours--undeserved favours--Thou hast vouchsafed unto me, and consider withal how little use, how ill use I have made of them all, though I know I have justly deserved Thy rebuking, yet my hope is still Thou wilt add this favour also, not to rebuke me in Thine anger. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Angry chastening deprecated
If Thy chastening be intended for reforming or for polishing, what wouldst Thou do with indignation, that tends to abolishing? (Sir Richard Baker.)
Rebuke combined with anger
Thy rebuking, O God, is to me as thunder, but Thine anger is as lightning; and is it not enough that Thou terrify my soul with the thunder of Thy rebuking, but Thou wilt also set this flax of my flesh on fire with the lightning of Thine anger? Thy rebuking of itself is a precious balm, but mixed with anger turns to a corrosive. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Gods anger terrible
A certain king, being once very sad, his brother asked what ailed him. Oh, brother, he said, I have been a great sinner, and am afraid to die and appear before God in judgment. His brother only laughed at him for his melancholy thoughts. The king said nothing, but in the dead of night sent the executioner to sound his trumpet before his brothers door, that being the signal for a man to be led out to execution. Pale and trembling, his brother came in haste to the king and asked to know his crime. Oh, brother, said the king, you have never offended against me; but if the sight of the executioner be so dreadful, shall not I, who have grievously offended God, fear to be brought before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ?
Angerless reproof often quite effective
There was a boy at Norfolk Island who had been brought from one of the rougher and wilder islands, and was consequently rebellious and difficult to manage. One day Mr. Selwyn spoke to him about something he had refused to do, and the lad, flying into a passion, struck him in the face. This was an unheard of thing for a Melanesian to do. Mr. Selwyn, not trusting himself to speak, turned on his heel and walked away. The boy was punished for the offence; and, being still unsatisfactory, was sent back to his own island without being baptized, and there relapsed into heathen ways. Many years afterwards Mr. Bice, the missionary who worked on that island, was sent for to a sick person who wanted him. He found this very man in a dying state, and begging to be baptized. He told Mr. Bice how often he thought of the teaching on Norfolk Island; and when the latter asked him by what name he should baptize him, he said, Call me John Selwyn, because he taught me what Christ was like that day when I struck him; and I saw the colour mount in his face, but he never said a word except of love afterwards. Mr. Bice then baptized him, and he died soon after. (Life of Bishop John Selwyn.)
The difference between a cross and a curse
David deprecates not Gods rebukes or corrections, but that He would not rebuke him in His anger. It is tree there is a great similitude between a curse and a cross, and oftentimes Gods children have been deceived thereby, and through His hard handling of them have judged Him to have become their enemy; but indeed there is a great difference. And to the end ye may know whether they come from the hands of a loving God or no, consider these marks and tokens.
1. If they lead thee to a consideration of thy sin, which is the ground and cause of them, so that thou lookest not to the instrumental or second cause, but to thyself, the cause of all, they come from the hand of a loving God.
2. If they make thee leave off to sin and reject it, they come from a loving God.
3. If under thy cross thou run unto God, whom thou hast pierced, that He may deliver thee, and not say with that godless King Jehoram, Why should I attend any more upon the Lord? they come from a loving God.
4. The Cross worketh in the godly a wonderful humility and patience, so that they submit themselves under the hand of the living God, that they under it may be tamed, and from lions be made lambs. The wicked either howl (as do dogs that are beaten) through sense of their present stroke, or if they be humbled and seem patient, it is perforce as a lion which is caged and cannot stir. (A. Symson.)
The anger of God as pure as His mercy
But alas, those persons did not consider the difference betwixt the qualities that are in our sinful nature, and the essential properties which are in God; for He is angry and sins not. His anger is as pure as His mercy, for His justice is His anger, but our anger is mixed with sin, and therefore evil. (A. Symson.)
Gods anger against sin
God will be angry at nothing in His creatures, but only sin, which bringeth man to destruction; for as if a father saw a serpent in his childs bosom, he would hate the serpent notwithstanding his love to the boy: so we are Gods children, He loves that which He made of us, our body and soul, and hates that which the devil hath put in us, our sin. (A. Symson.)
Neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.
A revengeful God the creation of a guilty conscience
There are two knowledges of God; the one is the absolute, the other is the relative. The former comprehends God as He is, embraces the Infinite; the other comprehends only glances of Him, as He appears to the mind of the observer. There is but one being in the universe who has the former knowledge, and that is Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him. Davids idea of God here was relative. He represents the Eternal as He appeared to him in the particular state of mind which he experienced. We make two remarks on his idea of Gods hot displeasure.
I. It was generated in a guilty conscience by great suffering. The writer of this Psalm was involved in the greatest distress both in body and in mind.
1. That he was conscious of having wronged his Maker. His conscience robes infinite love with vengeance.
2. He was conscious of having deserved Gods displeasure. He felt that the sufferings he was enduring were penal inflictions, and he justly deserved them. Had his conscience been appeased by atoning love, the very sufferings he was enduring would have led him to regard the great God as a loving Father disciplining him for a higher life, and not as a wrathful God visiting him in His hot displeasure. God is to you according to your moral state.
II. It was removed from his guilty conscience by earnest prayer. His prayer for mercy is intensely importunate. O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger, etc. Have mercy upon me, O Lord. O Lord, heal me. O Lord, deliver soul, etc. What is the result of his prayer? Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping, etc. True prayer does two things.
1. Modifies for the better the mind of the suppliant. It tends to quicken, to calm, to elevate the soul.
2. Secures the necessary assistance of the God of love. One great truth that comes up from the whole of these remarks is that mans destiny depends upon his moral state, and that no system can effectually help him, that does not bring his heart into a right relation with God. So long as God appears to him burning with hot displeasure he must be in an agony like that which the Psalmist here describes. The mission of Christianity is to bring men into this happy relation. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 6
Psalms 6
THE theme and progress of thought in this psalm are very common, especially in those attributed to David. A soul compassed by enemies, whose hate has all but sapped the life out of it, "catches at Gods skirts and prays," and thence wins confidence which anticipates deliverance and victory. There are numerous variations of this leitmotif, and each of the psalms which embody it has its own beauty, its own discords resolved into its own harmonies. The representation of the trouble of spirit as producing wasting of the body is also frequent, and is apparently not to be taken as metaphor, though not to be pressed, as if the psalmist were at once struck with the two calamities of hostility and disease, but the latter is simply the result of the former, and will disappear with it. It is needless to look for a historical occasion of the psalm, but to an ear that knows the tones of sorrow, or to a heart that has itself uttered them, the supposition that in these pathetic cries we hear only a representative Israelite bewailing the national ruin sounds singularly artificial. If ever the throb of personal anguish found tears and a voice, it does so in this psalm. Whoever wrote it wrote with his blood. There are in it no obvious references to events in the recorded life of David, and hence the ascription of it to him must rest on something else than the interpretation of the psalm. The very absence of such allusions is a fact to be dealt with by those who deny the accuracy of the attribution of authorship. But, however that question may be settled, the worth of this little plaintive cry depends on quite other considerations than the discovery of the name of the singer or the nature of his sorrow. It is a transcript of a perennial experience, a guide for a road which all feet have to travel. Its stream runs turbid and broken at first, but calms and clears as it flows. It has four curves or windings, which can scarcely be called strophes without making too artificial a framework for such a simple and spontaneous gush of feeling. Still the transitions are clear enough.
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In Psa_6:1-3 we have a cluster of sharp, short cries to God for help, which all mean the same thing. In each of these the great name of Jehovah is repeated, and in each the plea urged is simply the sore need of the suppliant. These are no "vain repetitions," which are pressed out of a soul by the grip of the rack; and it is not "taking the name of the Lord in vain" when four times in three short verses the passionate cry for help is winged with it as the arrow with its feather. Two thoughts fill the psalmists consciousness, or rather one thought-the Lord-and one feeling-his pains. In Psa_6:1 the Hebrew makes "in Thine anger" and "in Thine hot wrath" emphatic by setting these two phrases between the negative and the verb: "Not in Thine anger rebuke me; not in Thy heat chasten me." He is willing to submit to both rebuke and chastisement; but he shrinks appalled from that form of either which tends to destruction, not to betterment. There are chastisements in tenderness, which express Gods love, and there are others which manifest His alienation and wrath. This psalmist did not think that all Divine retribution was intended for reformation. To him there was such a thing as wrath which slew. Jeremiah has the same distinction, {Jer_10:24} and the parallel has been made an argument for the later date of the psalm. Cheyne and others assume that Jeremiah is the original, but that is simple conjecture, and the prophets conspicuous fondness for quotations from older authors makes the supposition more probable that the psalm is the earlier. Resignation and shrinking blend in that cry, in which a heart conscious of evil confesses as well as implores, recognises the justice and yet deprecates the utmost severity of the blow. He who asks, "Not in Thine anger rebuke me," thereby submits to loving chastisement.
Then follow in Psa_6:2-3 three short petitions, which are as much cries of pain as prayers, and as much prayers as cries of pain. In the two former the prayer is put first, and its plea second; in the last the order is reversed, and so the whole is, as it were, enclosed in a circlet of prayer. Two words make the petition in each clause, "Have mercy on me, Jehovah" (tastelessly corrected by Gratz into "Revive me"), and "Heal me, Jehovah." The third petition is daring and pregnant in its incompleteness. In that emphatic "And Thou, Jehovah," the psalmist looks up, with almost reproach in his gaze, to the infinite Personality which seems so unaccountably passive. The hours that bring pain are leaden footed, and their moments each seem an eternity. The most patient sufferer may cry, "How long?" and God will not mistake the voice of pain for that of impatience. This threefold prayer, with its triple invocation, has a triple plea, which is all substantially one. His misery fills the psalmists soul, and he believes that God will feel for him. He does not at first appeal to Gods revealed character, except in so far as the plaintive reiteration of the Divine name carries such an appeal, but he spreads out his own wretchedness, and he who does that has faith in Gods. pity. "I am withered away" like a faded flower. "My bones are vexed"; -the physical effects of his calamity, "bones" being put for the whole body, and regarded as the seat of sensibility, as is frequently the usage. "Vexed" is too weak a rendering. The idea is that of the utmost consternation. Not only the body, but the soul, partakes in the dismay. The "soul" is even more shaken than the "bones"; that is to say, mental agitation rather than physical disease (and the latter as the result of the former) troubles the psalmist. We can scarcely fail to remember the added sanctity which these plaintive words have received, since they were used by the Prince of sufferers when all but in sight of the cross.
The next turn of thought includes Psa_6:4-5, and is remarkable for the new pleas on which it rests the triple prayer, "Return; deliver; save." God is His own motive, and His self-revelation in act must always be self-consistent. Therefore the plea is presented, "for Thy lovingkindness sake." It beseeches Him to be what He is, and to show Himself as still being what He had always been. The second plea is striking both in its view of the condition of the dead and in its use of that view as an argument with God. Like many other psalmists, the writer thinks of Sheol as the common gathering place of the departed, a dim region where they live a poor shadowy life, inactive, joyless, and all but godless, inasmuch as praise, service, and fellowship with Him have ceased.
That view is equally compatible with the belief in a resurrection and the denial of it, for it assumes continued individual consciousness. It is the prevailing tone in the Psalter and in Job and Ecclesiastes. But in some psalms, which embody the highest rapture of inward and mystical devotion, the sense of present union with God bears up the psalmist into the sunlight of the assurance that against such a union death can have no power, and we see the hope of immortality in the very act of dawning on the devout soul. May we not say that the subjective experience of the reality of communion with God now is still the path by which the certainty of its perpetuity in a future life is reached? The objective proof in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is verified by this experience. The psalmists had not the former, but, having the latter, they attained to at all events occasional confidence in a blessed life beyond. But the tone of such triumphant glimpses as Psa_16:10; Psa_17:15; Psa_49:15; Psa_73:24, is of a higher mood than that of this and other psalms, which probably represent the usual view of devout Hebrews.
The fact, as it appeared to those at the then stage of revelation, that remembrance and praise of God were impossible in Sheol, is urged as a plea. That implies the psalmists belief that God cared for mens praise-a thought which may be so put as to make Him an almighty Selfishness, but which in its true aspect is the direct inference from the faith that He is infinite Love. It is the same sweet thought of Him which Browning has when he makes God say, "I miss my little human praise." Gods joy in mens praise is joy in mens love and in their recognition of His love.
The third turn of feeling is in Psa_6:6-7. The sense of his own pains which, in the two previous parts of the psalm, had been contending with the thought of God, masters the psalmist in these dreary verses, in which the absence of the name of God is noteworthy as expressive of his absorption in brooding over His misery. The vehemence of the manifestations of sorrow and the frankness of the record of these manifestations in the song are characteristic of the emotional, demonstrative Eastern temperament, and strike our more reticent dispositions as excessive. But however expressed in unfamiliar terms, the emotion which wails in these sad verses is only too familiar to men of all temperaments. All sad hearts are tempted to shut out God and to look only at their griefs. There is a strange pleasure in turning round the knife in the wound and recounting the tokens of misery. This man feels some ease in telling how he had exhausted his strength with groaning and worn away the sleepless night with weeping. Night is ever the nurse of heavy thought, and stings burn again then. The hyperbolical expressions that he had set his bed afloat with his tears and "melted" it (as the word means) are matched by the other hyperboles which follow, describing the effect of this unmeasured weeping on his eyes. He had wept them away, and they were bleared and dim like those of an old man. The cause of this passion of weeping is next expressed, in plain words, which connect this turn of the thought with the next verses, and seem to explain the previously mentioned physical pain, as either metaphorical or consequent on the hostility of "mine adversaries."
But even while thus his spirit is bitterly burying itself in his sorrows the sudden certainty of the answer to his prayer flashes on him. "Sometimes a light surprises," as Cowper, who too well knew what it was to be worn with groaning, has sung. That swift conviction witnesses its origin in a Divine inspiration by its very suddenness. Nothing has changed in circumstances, but everything has changed in aspect. Wonder and exultation throb in the threefold assurance that the prayer is heard. In the two former clauses the "hearing" is regarded as a present act; in the latter the "receiving" is looked for in the future. The process which is usually treated as one simple act, is here analysed. "God has heard; therefore God will receive"-i.e., answer-"my weeping prayer." Whence came that confidence but from the breath of God on the troubled spirit? "The peace of God" is ever the reward of submissive prayer. In this confidence a man can front the close-knit ring of enemies, of whatever sort they be, and bid them back. Their triumphant dismissal is a vivid way of expressing the certainty of their departure, with their murderous hate unslaked and baulked. "Mine enemies" are "workers of iniquity." That is a daring assumption, made still more remarkable by the previous confession that the psalmists sorrow was Gods rebuke and chastening. But a man has the right to believe that his cause is Gods in the measure in which he makes Gods cause his. In the confidence of prayer heard, the psalmist can see "things that are not as though they were," and, though no change has passed on the beleaguering hosts, triumphs in their sure rout and retreat. Very significantly does he predict in Psa_6:10 the same fate for them which he bad bewailed as his own. The "dismay" which had afflicted his soul shall pass to them ("sore vexed"). Since God "returns" (Psa_6:4), the enemy will have to "return" in baffled abandonment of their plans, and be "ashamed" at the failure of their cruel hopes. And all this will come as suddenly as the glad conviction had started up in the troubled heart of the singer. His outward life shall be as swiftly rescued as his inward has been. One gleam of Gods presence in his soul had lit its darkness, and turned tears into sparkling homes of the rainbow; one flash of that same presence in his outward life shall scatter all his foes with like swiftness.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 “The first of the seven Penitential Psalms. It has…
INTRODUCTION
“The first of the seven Penitential Psalms. It has been said that there is much of grief in it, but nothing of penitence. This, however, is an error. The tears shed by David over Absalom (2Sa_18:33) came, we are sure, from the fountain of a penitent heart. He knew well that Absalom’s rebellion was permitted by God as a penal consequence of his sin.”—Kay.
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CHASTISEMENT
(The whole Psalm.)
Observe:
I. The twofold character of the Divine chastisements.
Psa_6:1. “Only in love, not in wrath.”—Kay. There is the chastisement of anger, and the chastisement of grace; the punitive and the loving chastisement. “There is a chastisement which proceeds from God’s love to the man as being pardoned, and which is designed to purify or to prove him; and a chastisement which proceeds from God’s wrath against the man, as striving obstinately against, or as fallen away from, favour, and which satisfies Divine justice.”—Delitzsch.
1. The one is measured, the other overwhelming.
2. The one destroys, the other perfects.
3. The one is temporal, the other eternal.
Consider:
II. The grounds of appeal to the Divine clemency.
On what grounds can we entreat for the milder chastisement? The Psalmist
1. Recognises the justice of the sufferings under which he bows. He sees his sin, and feels it just that that sin should be punished. “David does not pray for the removal of the chastisement, but of the chastisement in wrath, or, what is the same thing, of the judgment proceeding from wrath.”—Delitzsch. “I indeed confess that I deserve nothing but destruction; but because I could not endure the severity of Thy judgment, deal not with me after my deserts; yea, rather forgive the sins whereby I have provoked Thine anger against me.”—Calvin. God’s hand can only cease when we are brought to acknowledge the justice of the stroke.
2. He is utterly broken down by his sufferings. All his ideas of pride and power are gone, and he is broken down in body and soul.
(1.) In body. “Have pity on me, O Lord, for I am withered away. Drooping as a blighted plant.”—Kay. “My bones are vexed.” “The Hindoos, in extreme grief or joy, declare: ‘Our bones are melted;’ that is, like boiling lead, they are completely dissolved.”—Roberts.
(2.) In soul. “My soul is also sore vexed” (Psa_6:3). “His soul is still more shaken than his body. The affliction is therefore not a merely bodily ailment, in which only a timorous man loses heart. God’s love is hidden from him. God’s wrath seems as though it would wear him completely away. It is an affliction beyond all other afflictions.”—Delitzsch. “To the man of God the bitterest drop in the cup of trouble is the sense of the wrath of God which he experiences in the chastisement of God.”—Tholuck. “Soul-trouble is the very soul of trouble.”—Spurgeon.
If we despise the chastisements of the Lord—that is, if we resent them, and rise up defiantly against them—they must continue punitive and destructive; but if our strength, pride, self-will, are utterly broken down, and we lie emptied of self at God’s feet, then we may look for the punitive chastisements of the just God to change into the loving chastisements of the Merciful One. A “broken and contrite heart,” &c.
3. He appeals to the mercy of God (Psa_6:4). “Oh, save me for Thy mercies’ sake.” He does not look upon himself as an ill-used man, but knowing himself as a great sinner, he casts himself on the sovereign mercy of Heaven.
4. He desires to live to glorify God (Psa_6:5). “Men who sink down to the grave unforgiven, unredeemed, they cannot celebrate the glories of Thy mercy.”—Kay. In the midst of his sin and sorrow a sincere and passionate desire awakens in his soul for the honour and praise of God. He passes beyond mere selfishness into sympathy with the Divine rights and glory. “The petition has as its motive the fact that the Divine interest itself is concerned in the deliverance of the man who can render thanks well-pleasing to God, only as living, and not as one lost in death and swallowed up in Hades. Yet this is only one side of the thought. The other side is likewise brought into view, namely, that the petitioner has at heart to render thanks and praise to the glory of God. The relation is therefore in no respect a selfish one, in which the interests of selfishness prevail, but a moral and religious one.”—Moll.
5. He is overwhelmed with sorrow on account of his sin (Psa_6:6-7). “My eye is eaten away with grief; eaten away, as by a moth fretting a garment.”—Phillips. The great deeps of his nature were broken up, and he would have been drowned in overmuch sorrow had it not been that hope bore him up God-ward, as the ark rose with the flood. There is power indeed in true tears. “As music upon the waters soundeth farther and more harmoniously than upon the land, so do prayers joined with tears.”—Trapp. “Even when the gates of prayer are shut in heaven, those of tears are open.”—Hebrew proverb.
It is when we plead as the Psalmist here pleads, that God’s anger is softened, and the chastisement of wrath is changed into the discipline of grace. “Let us pray, with our whole hearts, for mercy; and if the answer to our prayers be tardy, because we have deeply transgressed, let us knock; for to him that knocketh it shall be opened when prayers, groans, and tears beat at the door.”—St. Cyprian.
III. The Divine response to the prayer of penitence.
Psa_6:8-9. “They that sow in tears,” &c. “The Psalmist always contends with the Lord before he dares to contend with his foes.”—Sutcliffe. But having contended with the Lord, and found forgiveness, he boldly challenges, gloriously triumphs over, all his enemies. When God has delivered him from his sins, he feels that God will deliver him from his enemies. So if God pardon our sin, we need fear neither men nor devils. They have power over us only as long as our sins have hold of us, but when God pardons our sins they must fly.
SORROW FOR SIN
(Psa_6:6-7.)
I. The necessity for such sorrow.
Some speak slightingly of repentance and sorrow for sin, but such sorrow is required from saints and sinners. It is natural and evangelical. “In respect to the Penitential Psalms, it is recorded of St. Augustine that in his last sickness he ordered these psalms to be inscribed in a visible place on a wall of his chamber, where he might fix his eyes and heart upon them, and make their words his own in the breathing out of his soul to God.”—Wordsworth.
II. Mistakes concerning this sorrow.
Many true penitents perplex themselves touching this matter of sorrow for sin. They think that they do not feel enough, feel long enough, &c., &c.
Let us be concerned:
1. About the quality of our sorrow, not its quantity. “Showers be better than dews, yet it is sufficient if God at least hath bedewed our hearts, and hath given us some sign of a penitent heart. If we have not rivers of water to pour forth with David, neither fountains flowing with Mary Magdalene, nor as Jeremiah desire to have a fountain in our head to weep day and night, nor with Peter weep bitterly; yet if we lament that we cannot lament, and mourn that we cannot mourn: yea, if we have the smallest sobs of sorrow and tears of compunction, if they be true and not counterfeit, they will make us acceptable to God; for as the woman with the bloody issue that touched the hem of Christ’s garment was no less welcome to Christ than Thomas who put his fingers in the print of the nails, so God looketh not at the quantity, but the sincerity of our repentance.”—Symson, quoted by Spurgeon.
2. About the reality, not the manifestation of our sorrow. “Some may say, ‘My constitution is such that I cannot weep; I may as well go to squeeze a rock as think to get a tear.’ But if thou canst not weep for sin, canst thou grieve? Intellectual mourning is best; there may be sorrow where there are no tears; the vessel may be full though it wants vent; it is not so much the weeping eye God respects as the broken heart.”—Watson, quoted by Spurgeon.
3. About the sincerity of our sorrow, not its duration. Some mourn long on account of sin, but let us not doubt forgiveness because it comes the sooner to us.
III. The efficacy of this sorrow.
There is a “sorrow of the world which worketh death,” and there is a “godly sorrow,” which is unto life and salvation. “Sin draws after it punishment, and the judgment of an angry God is terrible; but only the impenitent sinner is lost, not the penitent. It is true, in bitter, heartfelt grief over his sins he experiences a sorrow, which not only grieves the soul, but also withers the body; but he feels at the same time that he is mightily drawn towards God by this godly sorrow. He confesses his guilt and the justice of the punishment with which the holy God visits him, and makes known that he is well aware how richly he deserves the disfavour and wrath of God, and how he has forfeited his life with his sins. But he perceives in this very punishment that God is still interested in him, and he himself has still a longing after God. He can still believe in grace, and therefore pray for life; and in this consists the saving change which takes place in his condition.”—Moll. There is a Mohammedan legend respecting David, which says that after the treachery of which he had been guilty towards Uriah, the king was seized with the bitterest remorse. For forty days and forty nights he lay in the dust and wept; two rivulets gushed from his eyes, and the weeping willow and the incense-tree sprang up upon the spot. Is there not a great truth veiled in this wild fable? Whilst the weeping willow stands as a sign of that sorrow which bowed David’s spirit to the earth, does not the incense-tree symbolise that faith and love of his which trembled up to heaven? When our sorrow for sin bows us down, let us still look up, and offering God the incense of a penitent, worshipping spirit, He shall not turn away our prayer.
THE NIGHT OF REPENTANCE
(The whole Psalm.)
Night is about the Psalmist, and the night about him is an emblem of the night within him. He cannot sleep; all the night he waters his couch with his tears. The fact is, his sins have found him out, and he walks in darkness and in the shadow of death—the night of repentance.
Let us observe:
I. Its darkness.
There is darkness in the Psalmist’s soul, the felt absence of God. “Return, O Lord” (Psa_6:4). God is away, the sun of the soul.
(1.) Darkness means misery. How great the sorrow here pictured! “Weak.” “Bones vexed.” “Soul also sore vexed” Sinner, be sure some day or other sin will make your soul weep and bleed.
(2.) Darkness means guilt and fear (Psa_6:1). Here the Psalmist feels his guilt, and dreads the unknown terrors of God’s wrath.
(3.) Darkness means death. The Psalmist here dreads lest he should sink lower than the grave (Psa_6:5). He feels that his sin has brought him to the verge of everlasting destruction.
This is what sin brings us to. It robs the soul of light, of life. It leaves the sinner trembling within the shadows of hell.
II. Its duration.
“O Lord, how long?” (Psa_6:3). How swiftly time goes when we are living joyfully! How long the hours, the months of suffering and unhappiness! Seven years are not long to a man with health, innocence, and freedom; but think of that period spent in a jail upon a treadmill! So to a man who lives in the love of God, the hours pass with “down upon their feet;” but how dreary and leaden-footed are the hours to a guilty soul! Sin takes all the glory and joy out of life, and makes us “curse the day that we were born.” “The pleasures of sin are but for a season;” the pangs and penalties of sin embitter many days.
III. Its spectres.
“All mine enemies” (Psa_6:7). The Psalmist felt circumvented by enemies, and in his enemies he saw his sins. Men commit sins, and pass on as if they were to know those sins no more, but the day comes when they all live again. “God requireth that which is past,” and conscience throws open the doors of memory, and out rushes a crowd of spectres. Little sins; old sins; quiet sins; forgotten sins; white-washed sins; all come from their graves. Ghosts of falsehoods; guilty recollections of envyings and hatreds; soiled apparitions of dead lusts; all return to accuse and condemn. Be sure that some day or other your sin will find you out; and a thousand spectres will people the darkness, and fill you with agony and fear.
IV. Its stars.
“Oh, save me for Thy mercies’ sake” (Psa_6:4). The Psalmist seizes upon the idea of the Divine mercy, and out of this grand truth springs the bright constellations which cheer the penitent in his night of sorrow. The penitent remembers;
(1.) The mercifulness of the Divine nature. There is that grand star which arose out of the blackness of Sinai (Num_34:6-7). He “is plenteous in mercy.” “He delighteth in mercy.” “His tender mercy.” “Rich in mercy.” “Abundant mercy.” “His mercy endureth for ever.” Here are stars of light for the weeping eyes of penitence.
(2.) The promises of the Divine mercy. These are “more than the sands of the sea-shore.” Grand promises on every page of the Book!
(3.) The acts of the Divine mercy. God forgave David, Noah, Saul, &c., &c. Which of them did He not forgive?
“Millions of transgressors poor,
Thou hast for Jesus’ sake forgiven;
Made them of Thy favour sure,
And snatched from hell to heaven.”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of mercy. When the sinner is harassed by ghost and ghoul, he looks towards the Gospel, and beholds great stripes of stars, which, in the sinner’s ear, utter forth a glorious voice of consolation and hope. “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
V. Its sunrise.
Psa_6:8-9. “Mark the sudden change, as of sunrise upon night. Already the prayer and the weeping have been heard. Already faith has triumphed.”—Perowne “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Sinner, watch for God more than they that watch for the morning, and He shall rise upon you with healing in His wings, and there shall be to you “no more night.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Consider that the principle on which we are…
Psa 6:3
I. Consider that the principle on which we are less ready than of old to rush to confession under natural national calamities of an ordinary type is a just and noble one, and is a sign of vital progress in our theological conceptions, and our view of our relation to the world and to God. The varied experiences through which we live and work, and in which we are always far more ready to moan when we are cast down than to praise when we are exalted, are parts of a great harmony of blessing which we should only mar and destroy if we could break the sequence and readjust it as we please. The proneness to recognise in natural calamities the chastisements of an angry God, who is scourging us to repentance, springs really out of a narrow and selfish view of God’s dealings with us and with mankind.
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II. Note that this progress in the Christian thought of our times runs parallel to the progress in our conceptions of the true nature and the subject-matter of prayer, which is the fruit of growing knowledge and experience in the individual believing soul. As experience widens and deepens, prayer becomes, or ought to become, less a cry of pain and more an act of communion, intercourse with the Father in heaven, whereby His strength, His serenity, His hope, flow into and abide in our hearts.
III. I by no means say that, even in an advanced state of Christian intelligence, there may not be natural national calamities under which it would be wise and right for a nation to humble itself in confession and supplication before God. There may occur calamities so sudden, so terrible, so overwhelming, that a whole nation is plunged into profound and poignant distress. The best safeguard against panic in such a case is national confession and supplication, the best way to assure the blessing and to purge the calamity of all its dread. We need more, not less, national prayer, but of a nobler type, the type in which the trust has mastered the terror. "What time I am afraid," I will not wail, or moan, or wrestle for an instant deliverance, but calmly trust in, and patiently wait for, Thee.
J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 257.
Psa 6:6
I. The feeling that he was suffering God’s rebuke, smarting under God’s correction, was at once a comfort and a grief to the Psalmist: a comfort when he remembered the loving wisdom that corrected him; a grief when he called to mind the sinful ingratitude that needed correction. It is by the depth and reality, yea the passion and abandon, with which he utters the profoundest feelings of the pious heart, that David has moved so mightily the soul and spirit of the world. When fault is found with him because he does not choose to treat suffering—his own or others—as a plaything or an accident, let it be asked which of these two is the more real man—he who acts magnanimity while he is secretly breaking his heart, or he who owns to God that he is heart and spirit-broken, that he may get strength and healing from on high. If in abolishing pain I quench at the same time sensibility, I may indeed have vanquished sorrow, but I have also destroyed myself; it is not I—it is a petrifaction that triumphs. That therefore is the best system and practice, not which most readily abolishes the pain of sorrow and contrition, but which, on the contrary, makes either of these most fruitful of human excellence.
II. If then sorrow, when viewed in relation to its uses, so far from being an evil, is acknowledged to be a good, the only question which remains is this: How can we best apply it to those uses? how can we most successfully obtain its sweetness while extracting its sting? (1) By acknowledging its existence, yes and its right to exist so long as there is sin in our hearts or suffering in the world. (2) By acknowledging our inevitable human weakness, and so bringing the tale of sorrow and suffering to the ear of our Saviour and our God. Own the fact of your dependence, and seek by faith the grace to stay your human weakness on the omnipotent arm of Christ, and seek a supply from the abundance of the riches of His grace.
Bishop Moorhouse, Penny Pulpit, No. 453.
Psa 6:10
I. Consider those passages in the Bible which are constantly objected to as most inconsistent with toleration—I mean the so-called imprecatory portions of the Psalms. (1) I see little reason for considering these Psalms as the utterance of David’s longing for personal revenge. It is not likely that he should keep malice and anger hoarded up in his soul, and relieve himself of it in the moments when he held communion with his God, cursing just as he saw by faith the battlements of the city of eternal peace. (2) When, under the old covenant, earthly prosperity was the portion of the wicked, and earthly adversity of the pious, the whole moral government of God seemed to be veiled in clouds and darkness. The very fact that immortality was not clearly discovered to him made the pious Israelite long more passionately for the speedy shining forth of God’s power and justice. (3) We must interpret every book by the mind of the author. If so, we must apply this to the Bible, and to the Psalms. Their real Author is the Holy Spirit. It is remarkable that in the first chapter of the Acts the very strongest of these imprecations is applied as a prophecy to the betrayer of our Lord.
II. Notice two passages in the New Testament which give us the very type of the tolerance and the intolerance of the Gospel. For its tolerance, read Luk 9:40, etc. The two incidents inculcate toleration, ecclesiastical and civil, on the spiritual and on the material side. For its intolerance, see 2Jn 1:10: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed." This can have no other meaning than that "the elect lady and her children" should show no kindly hospitality to impugners of the Incarnation. (1) St. John, living when and where he did, realised as we can scarcely do that "the world lieth wholly in wickedness." (2) He saw as we do not, that its best hope lay in the Incarnation, and so the man who went about bringing men to deny this was the enemy of the human race. (3) The honour of Jesus was dear to His Apostles. In the estimate of him who wrote, "The Word was God," to deny that Jesus was the God-Man was to question His legitimacy and impugn His truth.
III. Let me commend to you the spirit of tolerance (1) to all whom our Church tolerates; (2) towards those that are without.
Bishop Alexander, The Great Question, p. 106.
Psalm 6
We may get the meaning and help of this Psalm by asking, How did David conduct himself in the time of sickness and trouble?
I. He made his sorrow a question between himself and God. Set it down as a stern fact that there is a moral secret under the whole figure and movement of human life. Wherever you find disorder you find sin.
II. Proceeding from this point, David seeks to make things right between himself and God. In all trouble go first in self-reproach to God, and get at the causes of things.
III. In the third place, David feels that if the Lord’s hand be removed he can bear all other troubles. (1) The pain of trouble is in the feeling that it is deserved. (2) Take away the righteousness of the suffering, and then suffering is as an open door into our life, through which the angels come.
IV. David approaches God in utter self-renunciation. There is no word of self-defence as before God. This is needful in all prayer that is meant to prevail.
V. David prays the more earnestly because his afflictions have brought him within sight of the grave and the world unseen. He would not enter the valley without a sense of forgiveness. Who would? We must enter that dark valley; we enter it either forgiven or unpardoned.
Parker, The Ark of God, p. 132.
References: Psalm 6—I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 145; P. Thomson, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 243.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 The trial at its deepest felt as divine displeasure…
The trial at its deepest felt as divine displeasure against sin, and the need realized of mercy.
To the chief musician, on stringed instruments, upon Sheminith: a psalm of David.
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The flutes are silent, and the music of the stringed instruments, better fitted to express the deeper emotions of the heart, follows them: and, indeed, in the bass notes, al-sheminith, "upon the octave" [below]. For, as far as this first series of psalms can go, which are but the beginning, we touch bottom here; and it is no accident that in this fourth of these hymns of experience, which emphasizes the "testing" of a soul, we find also just ten verses,* the responsibility number, according to the full measure of the law, the "ten words." In this psalm there is felt the pressure of that responsibility, and the failure and guilt realized when man is searched out as to the fulfillment of it.
{*As elsewhere, the title and musical inscription form no part of the psalm proper, as should be plain; and the verses should be numbered apart from this, as is the case in our common versions. That this is right is proved by the alphabetic psalms, such as Psa 9:1-20; Psa 34:1-22, where the alphabet begins only with the numbered verses.}
1. For here is no longer vengeance invoked on others, no longer is there even the same comfort in the thought that "Jehovah has set apart the godly for Himself." It is, instead, "Jehovah, rebuke me not in Thine anger; and chasten me not in heat of wrath!" The malice of enemies is at work; nay, it is, as we may clearly see, what God has used to bring the soul where it is; but it is as His displeasure that it is realized, and when this presses, the anguish of the thought leaves room for nothing else, the enemies themselves are well-nigh forgotten. It is a cry of repentance and brokenness of heart: for Jehovah’s wrath cannot be causeless, any more than powerless. And it is Jehovah, -it is the Unchangeable: this word, so full of comfort at another time, and to which he clings, too, to the end, for all his hope is in it, -has it not, nevertheless, an aspect of another kind in this time of distress? As Job says, "He is of one mind, and who can turn Him?" And yet how could there be any confidence apart from this?
So the soul pleads, and pleads on, for He is gracious, baring its grief and the effect of it even upon the body. Is He not Creator? Has He not made the body? Does He not feel, who has given the very capacity of feeling? The wasting flesh, the quaking of the very bones, all the strong helpers bowed with this distress: what it speaks of a faith that, more than it might seem, knows the tender pity of Him with whom it has to do! Blessed be God, it is so: underneath all the doubt, and amid the darkness, the groping arms turn to the God that is. The cry may be, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" But of Him that it would find it dares not doubt. Grace He has, heal He does, though as yet it sorely feels there is no healing; and as to itself the grace appears not.
And it is this delay that searches out the humbled and stricken one. This "how long?" which it is meant that one should feel, and is a question rightly entertained, how it tests the one who has to ask the question! The help so needed, how can it tarry so long, when His messengers are "angels that excel in strength," and the elements wait upon Him? "How long?" What conditions must be first fulfilled? What survey of the heavens and earth it implies, if to ourselves we would answer it! And this exercise is itself what is wrought in the silence and the darkness, -all the soul awake and alive to its centre, the conscience stirred, the heart attent, the whole man in activity. The travail is, after all, for fullest blessing; the doubtful questioning will at last find assured answer; the heart will be enriched with knowledge of the highest kind, in the joy of which it shall be glad forever.
2. Spite of its crying, the soul descends yet deeper into the darkness, -truly a valley of the shadow of death: for this it is, and as the curse of the broken law, which throws its pall over a living man. And who can plead exemption from death? Here the cry can be only for mercy, -mercy which must be free and sovereign, the bounty of God alone. This is the point to which Israel’s remnant, naturally clinging to covenant-privileges, must be brought. According to covenant they can claim nothing but the covenant-curse. If they are to be saved, it must be upon the same ground as the merest Gentile. Pharisaism, which crucified the Son of God sent to them, must be swept out of existence; the cross they gave Him must be their only hope. Well may the sky darken and the lightnings flash from the dread mount by which they have chosen to abide, and from which divine mercy alone can save them. That is plainly the key to what we have here, while the lesson remains for every one, of every time, who needs it.
Death is seen as the curse of the law, as it truly was. Thank God, it does not dominate eternity, nor shut out the mercy of God as to that. As He never said "Do this, and thou shalt go to heaven," so neither did He ever say "Break this, and thou shalt go to hell."* The law itself was handmaid to the gospel, and God had ever in His purpose salvation, through His Son, for believing sinners. Yet as to what was beyond death, the soul that knew no more than law felt, of necessity, its shadow; and from the lips of such as those contemplated in this psalm, the language used in it has no special mystery. To these, and such as these, death as the curse of the law would be the hiding of God’s face, the stilling of the voice of praise, the silence of outer darkness. But this is not the uniform language, even of the Old Testament, as to death, -far from it: it is the language of a special class in a certain state of soul, and that is all.
{*It is well known that what is translated "hell" in the Old Testament is "Sheol," or "hades," the abode of the spirits of the dead.}
The effect of this is utter desolation and dismay. We surely see that it is not the ordinary picture of death for all that the psalmist has been drawing. There is no courage to meet what threatens, in which the separation from Jehovah is the overpowering thought. There is no manliness, as we say; no silent submission, even, to the inevitable: and he lets out freely all his emotion, the grief that convulses and unmans him. In the realization of it he floods his couch with tears. He fades away, and shrivels in premature decay. But this is the lowest depth, and having reached and taken it before God, the shadow passes from the soul.
3. In the last portion of the psalm we find this. The enemies are still around, so that circumstances seem not to have appreciably altered. The answer is from God in his heart: what now are the enemies? They are but "workers of vanity," -powerless with all their seeming might. His supplication is heard, and his soul confirmed. He can then calmly assure himself of the defeat of his enemies, and their final confusion.
But in this conclusion there is a lack which makes itself felt. We have nothing of the ground upon which -little of the manner in which -God’s mercy meets the man who has justly merited His displeasure. The work of Christ is not yet unfolded. What grace implies cannot therefore yet be expressed. All is of the most elementary character: we simply see that it is mercy which alone can be man’s confidence; when that is his plea God comes in for him. Yet even the full and adequate confession of sin as yet there is not, and it is most interesting to see how, after the revelation of the true sin-offering (Psa 22:1-31), that confession is at once found. (Psa 25:1-22.) At present we have but the indication of what is to follow in the book: the finger points the way, but the road is not yet trodden.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 This is the first of the Penitential Psalms, the…
This is the first of the Penitential Psalms, the others being Psalms 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143. It is the prayer of a sufferer whose experience is like that of Job. He is prostrated by severe illness, and is even in danger of death, while the mockery of his enemies makes his trouble the harder to bear. He entreats earnestly that God may deliver him (Psa_6:1-7), and rises to a sudden confidence that his prayer has been heard and that his enemies will be put to shame (Psa_6:8-10).
Title.—On Neginoth upon Sheminith] RV 'on stringed instruments, set to the Sheminith (lower octave).'
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1. Rebuke.. chasten] the two aspects of affliction—the one being for punishment and the other for discipline; the one proceeding from displeasure and the other from love.
2. Weak] RV 'withered away': see Psa_102:11. My bones] the innermost framework of my body. Vexed] used here of physical pain, and in the next v. of mental anguish: cp. Psa_2:5.
3. My soul.. also] The bodily pain has produced distress of spirit. There is an echo of these words in Joh_12:27. O Lord, how long?] The broken sentence is more expressive than if it had been completed: see Psa_90:13.
5. The grave] RV 'Sheol,' the shadowy abode of the dead. In the OT. time there was no clear expectation of immortality in the sense of a happy future life.
6. All the night] RV 'every night.'
7. Mine eye is consumed] The sunken eye is a sure token of bodily anguish or mental distress.
10. Read, 'All mine enemies shall be ashamed.. they shall turn back, they shall be ashamed suddenly.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 Neginoth Stringed instruments.
Neginoth Stringed instruments.
Sheminth The word means "the eighth" -- in music an octave.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 6
Psalms 6
1. The cry of repentance (Psa 6:1-3)
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2. In deep distress (Psa 6:4-7)
3. Jehovah has heard (Psa 6:8-10)
Psa 6:1-3. Here we have the deep soul exercise of the godly expressed. In the midst of the trials and sorrows they search their hearts. The persecution of the enemies is used under God to bring His people in the dust. And so they feel the trial and sorrow which passeth over them as divine displeasure against sin. They feel it is the chastening hand of God which rests heavily upon them. Perhaps bodily sickness is also indicated. They cry, Jehovah how long? It is a night experience, of deepest woe and agony. We know that all things must work together for good to them that love God and that our loving Father does not chasten in the heat of wrath.
Psa 6:4-7. But there is deeper distress. There is groaning, the couch is covered with tears, the eyes are sunken in because of grief. The remnant is put into the place of dust, and that is the place of blessing and deliverance.
Psa 6:8-10. Faith again is victorious. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping; heard the voice of my supplication; He will receive my prayer. The last verse is prophetic. All the enemies will be ashamed, they shall be suddenly ashamed. That will be when the Lord returns to save His people.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 A Prayer in Anxiety over Sin.
A Prayer in Anxiety over Sin.
To the chief musician on Neginoth, the stringed instruments of the Temple-orchestra, upon Sheminith, that is, on the octave, probably in bass, the voice suited to the nature of its complaint, a psalm of David. The entire psalm is the cry of a soul beset with the deepest distress on account of the consciousness of sin and guilt, his prayer being that God would change the punishment of wrath into the gentle chastisement of love.
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v. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger, as just as this wrath is on account of the great transgressions whose weight the sinner feels, neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure, which threatened to consume him altogether and pressed this cry for mercy from his anxious heart.
v. 2. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, the free grace and favor of Jehovah being his only hope; for I am weak, so terrified as to make him languish and droop like a withered flower. O Lord, heal me, He being the only Physician whose skill could avail anything at all in this emergency; for my bones are vexed, his entire body threatening to come apart under the severe stress of the affliction besetting him.
v. 3. My soul is also sore vexed, troubled, filled with the greatest terror; but Thou, O Lord, how long? When could he expect the relief for which he was so eagerly longing? He now follows up his question with a pleading cry.
v. 4. Return, O Lord, for it seemed to the sufferer that Jehovah must have been absent during the severity of his trouble, deliver my soul, redeeming it from its depth of suffering. Oh save me for Thy mercies’ sake, Jehovah’s loving kindness being the only hope of the sinner.
v. 5. For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave, who shall give Thee thanks? David wants God to consider that a condemnation of the sinner to the realm of death at that time, a definite rejection of him into the abyss of hell, would deprive Him of a willing worshiper, for which reason he asks relief before this extreme stage is reached.
v. 6. I am weary with my groaning, utterly fatigued and worn out with the severity of his suffering; all the night make I my bed to swim, with streams of penitent tears; I water my couch with my tears, so that it is almost dissolved in consequence of their multitude.
v. 7. Mine eye, as the mirror of man’s entire being, is consumed because of grief, dissolved with mourning; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies, the power of vision and all the strength of the soul being blunted as with old age. However, in the midst of the sinner’s sorrow and cry, while he utters his prayer for relief, his courage and strength grow.
v. 8. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; the sinner being sure of God’s favorable answer to his prayer, his complaint changes to a joyful confidence; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping, and so the voice of God’s free Spirit takes hold of him and causes him to rejoice.
v. 9. The Lord hath heard my supplication, as it was pressed from his overburdened heart; the Lord will receive my prayer, wherefore he no longer fears his enemies, the ungodly, the hypocrites, but can defy them with holy courage.
v. 10. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed, rather, in a definite statement, "they will be brought to shame," they will be terrified; let them return and be ashamed suddenly, their sneering mockery being changed to the most abject shame in one terrible moment, when the punishment of God strikes them. Thus every poor sinner, in the very midst of his anxiety, may look up to the Savior in the simple confidence of faith and rejoice in his salvation, no matter what attitude the enemies take.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship"
on stringed instruments
"people should play stringed instruments with this song"
set to the Sheminith style
This may refer to a style of music.
A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
my bones are shaking
The bones represent the whole body. His body may have been shaking because he was sick or extremely tired. AT: "my whole body is shaking" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
psalm
David
Yahweh
rebuke
anger
discipline
wrath
mercy
cure
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 Ps 6 The occasion for this lament might have…
Ps 6 The occasion for this lament might have been sickness or a mental or spiritual depression from which the psalmist sought healing.
6:1-3 The psalmist asks for God’s favor and restoration at a difficult time.
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6:1 don’t rebuke me . . . or discipline me: The psalmist does not explicitly connect God’s discipline with sin here (cp. 39:8-11), but it might be implied.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.