this may be, it is plain that he was brought into great distress, and that he sought help, where alone it could be found, in the Lord his God.
That I may bring the substance of the psalm dis- tinctly before you, I will take occasion to shew,
I. To what a state a good man may, by accumulated troubles, be reduced — Of David's piety, except in the matter of Uriah, we have no doubt.
But he was exposed to many and sore trials — [Even from his youth he was in continual clanger, from the persecutions of Saul : and how heavily they bore upon his mind, the psalms which he composed most amply testify. " Save me, O God ! for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing : I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying ; my throat is dried : mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God." "Would we know what was the occasion of this overwhelming sorrow? He tells us; " They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head : they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty V
Much also was that holy man exercised with spiritual afflic- tion. His feelings were quite in accordance with those of Heman in the 88th Psalm : " O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee : let my prayer come before thee : incline thine ear unto my cry ; for my soul is full of troubles ; and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit : I am as a man that hath no strength : free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more : and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard xipon me,
and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves Lord,
why castest thou off my soul ? why hidest thou thy face from me ? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up : while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me ; thy terrors have cut me off c."
In the psalm before us, the affliction which pressed the more heavily on his mind seems to have been of a temporal kind : but it was very heavy, insomuch that " his spirit was over- whelmed within him, and his heart within him was desolate d." This accounts for a degree of impatience which he manifested ; which yet was the impatience of importunity only, and not of murmuring; and, consequently, was well pleasing to the Lord:
b Ps. lxix. 1 — 4. e Ps. lxxxviii. 1 — 7, 14 — 16. d ver. 4.