Psalm 6

Psalms 6:1-3

The Hebrew title, not shown on this page, reads To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David, Sheminith read by most as the eighth, either an eight-stringed instrument or a lower octave for men's voices, again without certainty. This psalm has been read since the early church as the first of the seven Penitential Psalms, with 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143, a tradition named here since the page's text alone does not mark it. Rebuke me not in thine anger asks not that correction stop but that its severest form be withheld, the plea of a man who expects discipline yet begs for mercy inside it.

Psalms 6:4-5

Return, O Lord, deliver my soul asks God himself to turn back, the same verb used of a departing presence, and grounds the request in mercy rather than merit, oh save me for thy mercies' sake. The argument that follows was common to the Psalter's laments, for in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave who shall give thee thanks, pressing God's own glory as a reason to act while the psalmist can still praise him. Henry reads the argument as bold but not irreverent, a man reasoning with God rather than merely begging him.

Psalms 6:6-7

The grief turns physical without embarrassment, I am weary with my groaning, all the night make I my bed to swim, the couch itself pictured as flooded by tears rather than merely wet. Mine eye is consumed because of grief extends the exhaustion from the body's posture to its sight, and it waxeth old because of all mine enemies ties the weeping to the same opponents named through the rest of the psalm. Spurgeon reads the unrestrained grief as evidence against any theory that faith forbids tears, since this psalm's tears run alongside its trust rather than against it.

Psalms 6:8-10

Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity turns the psalm without transition, and several commentators note how closely the Lord's own words at Matthew 7:23, depart from me, ye that work iniquity, echo this line, though the Gospel context is judgment rather than an answered prayer. The ground for the sudden confidence is given at once, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping, hath heard my supplication, will receive my prayer, the tenses moving from past to present to certain future. Verse 10 turns the shame the psalmist feared onto the enemies instead, let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed, the very words used of his own vexation in verse 2 now spoken over them.