Psalms 31:9

Herein he was a type of Christ,--who was intimately acquainted with grief and often in tears.

): " Have mercy upon me, O Lord! for I am in trouble, and need thy mercy." The remembrance he makes of his condition is not much unlike some even of Job's complaints.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble,....

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. Now, the man of God comes to a particular and minute description of his sorrowful case. He unbosoms his heart, lays bare his wounds, and expresses his inward desolation. This first sentence pithily comprehends all that follows, it is the text for his lamenting discourse. Misery moves mercy—no more reasoning is needed. "Have mercy" is the prayer; the argument is as prevalent as it is plain and personal, "I am in trouble." Mine eye is consumed with grief. Dim and sunken eyes are plain indicators of failing health. Tears draw their salt from our strength, and floods of them are very apt to consume the source from which they spring. God would have us tell him the symptoms of our disease, not for his information, but to show our sense of need. Yea, my soul and my belly (or body). Soul and body are so intimately united, that one cannot decline without the other feeling it. We, in these days, are not strangers to the double sinking which David describes; we have been faint with physical suffering, and distracted with mental distress: when two such seas meet, it is well for us that the Pilot at the helm is at home in the midst of the water floods, and makes storms to become the triumph of his art.

Mine eye is consumed - He now returns, and speaks of his present situation. Grief had brought many tears from his eyes, many agonies into his soul, and many distressful feelings into his whole frame. My soul and my belly - The belly is often taken for the whole body. But the term belly or bowels, in such as case as this, may be the most proper; for in distress and misery, the bowels being the most tender part, and in fact the very seat of compassion, they are often most affected. In Greek the word σπλαγχνον signifies a bowel, and σπλαγχνιζομαι signifies to be moved with compassion; to feel misery in the bowels at the sight of a person in pain and distress.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble - The nature and sources of his trouble are specified in the verses following. He seems to have regarded all his trouble as the result of sin, either the sin of his heart, of which he alone was conscious, or of some open act of sin, that had been the means of bringing this affliction upon him, Psa 31:10. As a consequence of this, he says that he was subjected to the reproach of his enemies, and shunned by his neighbors and his acquaintances; that he was forgotten by them like a dead man out of mind; that he was exposed to the slander of others, and that they conspired against his life, Psa 31:11-13. In view of all this he calls earnestly upon God to save him in his troubles, and to be his helper and friend. Mine eye is consumed with grief - That is, with weeping. See the notes at Psa 6:7. Yea, my soul - That is, my spirit, my life, my mind. My powers are weakened and exhausted by excessive grief. And my belly - My bowels: regarded as the seat of the affections. See the notes at Isa 16:11; compare Psa 22:14. The effect of his grief was to exhaust his strength, and to make his heart sink within him.