Psalm 6
NLT
1 O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your rage.
2 Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
3 I am sick at heart.
How long, O Lord, until you restore me?
4 Return, O Lord, and rescue me.
Save me because of your unfailing love.
5 For the dead do not remember you.
Who can praise you from the grave?
6 I am worn out from sobbing.
All night I flood my bed with weeping,
drenching it with my tears.
7 My vision is blurred by grief;
my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.
8 Go away, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord will answer my prayer.
10 May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
May they suddenly turn back in shame.
Introduction
Rarely do I disagree with Warren Wiersbe or the Holman Commentary. I love both of these commentaries on Psalms. Although Psalm 6 is the first of the first of the seven penitential Psalms [6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143], I personally don’t think that David is dealing with unconfessed sin per say. I do think he feels guilt about his failures as a father and king but I don’t think this Psalm relates to a specific sin, just sin in general. I think he wrote this Psalm in connection with Absalom’s rebellion. In 2 Samuel 15, the scripture tells us that David left town barefoot, weeping and with his head covered in shame. He was chased from his home by his own flesh and blood who wanted not only his office but his life.
I think this Psalm is more about the grief of a failing parent. In connection with Absalom, David is probably doing the “What ifs.”
Transition: I think we have…
1. A GRIEF OBSERVED
1 O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your rage.
2 Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
3 I am sick at heart.
How long, O Lord, until you restore me?
I believe that David wrote this Psalm in connection to Absalom’s rebellion. What I see in verse 1-3 is a hurting parent. A father grieving over his son. Note David’s confessions…I am weak, my bones are in agony and my heart is sick. The NASB reads, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away.” I use to hear this expression as a child but you don’t here it much these days. What does ‘pinning away’ mean? The word was used in reference to plants or people. It described a plant that was dropping from lack of water, care or disease. Pinning is progressive weakness. To pine away is to get weaker and weaker until you die.
So David’s confession is: I am getting weaker and weaker all the time. When the ancients spoke of agony in the bones, they were referring to deep and inward pain. Pain that cannot be observed by the eye. Of course we all know what it is like to be heart-sick. It is to be low emotionally, to be sad, heart broken or disappointed.
If you go back and read 2 Samuel 15 and David’s flight from Jerusalem…this Psalm makes perfect sense…
30 David went on up the slope of the Mount of Olives. He was barefoot and crying, and he covered his head to show his sorrow. Everyone with him was crying, and they covered their heads too.
Why is David in such grief? Is it the threat of his life or lost of his power? I don’t think so. I think the most disturbing thing to David is Absalom’s rebellion. He knew, as he wrote is Psalm 37, that a wonderful future awaits those of love the LORD but the rebellious will be destroyed. David knew as he said in Psalm 1, “The path of the wicked leads to destruction.”
I think what we have here is a GRIEF OBSERVED: A FATHER MOURNING THE FATE OF A REBELLIOUS SON.
2. A HEART FELT PRAYER
4 Return, O Lord, and rescue me.
Save me because of your unfailing love.
5 For the dead do not remember you.
Who can praise you from the grave?
Obviously, by the language David uses, he is in a life-threatening situation. David knew what to do in distress…You pray. You asks God for help. David prayed LORD rescue me…save me. It is a simple prayer and one that I pray often. I am always in need of being saved from something even if it my own self. I pray this prayer for the President and not in a condescending way: I simply pray for his salvation; physical and spiritual.
3. AN HONEST CONFESSION
6 I am worn out from sobbing.
All night I flood my bed with weeping,
drenching it with my tears.
7 My vision is blurred by grief;
my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.
David was a passionate man and I’m sure he is making an honest confession: one that I cannot make. I can’t say that I have ever wept all night but then again, I have never been in David’s shoes. I am certainly not saying that nothing would cause me to weep all night. I have had sleepless nights, restless nights and some long nights. I do believe that grief can blur our vision. I can’t compare my sorrow to Davids not can I compare my grief to his. This man attended the funerals of three of his sons [that I know of, there may have been more]. The man was well acquainted with grief, he was a man of sorrows which makes him a type of Christ.
4. A TRIUMPHANT FAITH
8 Go away, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord will answer my prayer.
10 May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
May they suddenly turn back in shame.
Somewhere in David’s prayer he gets a burst of confidence and his whole tone changes. He is confident that God has heard his prayer and that He will answer. I have had this happen many times; I go to the LORD with a burdened heart and arise with a happy heart. I have seen my prayers turn into praise many times.
I think, if my memory is correct and often it is not, this first happened to me when I was 19. A friend, who had a burdened heart called me and asks me if I would meet him at church which I did. This was before the days of locking churches. We meet and began praying with heavy hearts: he was a new convert and I was just beginning in the ministry. We didn’t just say a prayer, we prayed through and the prayer meeting turned into a praise meeting. I think we were both shocked.
Heart felt prayer has away of turning into glorious praise.
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