Psalms 6 — Tyndale Study Notes
Ps.3.1-7.17
This group of psalms moves readers from the orderly world of Pss 1–2 to a disoriented one. The Lord’s anointed cries out while facing enemies, ferocious opposition, evil schemes, and the Lord’s apparent distance.
Ps.6.1-10
The occasion for this lament might have been sickness or a mental or spiritual depression from which the psalmist sought healing.
Ps.6.1-3
The psalmist asks for God’s favor and restoration at a difficult time.
Ps.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.
Ps.6.2-3
In his longing for God’s response to his prayer, the psalmist grew physically weak (6:6; see 77:3; 119:81; 142:1-3; see also Ps 101). Fasting might have played a part in his agony, but this is not mentioned.
Ps.6.4-5
The experience was so painful that the psalmist might as well have been dead, or perhaps he feared for his life.
Ps.6.5
from the grave? Hebrew from Sheol? In the Old Testament, Sheol is the abode of the dead. It is not necessarily associated with punishment.
Ps.6.6-7
The psalmist is exhausted to the depths of his being from the anguish of his spiritual distance from the Lord (22:1; 31:9-10; 102:5).
When eyes dim, the body is failing (see 13:3; 31:9; 38:10; Matt 6:22).
Ps.6.8-10
In a closing note of triumph, the psalmist reasserts his confidence in the Lord.