Psalm 6:6

I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) I water my couch with tears.—Comp. Odyssey, xvii. 102:

“Say, to my mournful couch shall I ascend?

The couch deserted now a length of years,

The couch for ever watered with my tears.”—

Pope’s trans.

Orientals indulge in weeping and other outward signs of emotion, which Western nations, or, at all events, the Teutonic races, try to suppress or hide.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 6:6-7. All the night — Or, every night, as the margin renders כל לילה, cal lailah; make I my bed to swim — With tears, an hyperbole used also elsewhere. It well becomes the greatest spirits to be tender, and to relent under the tokens of God’s displeasure. David, who could face Goliath himself, melts into tears at the remembrance of sin, and under the apprehension of divine wrath, and it is no diminution to his character. Mine eye is consumed — Or grown dim, or dull, as עשׁשׁה, gnosheshah, may be rendered; namely, through the many tears which I shed, or through the decay of my spirits. Because of grief — For my sins and miseries, or grief arising from mine enemies; as the next clause interprets it, and from the consideration of their multitude, rage, and falseness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:1-7 These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent to awaken conscience and mortify corruption. Sickness brought sin to his remembrance, and he looked upon it as a token of God's displeasure against him. The affliction of his body will be tolerable, if he has comfort in his soul. Christ's sorest complaint, in his sufferings, was of the trouble of his soul, and the want of his Father's smiles. Every page of Scripture proclaims the fact, that salvation is only of the Lord. Man is a sinner, his case can only be reached by mercy; and never is mercy more illustrious than in restoring backsliders. With good reason we may pray, that if it be the will of God, and he has any further work for us or our friends to do in this world, he will yet spare us or them to serve him. To depart and be with Christ is happiest for the saints; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the church.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I am weary with my groaning - I am exhausted or worn out with it. That is, his sorrows were so deep, and his groaning was so constant, that his strength failed. He became "faint" under the weight of his sorrows. All persons in trouble have experienced this effect - the sense of weariness or exhaustion from sorrow.

All the night make I my bed to swim - That is, he wept so much that his bed seemed to be immersed in tears. This is, of course, hyperbolical language, expressing in a strong and emphatic manner the depth of his sorrows.

I water my couch with my tears - The word here rendered "water" means to melt, to flow down; then, in the Hiphil, to cause to flow, to dissolve. The sense here is, that he caused his couch to "flow" or "overflow" with his tears. We would say, he "flooded" his bed with tears. This verse discloses the true source of the trials referred to in the psalm. It was some deep mental anguish - some source of grief - that exhausted his strength, and that laid him on a bed of languishing. No circumstances in the life of David better accord with this than the troubles which existed on account of the ungrateful and rebellious conduct of Absalom, and it is most natural to refer it to this. Many a parent since the time of David has experienced "all," both mental and bodily, which is here described as a consequence of the ingratitude and evil conduct of his children. The tragedy of "Lear" turns entirely on this.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. By a strong figure the abundance as well as intensity of grief is depicted.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

All the night; he mentions this time, by way of aggravation of his misery, because that season, which is to others by God’s appointment a time of rest, was to him very sad and doleful, whether from his disease, which then came upon him more strongly, as it is usual; or from the opportunity which the solitude or silence of the night gave him to think of his own sins, or his enemies’ perfidiousness and malice, or God’s displeasure, or his future estate.

Make I my bed to swim, to wit, with tears. See the like hyperbole Jeremiah 9:1 Lamentations 3:48,49.

I water my couch; or, my bedstead.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I am weary with my groanings,.... By reason of bodily illness, or indwelling sin, or the guilt of actual transgressions, or the hidings of God's face, or a sense of divine wrath, or the temptations of Satan, or afflictions and crosses of various kinds, or fears of death, or even earnest desires after heaven and eternal happiness, or the low estate of Zion; each of which at times occasion groaning in the saints, as in the psalmist, and is the common experience of all good men. The psalmist being weary of his disease, or of sin, groaned till he was weary with his groaning; inward groaning affects the body, wastes the animal spirits, consumes the flesh, and induces weariness and faintness; see Psalm 102:5;

all the night make I my bed to swim: I water my couch with my tears; these are hyperbolical phrases (e), expressing more than is intended, and are not to be literally understood; for such a quantity of tears a man could never shed, as to water his couch and make his bed to swim with them, but they are used to denote the multitude of them, and the excessiveness of his sorrow; see Psalm 119:136; and these tears were shed, not to atone and satisfy for sin, for nothing but the blood and sacrifice of Christ can do that; but to express the truth and reality, as well as the abundance of his grief; and this was done "all the night long"; see Job 7:3; when he had leisure to think and reflect upon his sins and transgressions, and when he was clear of all company, and no one could hear or see him, nor interrupt him in the vent of his sorrow, and when his disease might be heavier upon him, as some diseases increase in the night season: this may also be mystically understood, of a night of spiritual darkness and desertion, when a soul is without the discoveries of the love of God, and the influences of his grace; and has lost sight of God and Christ, and interest in them, and does not enjoy communion with them; and throughout this night season weeping endures, though joy comes in the morning. And it may be applicable to David's antitype, to the doleful night in which he was betrayed, when it was the hour and power of darkness, and when he had no other couch or bed but the ground itself; which was watered, not only with his tears, but with his sweat and blood, his sweat being as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground; so he is often said to sigh and groan in spirit, Mark 7:34.

(e) See the latter in Homer. Odyss 17. v. 110. Odyss. 19. prope finem.

Geneva Study Bible

I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. I am weary with my groaning] So Baruch complained, Jeremiah 45:3, R.V. Cp. Psalm 69:3.

all the night] Rather, every night. His sorrow is of long continuance, and knows no respite.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - I am weary - or, worn out (Kay) - with my groaning. The Oriental habit of giving vent to grief in loud lamentations must be remembered. Herodotus says that at the funeral of Masistias, the Persians present "vented their grief in such loud cries that all Boeotia resounded with the clement" (Herod., 9:24). All the night make I my bed to swim (comp. Homer, 'Od.,' 17:102, 103). The Revised Version has, "every night," which is a possible meaning. Dr. Kay translates, "I drench my bed." I water my couch with my tears. One of the usual pleonastic second clauses. Psalm 6:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 6:5-8) God has turned away from him, hence the prayer שׁוּבה, viz., אלי. The tone of שׁוּבה is on the ult., because it is assumed to be read שׁוּבה אדני. The ultima accentuation is intended to secure its distinct pronunciation to the final syllable of שׁובה, which is liable to be drowned and escape notice in connection with the coming together of the two aspirates (vid., on Psalm 3:8). May God turn to him again, rescue (חלּץ from חלץ, which is transitive in Hebr. and Aram., to free, expedire, exuere, Arab. chalaṣa, to be pure, prop. to be loose, free) his soul, in which his affliction has taken deep root, from this affliction, and extend to him salvation on the ground of His mercy towards sinners. He founds this cry for help upon his yearning to be able still longer to praise God, - a happy employ, the possibility of which would be cut off from him if he should die. זכר, as frequently הזכּיר, is used of remembering one with reverence and honour; הודה (from ודה) has the dat. honoris after it. שׁאול, Psalm 6:6, ἅδης (Revelation 20:13), alternates with מות. Such is the name of the grave, the yawning abyss, into which everything mortal descends (from שׁאל equals שׁוּל Arab. sâl, to be loose, relaxed, to hang down, sink down: a sinking in, that which is sunken in,

(Note: The form corresponds to the Arabic form fi‛âlun, which, though originally a verbal abstract, has carried over the passive meaning into the province of the concrete, e.g., kitâb equals maktûb and ilâh, אלוהּ equals ma‛lûh equals ma‛bûd (the feared, revered One).)

a depth). The writers of the Psalms all (which is no small objection against Maccabean Psalms) know only of one single gathering-place of the dead in the depth of the earth, where they indeed live, but it is only a quasi life, because they are secluded from the light of this world and, what is the most lamentable, from the light of God's presence. Hence the Christian can only join in the prayer of v. 6 of this Psalm and similar passages (Psalm 30:10; Psalm 88:11-13; Psalm 115:17; Isaiah 38:18.) so far as he transfers the notion of hades to that of gehenna.

(Note: An adumbration of this relationship of Christianity to the religion of the Old Testament is the relationship of Islam to the religion of the Arab wandering tribes, which is called the "religion of Abraham" (Din Ibrâhim), and knows no life after death; while Islam has taken from the later Judaism and from Christianity the hope of a resurrection and heavenly blessedness.)

In hell there is really no remembrance and no praising of God. David's fear of death as something in itself unhappy, is also, according to its ultimate ground, nothing but the fear of an unhappy death. In these "pains of hell" he is wearied with (בּ as in Psalm 69:4) groaning, and bedews his couch every night with a river of tears. Just as the Hiph. השׂחה signifies to cause to swim from שׂחה to swim, so the Hiph. המסה signifies to dissolve, cause to melt, from מסה (cogn. מסס) to melt. דּמעה, in Arabic a nom. unit. a tear, is in Hebrew a flood of tears.

In Psalm 6:8 עיני does not signify my "appearance" (Numbers 11:7), but, as becomes clear from Psalm 31:10; Psalm 88:10, Job 17:7, "my eye;" the eye reflects the whole state of a man's health. The verb עשׁשׁ appears to be a denominative from עשׁ: to be moth-eaten.

(Note: Reuchlin in his grammatical analysis of the seven Penitential Psalms, which he published in 1512 after his Ll. III de Rudimentis Hebraicis (1506), explains it thus: עשׁשׁה Verminavit. Sic a vermibus dictum qui turbant res claras puras et nitidas, and in the Rudim. p. 412: Turbatus est a furore oculus meus, corrosus et obfuscatus, quasi vitro laternae obductus.)

The signification senescere for the verb עתק is more certain. The closing words בּכל־צוררי (cf. Numbers 10:9 הצּר הצּרר the oppressing oppressor, from the root צר Arab. tsr, to press, squeeze, and especially to bind together, constringere, coartare

(Note: In Arabic ציר dir is the word for a step-mother as the oppressor of the step-children; and צרר dirr, a concubine as the oppressor of her rival.)),

in which the writer indicates, partially at least, the cause of his grief (כּעס, in Job 18:7 כּעשׁ), are as it were the socket into which the following strophe is inserted.