1. 1) This psalm is about the affliction of a single person, for it is directed against the spirit of sadness, which is a very great affliction. It describes the thoughts of a sorrowful heart that is in despair and anguish of conscience.
Lord, how long will you forget me like this?
(2) It is a dull thing, for a heart that is in anguish makes believe that God has forgotten it; item, that it may endure forever.
How long will you hide your face from me?
3. hiding the face means that the word of promise is gone, that our Lord God lets one sit without the word of promise, that one fights with the devil, law, sin, death and hell. The impatience over the delay is great in this challenge.
V. 3. How long shall I worry in my soul, and be troubled in my heart daily?
I search now and then how I want to comfort myself, but I find nothing. But this is the consequence for and against: As soon as one is without a word, so soon he seeks his own counsel. And just as one wave of water drives another, so too one thought drives another, and one thought follows another. This is the real melancholy, that one goes astray with his thoughts and would like to comfort himself.
How long shall my enemy rise above me?
(5) Behold, here he confesses that it is the spirit of Satan that thus afflicts him; he confesses that the devil vexes him. For, since it is a challenge directed at a single person, I understand by the enemy Satan himself, although it could also be understood by men.
1) Note in original: "On June 1."
V. 4. Look and hear me, O Lord, my God.
6. turn your face again, send the word of promise.
Enlighten my eyes.
7. the temptation that makes a man quite sleepy and lazy, as the disciples were in the garden. For sadness consumes all the senses. Therefore he asks: Dear Lord God, enlighten me, that is, make me cheerful again, give me a brave face.
That I do not fall asleep in death.
8 Thus also says Sirach Cap. 30, 25: "Sadness kills many people," and Paul 2 Cor. 7, 10: "The sadness of the world brings about death." For sadness is a pestilence to thy life, Proverbs 17:22: "A saddened spirit dries up the bones." And Jesus Sirach often admonishes that a young person should be resisted, lest he become a melancholic. It spoils life and limb, marrow and bone.
V. 5 Lest my enemy boast that he has become mighty over me.
(9) If this were to happen, he says, and I were to die of sadness, the enemy would say, "I have executed him! So every challenge is finally blasphemy. If I am defeated, you will be blasphemed.
And my adversaries will not rejoice that I lie down.
(10) Men cannot afflict one so, but Satan alone, when he hath stolen away the word; human temptations, they go not so deep. O Lord," he says, "they would overpower me if I fell; that would be your shame and mockery. Now he adds a consolation.
V. 6. But I hope that you will be so gracious.
11. who could do this, and could throw himself around in sadness in such a way that he could
If he would remove the images of wrath from his eyes and look only to grace, he would already have won. In no other way can one overcome such sadness of spirit, than by looking at God's mercy and the promises. He does not boast of any merit here, no work holds the sting here, but only faith and trust in mercy.
My heart rejoices that you are so glad to help. I will sing to the Lord that he does so well by me.
(12) Because you make me victorious over this sorrow, I will also sing to you. So this psalm contains the lament of a sorrowful soul and a thanksgiving for comfort.