Psalm 6--O Lord, Deliver My Life

Psalm 6
English Standard Version

O Lord, Deliver My Life
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments; according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.

6 O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
    nor discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
    heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled.
    But you, O LORD—how long?

4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
    save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;
    in Sheol who will give you praise?

6 I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eye wastes away because of grief;
    it grows weak because of all my foes.
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8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my plea;
    the LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
    they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.

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This is also one of the Psalms of Salvation from Book One, but it feels different than the others that we've studied so far.  While David is still crying out for deliverance, this time he is talking about being delivered from God's wrath (something that to this point it doesn't seem like David has seemed concerned about being directed towards him at all) and a prayer for healing both of his soul and his body.

We don't have timestamps for most of these Psalms to line them up with events happening in 1st and 2nd Samuel, but a few will give us the context as part of their subtitle when David wanted everyone to know what it was that he was mourning or celebrating.

For this one, it sounds to me like David is older here and is looking back on his life and is asking the LORD to redeem the broken pieces that are there.  He sees that there is no salvation other than that which comes from God's mercy (the Old Testament word for that is lovingkindness, and we'll see that here in this Psalm and in several others).  David says that when he dies, it will be too late to ask for salvation, and that no one will be singing the praises of the LORD in Sheol (while largely equivalent to "the Grave" or "the Place of the Dead" where all dead people go, there is sometimes a connotation of this being the place where those who have not received God's salvation will remain--like in this passage).  This seems equivalent to the warnings that we have in the New Testament and the Old Testament that the time is short to repent and believe the gospel because all who die outside of Christ will remain that way forever, and all those who die in Christ will also remain that way forever.  Physical death will cast the dye which cannot be uncast.

David seems to have much troubling his spirit that keeps him from sleeping--I don't know for sure what this is, but he seeks no comfort from men, only from the LORD who he knows has heard his prayers.  Whatever is troubling him is something that is making him cry and lose his strength and be filled with grief--the only indication that we get is that there are foes and adversaries involved here who are even in the midst of David's grief are troubling his soul even more.

David does not cry out for his enemies to be destroyed as he has done in the past, nor does he really have a turning point where he focuses on who God is and it somehow changes his perspective.  David seems to have the right perspective from the very beginning--that He needs to cry out for mercy not just for the salvation of his life, but for the salvation of his soul.  David seems to know this is a prayer that God will definitely hear and answer, despite any mocking that may come from his enemies that are trying to multiply his grief.  David need not listen to them because he knows that God has listened to him.  It will be his enemies that will one day be put to shame in the judgment, but David knows that he will stand justified, not because of who he is and what he has done, but because of who the LORD is and what He has done.