but a single person only is designed throughout. Spi-
nosa {} affirms, from the testimony of Philo the Jew,
that this psa!in was published when King Jehoiachin
was a prisoner in Babylon, and the following psalm
when he was released: but this is not to be found in
the true Philo, but in Pseudo-Philo a.
Vet. 1. O Lord God of my salvation, &c.] The au-
thor both of temporal and spiritual salvation; see Psal.
xviii. 46. and xxiv. 5. from the experience the psalmist
had had of the Lord's working salvation for him in
times past, he is encouraged to hope that he would
appear for him, and help him out of Isis present distress;
his faith was not so low, but that amidst all his dark-
ness and dejection he could look upon the Lord as his
God, and the God of salvation to him; so our Lord
Jesus Christ, when deserted by his Father, still called
him his God, and believed that he would help him,
Psai. xxii. 1. Isa. 1. 7, 8, 9. I have cried day and night
before thee, or in the day I have cried, and in the night
before thee; that is, as the Targum paraphrases it,
" in the night m,, nraver was before thee ." nra,,er
being expressed by crying shews the person to be in
distress, denotes the earnestness of it, and shews it to
be vocal; and it being both in the day and in the
night, that it was without ceasing. The same is said
by Christ, Psai. xxii. 2. and is true .of him, who in the
days of his flesh was frequent in prayer, arid especially
in the night-season, Luke vi. 12. and xxi. 37. and par-
ticularly his praying in the garden the night he was
betrayed may be here referred to, Matt. xxvi. 38, 39.
Ver. 2. Let my prayer come before thee, &c.] Not
before men, as-hypocrites desire, but before the Lord;
let 'it not be shut out, but be admitted; and let it come
with acceptance, as it does when it ascends before
God, out of the hands of the angel before the throne,
perfumed with the much incense of his mediation,
Rev. viii. 3, 4. incline thine ear unto my cry; hearken
to it, receive it, and give an answer to it; Christ's
prayers were attended wit'h strong crying, and were
always received and heard, Heb. v. 7- John xi. 41, 42.
Ver. 3. For my soul is full of troubles, &c.] Or
satiated or glutted {} with them, as a stomach full of
meat that can receive no more, to which the allusion
is; having been fed with the 'bread of adversity and
the water of affliction, so that he had his fill of trouble:
every man is full of trouble, of one kind or another,
Job xiv. 1. especially the saint, who besides his out-
ward troubles has in,,vard ones, arising from in'dwell-
ing sin, the temptations of Satan, and divine desertions,
;which was now the case of the psalmist: this .may be
truly applied to Christ, who himself said, when in the
garden,.my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,
Matt. xxvi. 38. he was a man of sorrows all his days,
but especially at that time, and when upon the cross,
forsaken by his Father, and sustaining his wrath: his
soul was then filled with evil thingsf, as the wor'ds may
be rendered: innumerable evils cornpassed him about,
Psal. xl. 12. the sins of his people, those evil things,
were imputed to him; the iniquity of them all 'was
laid upon him, as was also the evil of punishment for
them; and then he found trouble and sorrow enough:
and my life draweth nigh unto the grave: a phrase ex-
pressire of a person's being just ready to die, Job
xxxiii. 22. as the psalmist now thought he was, ver.
5, 15. 'tis in the plural number my livesg; and so may
not only denote the danger he was in of his natural
life, but of his spiritual and eternal life, which he might
fear, being in darkness and desertion, would be lost,
though they could not;n yea, that he was near to hell
itself, for so the word may be rendered; for when
the presence of God is withdrawn, and wrath let into
the conscience, a person in his own apprehension
seems to be in hell as it were, or near it; see Jon.
ii. 2. This was true of Christ, when he was sorrowful
unto death, and was brought to the dust of it, and
under divine dereliction, and a sense of the wrath of
God, as the surety of Iris people.
Ver. 4. I am counted with them that go down into the
pit, &c.] With the dead, with them that are worthy
of death, with malefactors that are judicially put to
death, and are not laid in a common grave, but put
into a pit together: thus Christ was reckoned and ac-
counted of by the Jews; the sanhedrim counted him
worthy of death; and the common people cried out
Crucify him; and they did crucify him between two
malefactors; and so he was nutnbered or counted with
transgressors, and as one of them, Isa. liii. 3, 4, I2. I
am as a man that hath no strength; for his strength was
dried up like a potsherd, Psal. xxii. 15. though he was
the mighty God, and, as man, was made strong by the
Lord for himself.
Ver. 5, Free among the dead, &c.] If he was a free-
man, it was only among the dead, not among the living;
if he was free of any city, it was of the city of the dead;
he looked upon himself as a dead man, as one belong-
lug to the state of the dead, who are free from all re-
lations, and from all business and labour, and re-
moved from all company and society; he thought him-
self quite neglected, of whom there was no more care
and notice taken than of a dead man: like the slain that
lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more; in a
providential way, as in life, to clothe them, and feed
them, and protect and preserve them; in which sense
God is said to be mindful of men, Psal. viii. 4. who
when dead have no need to be minded, and remem-
bered in such a manner; otherwise God does remember
the dead, and takes care of their dust, and will raise
them again; and especially he remembers his own
people, those that sleep in Jesus, who will be thought
of in the resurrection-morn, and will be raised first,
and brought with Christ; see Job xiv. 13, 14. and they
are cut off from thy hand; that is, the slain that lie in
the grave, the dead that are buried there; these' are
cut off from the hand of Providence, they needing no
supplies from thence as in the time of life. The Tar-
gum is, "and they are separated from the face of thy
"majest ." or the are cut off b,, thine hand {i}; by the
immediate hand of God, in a judicial way; so Christ


{c} Tractat. Theolog. Politic. c. 10. p. 184.
{d} Apud Meor Enayim, c. 32. p. l06.
{e} \^hebv\^ saturata, Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tre-
mellius, Piscator, Cocceius; satiata, Tigurine version.
{f} \^twerb\^ in malis, Pagninus, Montanus; malis, Junius & Tremel-
lius, &c.
{g} \^yyx\^ vitae meae, Montanus, Michaelis.
{h} \^lwavl\^ ad orcum, Cocceius; inferno, Gejerus; ad infernum,
Michaelis; so Ainsworth.
{i} \^Kdym\^ manu tua, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Amama.