1 Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
3 I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God. – David needs God’s help! He cries out with dramatic metaphors to let God know how he is suffering – drowning, sinking in sucking mud, swept away in a flood, exhausted from shedding tears and crying out! ‘Help me, O God, he pleads.
4 More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
must I now restore? – David doesn’t claim innocence! Should he make appropriate restitution? Was he claiming relative innocence with this cry or was he truly at fault? I suspect by listing the hairs on his head that he was somehow saying that the masses were being unfair. What do you think?
5 O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
6 Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
O Lord GOD of hosts;
let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
O God of Israel.
7 For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
that dishonour has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my mother’s sons. – v7 seems to be saying that David was being attacked because of his attempt to be true to God. It is as if he would rather take all the blame than have God’s true followers abused! “God, You know my silly behaviour, please don’t let others be blamed for it!’
9 For zeal for your house has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
10 When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,
it became my reproach.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.
12 I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
and the drunkards make songs about me. – ‘In spite of my zeal for You it seems to me,’ he is saying, ‘It seems as if I cannot do anything right! I’m zealous for You, and it has been misinterpreted!’ ‘I am the ‘hate’ of everyone!’ Do you ever feel like that?
Galatians 6: 7&8 – Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Prayer: Help me to be upright and Faithful I pray!
As I read it! 