To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.
David's opening cry declares what most troubled men never do: he betakes himself to God alone, not wandering here and there for help. He names God his strength precisely because he trusted Him not in peace but in the severest temptations, when all other hope had failed.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 28:1-9
A cry is sorrow's natural speech when all else fails, and it must be directed to the Lord alone, for to cry to man is to waste breath upon air. Genuine suppliants cannot rest without actual replies from heaven; God's silence is as terrible to them as His voice, and they must cry with sharper earnestness until He answers.
AI summary
David's faith rests on God as his rock, his power and his refuge. What cuts deepest into a gracious soul is not the absence of what he prays for, but God's silence and the sense of His displeasure: nothing can be so killing as the want of His favor, for to be without it is to be like the dead descending to the pit.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 28:1-5