Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
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
This is much to the same effect as the first verse, only that it refers to future as well as present pleadings. Hear me! Hear me! Hear the voice of my supplications! This is the burden of both verses. We cannot be put off with a refusal when we are in the spirit of prayer; we labour, use importunity, and agonize in supplications until a hearing is granted us.
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