Free among the dead... — So the old versions without exception, taking chaphshî as an adjective, as in Job 3:19 (where used of an emancipated slave); 1 Samuel 17:25 (free from public burdens). So of the separate house for lepers, who were cut off from society (2 Kings 15:5). Hence some refer the psalm to Uzziah. The Targum explains, “freed from legal duties.” But plainly the meaning is here exactly that of defunctus. The verse offers an instance of introverted parallelism, and this clause answers to “they are cut off from thy hand.” Gesenius, however, makes the Hebrew word a noun (comp. Ezekiel 27:20), and renders, among the dead is my couch.
Whom thou. — The dead are “clean forgotten, out of mind” even to God.
From thy hand — i.e., from the guiding, helping hand which, though stretched out for living men, does not reach to the grave.