As often with the Psalms this is the cry of someone in dire trouble. It would fit many periods in David's life, but it would also fit the same in many of his godly successors. It would also fit Israel at various times. In the end it is a message that sometimes fits us all. And that is the genius of the Psalms. They apply to the psalmist, they apply to those who sing the psalms, and they apply to all who read them today. But the psalm also ends on a note of confident assurance. The psalmist refuses to believe that YHWH will leave him in his distress.