David moveth God to take compassion of his pitiful case.
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
Title. להזכיר לדוד מזמור mizmor ledavid lehazkiir. A psalm of David, &c.— David's memorial psalm, Whether David really laboured under any grievous sickness which gave occasion to this psalm; or whether, under the representation of a sick man, he poetically describes his own lamentable distress; this psalm was composed by him, to put him in remembrance of that affliction, with which he confesses his sinfulness had provoked God to visit him. Theodoret, and many other commentators, think that David was not sick; but that in this psalm he called to remembrance all the sad disasters which had befallen him; as the murder of his son Amnon, the rebellion of his son Absalom, and all the other calamities mentioned in his history. But Dr. Delaney is of opinion, that this psalm, as well as the three next, were occasioned by a grievous distemper with which David was afflicted, and which he considered as the chastisement of God upon him for his sins. That this calamity fell upon him about the time when a dangerous and rebellious conspiracy was formed against him, appears from the same psalms; and, forasmuch as we hear of no more than one conspiracy of that kind formed against him, it follows that his sickness fell upon him about this time: and, that his distemper was that which is now known to us under the name of the smallpox, is, as I conceive, very probable from the same psalms. The reader will find this opinion defended in the 7th chapter of the 4th book of the Life of David. But, whether this psalm be understood in a literal or allegorical sense, David bewails his sins so pathetically in it, that it is reckoned among the penitential psalms. We would just observe, that by bringing to remembrance, in the title, may be meant his praying to God to remember him, and deliver him out of his afflictions.