I. Everywhere, in the history of the human heart, these two things are found in the hours of our bitter pain: unfathomable desire and want of something more than earth or its love can give, and the consciousness of some one capable of filling the want. Out of these two things, consciousness of an infinite want and an infinite fulness and of the relation of one to the other, springs prayer, the paradox; and whatever some may say, it is undeniable that men, and these not the worst, but the best, of the race, have received or, if you like, imagined they received an answer.
II. Passion, faith, and will are the wings of prayer, as they are the wings of all the words and deeds which bring forth fruit upon earth. Be therefore in earnest with God; be importunate; let no silence, no apparent cruelty, send you back.
III. But sometimes neither faith, passion, nor will arise, and we cannot pray at all. (1) The heart often gets hard in bitter sorrow; neither words nor thoughts will come. (2) At other times prayer is made impossible by a deep depression, the essential difference of which is that it seems without cause. (3) Sometimes it is the seeming failure of life that hinders prayer. I cannot but think that we arrive at that stage when hardness of heart or failure comes because before they come we have made God a stranger by neglecting prayer.
IV. In this Psalm we have the true amalgam of prayer: trust which boldly claims God; humility that owns the weakness of self. The answer comes at once to such a prayer as it came to David, not as yet in restoration to the kingdom, but in that which made restoration or not indifferent in gladness of heart, in peace of heart.
S. A. Brooke, The Spirit of the Christian Life,p. 277.
This is a fair-weather psalm. David has been in distress, and now the clouds have been blown away, and the blue sky has returned, so he does what many seldom think of doing: he thanks God for deliverance and enlargement, and takes no credit to himself. People who had seen his distress had questioned his religion, and in so doing had sought to turn his glory into shame, and had exclaimed that vanity was better than prayer, and that leasing was better than sacrifice. Now David's turn has come, and the facts are all on his side.
I. Look at David in his enlargement and thankfulness. You must not look at a man's distress alone, and build an argument upon his sorrow. You must take into view the whole compass of his life.
II. David continues, You have been judging by unusual circumstances and special providences of trial, but you should rest on great principles, and especially on the principle that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for Himself.
III. If you believe this, you will stand in awe and sin not; that is, you will pray even in the storm, and you will bow down in homage when the Lord passeth by in judgment.
IV. David tells us what to do in loss, and pain, and sorrow: Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord; continue in the way of duty; go to the sanctuary even when you have to grope for the sacred door in darkness; seek the altar, and say concerning God, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
V. The idea of ver. 7 is that in loss, and poverty, and apparent desolation there may actually be more gladness, more real and lasting spiritual delight, than in times of prosperity.
Parker, The Ark of God,p. 125.
References: Psalms 4 A. Maclaren, Life of David,p. 246; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 356; I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ,p. 111; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 178. Psalms 5:3. W. Lindsay Alexander, Christian Thought and Work,p. 17.