We may get the meaning and help of this Psalm by asking, How did David conduct himself in the time of sickness and trouble?
I. He made his sorrow a question between himself and God. Set it down as a stern fact that there is a moral secret under the whole figure and movement of human life. Wherever you find disorder you find sin.
II. Proceeding from this point, David seeks to make things right between himself and God. In all trouble go first in self-reproach to God, and get at the causes of things.
III. In the third place, David feels that if the Lord's hand be removed he can bear all other troubles. (1) The pain of trouble is in the feeling that it is deserved. (2) Take away the righteousness of the suffering, and then suffering is as an open door into our life, through which the angels come.
IV. David approaches God in utter self-renunciation. There is no word of self-defenceas before God. This is needful in all prayer that is meant to prevail.
V. David prays the more earnestly because his afflictions have brought him within sight of the grave and the world unseen. He would not enter the valley without a sense of forgiveness. Who would? We must enter that dark valley; we enter it either forgiven or unpardoned.
Parker, The Ark of God,p. 132.
References: Psalms 6 I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ,p. 145; P. Thomson, Expositor,2nd series, vol. i., p. 243.