I cried to thee, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication.
Ver. 8. I cried to thee, O Lord, &c.] For what reason? I felt myself, all that while that I was deserted, in a kind of hell above ground. Haec tentatio initium aliquod et gustus fuit illerum inenarrabilium dolorum quos impii sentiunt in omni aeternitate. David felt himself now in the suburbs of hell, as it were; and doth therefore set up as loud a cry after God as once Micah did after his idols, Judges 18:24, and far greater cause he had.
And unto the Lord I made supplication] He knew that the same hand alone must cure him that had wounded him; neither was God's favour recoverable, but by humble confession and hearty prayer. Some think to glide away their groans with games, and their cares with cards; to bury their terrors and themselves in wine and sleep. They run to their music, with Saul; to building of cities, with Cain, when cast out of God's presence, &c., sed haeret lateri lethalis arundo; but as the wounded deer that hath the deadly arrow sticking in his side, well he may frisk up and down for a time, but still he bleedeth, and will ere long fall down dead; so it is with such as seek not comfort in God alone, as make not supplication to him for him; as return not to God, who hath smitten them, nor seek the Lord of hosts, Isaiah 9:13 .