Psalms 116:4 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Then called I upon the name of the Lord. Drawn from Psalms 18:4-6. David intended his personal experience for the good of his posterity, and through them for the good of the elect nation, whose representative he was. David was the great model to his people in their times of distress. Jerubbabel (Haggai 2:23; Zechariah 4:1) was, on the return from Babylon, the representative of the royal line of David. How natural it was that he and his nation should, by adopting David's words here, associate themselves with that great Head of the kingdom of old. "I found trouble and sorrow" implies that not merely did sorrows find me, but I often unthinkingly threw myself in their way. God's grace can remedy even the evils that we bring on ourselves. "I called upon the name of the Lord" is stronger than 'I called upon the Lord;' I appealed to God's manifestation of His power and grace in past deliverances, and made these my plea for expecting help from Him now again.