For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul. "For" introduces the reason urged for granting his request-namely, the violence of the godless enemy, which must bring God to the sufferer's side, in spite of the many shortcomings of the latter. The Psalmist has presented no such bar to his deliverance as that mentioned in Psalms 7:4-5.
He hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead - (Lamentations 3:6; Psalms 7:5, end; 88:6.) Hengstenberg translates, 'in dark places,' and 'like one eternally dead.' So the Syriac. The Septuagint translate the Hebrew literally, 'those dead of an age,' or 'of eternity,' [hoos nekrous aioonos: `owlaam (H5769)] (cf. Psalms 88:5). No inference is warranted from this that David regarded the dead as about eternally to remain so, even if we adopt Hengstenberg's and the Syriac translation. All that such expressions mean is, the dead have no return to life on this earth in the present order of things. It is their "long home" (Ecclesiastes 12:5). David clearly looked for a future life and the resurrection (Psalms 16:10-11; Psalms 17:15).