Psalm 6 explained: A Prayer Through Tears and Illness

Pleading not to face anger (vv. 1-3)

The speaker does not ask to escape correction, only not to receive it in God's anger, and seems to read his suffering as a sign of God's displeasure. Body and spirit are both in pain, and the cry "How long?" breaks off unfinished, as if feeling is too strong for words.

Asking God to come back (vv. 4-5)

He pictures God as having looked away and asks him to face him again, appealing to God's loyal love rather than to anything he has earned. Israel thought of the dead as going to Sheol, a silent, shadowy place with no worship, so dying would end his praise; how much Israel then believed about an afterlife is still debated.

Worn out by grief (vv. 6-7)

A bed soaked through with tears is deliberate exaggeration, showing how long and how hard he has cried. His failing eyes point to total exhaustion, made worse by enemies who seem to be taking advantage of his weakness.

Sudden confidence (vv. 8-10)

The mood shifts abruptly, and scholars are unsure why: some think a priest spoke a word of assurance, others that the change came within the praying itself. The dismay he felt earlier (the same Hebrew word appears in verses 2, 3 and 10) he now expects to fall on his enemies instead.

Key verse: Psalm 6:9

Where Christians differ

Christians have long counted this the first of seven "penitential psalms" and read it as a prayer of repentance, but many readers note that it never confesses any sin and see it instead as the cry of a suffering person who fears that God is angry.

Something to think about

What do you make of someone moving from tears to confidence before anything in their situation has visibly changed?