Psalms 6:6

I am weary with my groanings,.... By reason of bodily illness, or indwelling sin, or the guilt of actual transgressions, or the hidings of God's face, or a sense of divine wrath, or the temptations

I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

All the night; he mentions this time, by way of aggravation of his misery, because that season, which is to others by God’ s appointment a time of rest, was to him very sad and doleful, whether from his disease, which then came upon him more strongly, as it is usual; or from the opportunity which the solitude or silence of the night gave him to think of his own sins, or his enemies’ perfidiousness and malice, or God’ s displeasure, or his future estate. Make I my bed to swim, to wit, with tears. See the like hyperbole ,49. I water my couch; or, my bedstead.

Psalms 6:6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.Ver. 6. I am weary with my groaning] I have laboured therein even unto lassitude. There must be some proportion between our sin and our sorrow. A storm of sighs, at least, if not a shower of tears; some sorrow is above tears, some constitutions are dry and will not yield tears, and in such case dry sorrow may be as available as wet. She that touched the hem of Christ’ s garment only was as welcome to him as Thomas, who put his fingers into the print of the nails. All the night make I my bed to swim] So one hour’ s sin brought many nights’ pain. Did we but forethink what sin will cost us we dare not but be innocent. Transit voluptas, manet dolor. Nocet empta dolore voluptas, Desire passes, grief remains. Desire hurts with empty grief. But today, saith a reverend writer (Bishop Pilkinton on Nehemiah 1:4), weep a man may not, for disfiguring his face; fasting is thought hypocrisy and shame; and when his paunch is full, then, as priests with their drunken nowls said matins, and belched out, Eructavit cor meum verbum, with good devotion as they thought; so he blusters out a few blustering words, and thinks it repentance sufficient, &c. Another descants thus upon the text. As in Sicilia there is fons solis, the fountain of the sun, out of which at midday, when the sun is nearest, floweth cold water; at midnight, when the sun is farther off, floweth hot water: so the patriarch David’ s head is full of water, and his eyes a fountain of tears, who, when he enjoyed his health as the warm sunshine, was cold in confessing his sins; but being now visited with sickness, his reins chastising him in the night season, he is so sore troubled, and withal so hot, and so fervent, that every night he washeth his bed, and watereth, nay, even melteth, his conch with tears, &c. A third makes this good note upon these words: The place of David’ s sin, his bed, is the place of his repentance, and so it should be; yea, when we behold the place where we have offended we should be pricked in heart, and there again crave his pardon. As Adam sinned in the garden, and Christ sweat bloody tears in the garden. Sanctify by tears every place which we have polluted by sin; and let us seek Christ Jesus in our bed, with the spouse in the Canticles, who saith, In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved, Son 3:1. I water my couch with my tears] By couch some understand that whereon David lay in the day time for ease and refreshing, the same perhaps which David arose off when he beheld Bathsheba washing herself; where began his misery, 2 Samuel 11:2.

(6) I water my couch with tears.—Comp. Odyssey, xvii. 102: “Say, to my mournful couch shall I ascend? The couch deserted now a length of years, The couch for ever watered with my tears.”— Pope’s trans.Orientals indulge in weeping and other outward signs of emotion, which Western nations, or, at all events, the Teutonic races, try to suppress or hide.

6. I am weary with my groaning] So Baruch complained, Jeremiah 45:3, R.V. Cp. Psalms 69:3. all the night] Rather, every night. His sorrow is of long continuance, and knows no respite.

I am weary with my groaning - I am exhausted or worn out with it. That is, his sorrows were so deep, and his groaning was so constant, that his strength failed. He became “faint” under the weight of his sorrows.

6. My bed to swim—A hyperbole for copious weeping. Water my couch—Dissolve, saturate, my couch. Another hyperbole, but a lessening of the figure from “swim” in the preceding line.