Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 28:1

"Unto thee, O Jehovah, will I call: My rock, be not thou deaf unto me; Lest, if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the pit." — Psalms 28:1 (ASV)

My rock. —Hebrew, tsûr, from a root implying “bind together” (Deuteronomy 14:25), not necessarily therefore with a sense of height, but with that of strength and solidity. Thus Tyre (or Tsûr) is built on a broad shelf of rock. We see from Deuteronomy 32:30-31 and 1 Samuel 2:2 that “rock” was a common metaphor for a tutelary deity, and it is adopted frequently for Jehovah in the Psalms and poetical books. Sometimes in the Authorised Version it is rendered “strong” (Psalms 60:9; Psalms 71:3; see margin). The Septuagint (followed by the Vulgate) here, as generally, apparently through timidity, suppresses the metaphor, and renders “my God.” In the song of Moses in Deuteronomy, the metaphor occurs nine times, and Stanley thinks it was derived from the granite peaks of Sinai (Jewish Church, p. 195).

Be not silent to me. —The Vulgate and margin rightly translate “from me.” The word rendered “silent” appears, like κωφὸς in Greek, to have the double meaning of deaf and dumb, and is apparently from an analogous derivation. (See Gesenius, Lex., sub voce.) Hence, we might render it, “do not turn a deaf ear to me,” or “do not turn from me in silence.”

Them that go down into the pit — i.e., the dead, or those just about to die (Psalms 30:3). In Psalm 88:4, the expression is parallel to “My life draweth nigh unto the grave;” pit (bôr) is either the sepulchre or the world of the dead (Psalms 88:4). The two meanings pass one into the other. This expression suggests that the psalmist was on a bed of sickness.