John Calvin Commentary Psalms 5:1-2

"Give ear to my words, O Jehovah, Consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God; For unto thee do I pray." — Psalms 5:1-2 (ASV)

I do not presume to determine with certainty whether David, in this psalm, bewails the wrongs which he suffered from his enemies at some particular time, or whether he complains generally of the various persecutions with which he was harassed for a long time under Saul. Some of the Jewish commentators apply the psalm even to Absalom; because, by the bloody and deceitful man, they think Doeg and Ahithophel are pointed out.

To me, however, it appears more probable that when David, after the death of Saul, had obtained peaceable possession of the kingdoms, he committed to writing the prayers he had meditated on during his afflictions and dangers. But to come to the words: First, he expresses one thing in three different ways; and this repetition denotes the strength of his devotion and his long perseverance in prayer.

For he was not so fond of using many words as to employ different forms of expression that had no meaning; but being deeply engaged in prayer, he represented, through these various expressions, the variety of his complaints.

Therefore, it signifies that he prayed neither coldly nor only with few words. Instead, as the vehemence of his grief urged him, he was earnest in bewailing his calamities before God. And since their outcome was not immediately apparent, he persevered in repeating the same complaints.

Again, he does not explicitly state what he desires to ask from God, but this kind of suppression has greater force than if he had spoken distinctly. By not uttering the desires of his heart, he shows more emphatically that his inward feelings, brought before God, were such that language was insufficient to express them.

Again, the word cry, which signifies a loud and resonant utterance of the voice, serves to mark the earnestness of his desire. David did not cry out as if to one who was deaf; but the vehemence of his grief and his inward anguish burst forth into this cry.

The verb הגה hagah, from which the noun הגיג, hagig, speech, which the prophet here uses, is derived, means both to speak distinctly, and to whisper or to mutter. But the second sense seems better suited to this passage. After David has said in general that God hears his words, he seems, immediately after, in order to be more specific, to divide them into two kinds, calling the one obscure or indistinct moanings, and the other loud crying.

By the first he means a confused muttering, such as is described in the Song of Hezekiah, when sorrow hindered him from speaking distinctly and making his voice heard. “Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove” (Isaiah 38:14). If, then, at any time we are either reluctant to pray, or our devout feelings begin to lose their fervor, we must here seek for arguments to stimulate and urge us forward.

And as by calling God his King and his God, he intended to stir himself up to entertain more lively and favorable hopes regarding the outcome of his afflictions, let us learn to apply these titles for a similar use, namely, to make ourselves more familiar with God.

At the close, he testifies that he does not sullenly gnaw the bit, as unbelievers are accustomed to do, but directs his groaning to God. For those who, disregarding God, either fret inwardly or utter their complaints to men, are not worthy of being regarded by Him.

Some translate the last clause thus, When I pray to thee; but to me it seems rather to be the reason David assigns for what he had said immediately before. His purpose is to encourage himself to trust in God by assuming this as a general principle: that whoever calls upon God in their calamities never meets with rejection from Him.