John Calvin Commentary Psalms 69:16

"Answer me, O Jehovah; for thy lovingkindness is good: According to the multitude of thy tender mercies turn thou unto me." — Psalms 69:16 (ASV)

Answer me, O Jehovah! for thy mercy is good. The appeal he makes here to the mercy and compassion of God is evidence of the distressed condition he was in. He undoubtedly endured a dreadful conflict when he resorted to these as the only means of his safety.

It is very difficult to believe that God is merciful to us when he is angry with us, and that he is near us when he has withdrawn himself from us. David, aware of this, brings to mind a subject to counter this distrust. By pleading for the exercise of God's mercy and great compassion towards him, David shows that the only consideration inspiring him with hope was God's kind and merciful character.

When he says, a little later, Look upon me, it is a prayer that God would truly show that he had heard him by granting him help. In the following verse, he utters a similar prayer. And by repeating the same things so often, he declares both the bitterness of his grief and the ardor of his desires.

When he beseeches God not to hide his face, it is not from any apprehension he had of being rejected, but because those who are oppressed with calamities cannot avoid being agitated and distracted with mental distress. But as God, in a special way, invites his servants to him, David avows that he is one of them.

In speaking this way, as I have already shown and will later explain in more detail, he does not boast of services for which he could claim any divine reward, but rather depends on God's free election. Although, at the same time, he is to be understood as presenting the service he faithfully rendered to God who called him, as evidence of his godliness.