John Calvin Commentary Psalms 71:20

"Thou, who hast showed us many and sore troubles, Wilt quicken us again, And wilt bring us up again from the depths of the earth." — Psalms 71:20 (ASV)

Thou hast made me to see great and sore troubles. The verb to see among the Hebrews, as is well known, is also applied to the other senses. Accordingly, when David complains that calamities had been shown to him, he means that he had suffered them. And as he attributes to God the praise for the deliverances he had obtained, so, on the other hand, he acknowledges that whatever adversities he had endured were inflicted on him according to the counsel and will of God.

But we must first consider David's objective, which is to make God's grace more illustrious by comparison, by recounting how harshly he had been treated. Had he always enjoyed a uniform course of prosperity, he would no doubt have had good reason to rejoice; but in that case, he would not have experienced what it is to be delivered from destruction by the stupendous power of God.

We must be brought down even to the gates of death before God can be seen as our deliverer. As we are born without thought and understanding, our minds, during the earlier part of our lives, are not sufficiently impressed with a sense of the Author of our existence; but when God comes to our help as we are lying in a state of despair, this resurrection is to us a bright mirror in which his grace is reflected.

In this way, David amplifies the goodness of God, declaring that, though plunged into a bottomless abyss, he was nevertheless drawn out by the divine hand and restored to the light. And he boasts not only of having been preserved perfectly safe by the grace of God but also of having been advanced to higher honor—a change that was, as it were, the crowning of his restoration, and was as if he had been lifted out of hell, even up to heaven.

What he repeats the third time, with respect to God’s turning, serves to commend Divine Providence. The idea he intends to convey is that no adversity happened to him by chance. This was evident because his condition was reversed as soon as God's favor shone upon him.