Commentators unanimously see affliction not as a punishment to be feared, but as a divine tool for correction. Charles Spurgeon likens prosperity to a gap in a hedge that lets sheep wander, while affliction is the prickly bush that stops them. The psalmist recognizes that before his suffering, he had drifted from God, but the trial brought him back to obedience and a focus on God's word, reframing suffering as a potential blessing that redirects our path.