Psalm 6:6-7 NKJV

I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears.

My eye wastes away because of grief;
It grows old because of all my enemies.

When Tears Flood the Night

MY NOTES

There’s something raw and honest about David’s words in these two verses:

“I am weary with my groaning; All night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears. My eye wastes away because of grief; It grows old because of all my enemies.” (Psalm 6:6-7, NKJV)

This isn’t polite religious language. This is a man who’s worn out from crying. He’s groaned until he’s exhausted. His bed is soaked. His eyes are red and heavy from weeping. You can almost feel the weight in every line.

David isn’t grumbling here—he’s groaning. There’s a big difference. Grumbling complains against God. Groaning pours out the pain to God. God’s people will groan under heavy burdens. If we never groan, we may never fully shout with joy when deliverance comes.

His sorrow had several layers. He felt the heavy hand of God’s discipline. He missed the sense of God’s nearness. And sleep—the one thing he desperately needed—wouldn’t come. Night after night the tears kept flowing. Job knew that same kind of night:

“So I have been allotted months of futility, And wearisome nights have been appointed to me.” (Job 7:3, NKJV)

When the lights go out, and the house is quiet, the weight of sorrow can feel even heavier. David’s tears weren’t trying to earn God’s favor or pay for sin—only the blood of Jesus can do that. They were simply the honest overflow of a heart that felt crushed.

I’ve walked through seasons like this. Maybe you have to. Nights when the pillow stays damp and the morning feels far away. Times when grief makes you feel older than your years. David shows us it’s okay to bring that kind of honesty to God. In fact, it’s the path toward mercy. Those who refuse to cry out when God disciplines them only pile up more trouble. But those who sow in tears are positioning themselves for the harvest of comfort.

Even Jesus knew deep sighing and sorrow. Mark records a moment when He looked up to heaven and sighed before healing a man:

“Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’” (Mark 7:34, NKJV)

Our Savior understands nights of anguish. He Himself faced a night when His sweat fell like great drops of blood.

David’s weeping wasn’t the end of the story. Later in the psalm, he declares that the Lord has heard the voice of his weeping. The tears were seen. The groans were heard. And the same is true for you.

Those nights of weeping prepare our heart for mercy. The same God who allows the long, tear-filled darkness also hears every cry and brings mercy in His timing.

Prayer

Abba, You see the nights when my bed feels soaked with tears and my strength is gone. Thank You that I don’t have to pretend everything is fine. Receive my honest groans. Turn my sorrow into something that draws me closer to You. Give me the comfort of knowing You hear every cry, and bring the morning of Your mercy in Your perfect time. I thank You for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Key Takeaways

Honest groaning before God is different from grumbling against Him—and it is welcomed.
Deep sorrow can affect both soul and body; God sees every tear and every weary night.
Tears do not atone for sin, but they can express real repentance and prepare the heart for mercy.
The same God who allowed the long night is the One who hears the weeping and brings the morning.

Proverb for Today

A man’s steps are of the Lord; How then can a man understand his own way? Proverbs 20:24 NKJV

Daily Scripture

So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Mark 11:22-24 NKJV

Closing

“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV

Grace be with you. Amen.

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Summary of Commentaries:

David’s tears weren’t polite—they soaked his bed and left him exhausted. He groaned until prayer felt like hard work, his eyes red and aging from grief. Commentators note this is honest poetic intensity, not exaggeration for show. God’s people may groan under heavy discipline, but they mustn’t grumble. Those nights of weeping prepare the heart for mercy. The same God who allows the long, tear-filled darkness also hears every cry and brings mercy.

Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

The Psalmist gives a fearful description of his long agony: “I am weary with my groaning.” He has groaned till his throat was hoarse; he had cried for mercy till prayer became a labour. God’s people may groan, but they may not grumble. Yea, they must groan, being burdened, or they will never shout in the day of deliverance. The next sentence, we think, is not accurately translated. It should be, “I shall make my bed to swim every night” (when nature needs rest, and when I am most alone with my God). That is to say, my grief is fearful even now, but if God do not soon save me, it will not stay of itself, but will increase, until my tears will be so many, that my bed itself shall swim. A description rather of what he feared would be, than of what had actually taken place. May not our forebodings of future woe become arguments which faith may urge when seeking present mercy? “I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.” As an old man’s eye grows dim with years, so, says David, my eye is grown red and feeble through weeping. Conviction sometimes has such an effect upon the body, that even the outward organs are made to suffer. May not this explain some of the convulsions and hysterical attacks which have been experienced under convictions in the revivals in Ireland. Is it surprising that some should be smitten to the earth, and begin to cry aloud; when we find that David himself made his bed to swim, and grew old while he was under the heavy hand of God? Ah! brethren, it is no light matter to feel one’s self a sinner, condemned at the bar of God. The language of this Psalm is not strained and forced, but perfectly natural to one in so sad a plight.

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Enduring Word

I am weary with groaning: God’s chastising hand was heavy upon David. His life seemed to be nothing but tears and misery. David’s trial had at least three components.

·David felt God was angry with him.

·David lacked a sense of God’s presence.

·David couldn’t sleep. (Guzik)

All night I make my bed swim: This is a good example of poetic exaggeration. David didn’t want us to believe that his bed actually floated on a pool of tears in his room. Because this is poetic literature, we understand it according to its literary context. This is how we understand the Bible literally – according to its literary context. (Guzik)

My eye wastes away: David’s eyes were red and sore from all the tears and lack of sleep. (Guzik)

i. “As an old man’s eye grows dim with years, so says David, my eye is grown red and feeble through weeping.” (Spurgeon)

Because of all my enemies: David was brought so low that the presence of his enemies no longer prompted him to seize the victory. At this point, David seemed depressed and discouraged. (Guzik)

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Albert Barnes

I am weary with my groaning — I am exhausted or worn out with it. That is, his sorrows were so deep, and his groaning was so constant, that his strength failed. He became “faint” under the weight of his sorrows. All persons in trouble have experienced this effect – the sense of weariness or exhaustion from sorrow.

All the night make I my bed to swim — That is, he wept so much that his bed seemed to be immersed in tears. This is, of course, hyperbolical language, expressing in a strong and emphatic manner the depth of his sorrows.

I water my couch with my tears — The word here rendered “water” means to melt, to flow down; then, in the Hiphil, to cause to flow, to dissolve. The sense here is that he caused his couch to “flow” or “overflow” with his tears. We would say, he “flooded” his bed with tears. This verse discloses the true source of the trials referred to in the psalm. It was some deep mental anguish – some source of grief – that exhausted his strength, and that laid him on a bed of languishing. No circumstances in the life of David better accord with this than the troubles which existed on account of the ungrateful and rebellious conduct of Absalom, and it is most natural to refer it to this. Many a parent since the time of David has experienced “all,” both mental and bodily, which is here described as a consequence of the ingratitude and evil conduct of his children. The tragedy of “Lear” turns entirely on this.

Mine eye is consumed — The word here rendered “consumed” – עשׁשׁ ‛âshêsh – means properly to fall in, to fall away, and is applied here to the “eye” as pining or wasting away from care, anxiety, and sorrow. Tears were poured forth from the eye, and it seemed to be exhausting itself in this manner. The meaning is that it had grown “dim,” or that its sight began to fail, like that of an old man, on account of his troubles. Many have understood the word here rendered “eye” as referring to the “countenance;” but it is doubtful whether the word ever has this signification; and at any rate the common signification, referring it to the “eye,” best suits this connection.

It waxeth old — It seems to grow old; it experiences the effects commonly produced by age in blunting the power of vision. This is not an uncommon effect of grief and sadness. Even while I am writing this, I am called in my pastoral visitations to attend on a young lady lying on a bed of languishing, and probably of death, one of whose symptoms is a quite diminished, and indeed almost total loss of vision, as the effect of trouble and disease.

Because of all mine enemies — From the trouble which they have brought upon me. The reference here, according to the interpretation proposed of the psalm, is to Absalom and those who were associated with him. Their conduct had been such as to bring upon David this overwhelming tide of sorrows.

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John Gill

I am weary with my groanings,…. By reason of bodily illness, or indwelling sin, or the guilt of actual transgressions, or the hidings of God’s face, or a sense of divine wrath, or the temptations of Satan, or afflictions and crosses of various kinds, or fears of death, or even earnest desires after heaven and eternal happiness, or the low estate of Zion; each of which at times occasion groaning in the saints, as in the psalmist, and is the common experience of all good men. The psalmist being weary of his disease, or of sin, groaned till he was weary with his groaning; inward groaning affects the body, wastes the animal spirits, consumes the flesh, and induces weariness and faintness; see Psalm 102:5;

all the night make I my bed to swim: I water my couch with my tears; these are hyperbolical phrases, expressing more than is intended, and are not to be literally understood; for such a quantity of tears a man could never shed, as to water his couch and make his bed to swim with them, but they are used to denote the multitude of them, and the excessiveness of his sorrow; see Psalm 119:136; and these tears were shed, not to atone and satisfy for sin, for nothing but the blood and sacrifice of Christ can do that; but to express the truth and reality, as well as the abundance of his grief; and this was done “all the night long”; see Job 7:3; when he had leisure to think and reflect upon his sins and transgressions, and when he was clear of all company, and no one could hear or see him, nor interrupt him in the vent of his sorrow, and when his disease might be heavier upon him, as some diseases increase in the night season: this may also be mystically understood, of a night of spiritual darkness and desertion, when a soul is without the discoveries of the love of God, and the influences of his grace; and has lost sight of God and Christ, and interest in them, and does not enjoy communion with them; and throughout this night season weeping endures, though joy comes in the morning. And it may be applicable to David’s antitype, to the doleful night in which he was betrayed, when it was the hour and power of darkness, and when he had no other couch or bed but the ground itself; which was watered, not only with his tears, but with his sweat and blood, his sweat being as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground; so he is often said to sigh and groan in spirit, Mr 7:34.

It waxeth old because of all mine enemies; saints have many enemies, sin, Satan, and the world; and these are very oppressive ones, as the word {g} here signifies; such as beset them about, straiten them on all hands, and press them sore; and they must be pressed down by them, were it not that he that is in them is greater than he that is in the world; and David’s enemies gave him so much trouble, and caused him to shed such plenty of tears, that his eye waxed old, was shrunk up, and beset with wrinkles, the signs of old age; or it was removed out of its place, as the word is rendered in Job 18:4; or the sight was removed from that, it was gone from him, Psalm 38:10.

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Matthew Henry

These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled under humbling providences, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent on purpose to awaken conscience and mortify corruption. Those heap up wrath who cry not when God binds them; but those are getting ready for mercy who, under God’s rebukes, sow in tears, as David does here.

Even the death of the body puts an end to our opportunity and capacity of glorifying God in this world, and serving the interests of his kingdom among men by opposing the powers of darkness and bringing many on this earth to know God and devote themselves to him. Some have maintained that the joys of the saints in heaven are more desirable, infinitely more so, than the comforts of saints on earth; yet the services of saints on earth, especially such eminent ones as David was, are more laudable, and redound more to the glory of the divine grace, than the services of the saints in heaven, who are not employed in maintaining the war against sin and Satan, nor in edifying the body of Christ. Courtiers in the royal presence are most happy, but soldiers in the field are more useful; and therefore we may, with good reason, pray that if it be the will of God, and he has any further work for us or our friends to do in this world, he will yet spare us, or them, to serve him. To depart and be with Christ is most happy for the saints themselves; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the church.

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Benson’s Commentary

All the night — Or, every night, as the margin renders כל לילה , cal lailah; make I my bed to swim With tears, an hyperbole used also elsewhere. It well becomes the greatest spirits to be tender, and to relent under the tokens of God’s displeasure. David, who could face Goliath himself, melts into tears at the remembrance of sin, and under the apprehension of divine wrath, and it is no diminution to his character.

Mine eye is consumed — Or grown dim, or dull, as עשׁשׁה , gnosheshah, may be rendered; namely, through the many tears which I shed, or through the decay of my spirits.

Because of grief — For my sins and miseries, or grief arising from mine enemies; as the next clause interprets it, and from the consideration of their multitude, rage, and falseness.

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Miscellaneous Comments

“My bed.” The place of his sin is the place of his repentance, and so it should be; yea, when we behold the place where we have offended, we should be pricked in the heart, and there again crave him pardon. As Adam sinned in the garden, and Christ sweat bloody tears in the garden. “Examine your hearts upon your beds, and convert unto the Lord;” and whereas ye have stretched forth yourselves upon your bed to devise evil things, repent there and make them sanctuaries to God. Sanctify by your tears every place which ye have polluted by sin. And let us seek Christ Jesus on our own bed, with the spouse in the Canticles, who saith, “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.”

—Archibald Symson.

“I water my couch with my tears.” Let us water our bed every night with our tears. Do not only blow upon it with intermissive blasts, for then like fire, but it will resurge and flame the more. Sin is like a stinking candle newly put out; it is soon lighted again. It may receive a wound, but like a dog it will easily lick itself whole; a little forbearance multiplies it like Hydra’s heads. Therefore, whatsoever aspersion the sin of the day has brought upon us, let the tears of the night wash away.

—Thomas Adams.