David begs God would make haste to comfort him, 1. Because his
affliction was great, and therefore he was an object of God's pity:
Lord, make haste to help me, for I have become like a bottle in the
smoke, a leathern bottle, which, if it hung any while in the smoke, was
not only blackened with soot, but dried, and parched, and shrivelled
up. David was thus wasted by age, and sickness, and sorrow. See how
affliction will mortify the strongest and stoutest of men! David had
been of a ruddy countenance, as fresh as a rose; but now he is
withered, his colour is gone, his cheeks are furrowed. Thus does man's
beauty consume under God's rebukes, as a moth fretting a garment. A
bottle, when it is thus wrinkled with smoke, is thrown by, and there is
no more use of it. Who will put wine into such old bottles? Thus was
David, in his low estate, looked upon as a despised broken vessel, and
as a vessel in which there was no pleasure. Good men, when they are
drooping and melancholy, sometimes think themselves more slighted than
really they are. 2. Because, though his affliction was great, yet it
had not driven him from his duty, and therefore he was within the reach
of God's promise: Yet do I not forget thy statutes. Whatever our
outward condition is we must not cool in our affection to the word of
God, nor let that slip out of our minds; no care, no grief, must crowd
that out. As some drink and forget the law (Prov. xxxi. 5), so others
weep and forget the law; but we must in every condition, both
prosperous and adverse, have the things of God in remembrance; and, if
we be mindful of God's statutes, we may pray and hope that he will be
mindful of our sorrows, though for a time he seems to forget us.