The attribution of the psalm to David rests solely on the superscription. The contents have no discernible points of connection with known circumstances in his or any other life. Jeremiah has been thought of as the author, on the strength of giving a prosaic literal meaning to the obviously poetical phrase "the pit of destruction" (ver. 2). If it is to be taken literally, what is to be made of the "rock" in the next clause? Baethgen and others see the return from Babylon in the glowing metaphors of ver. 2, and, in accordance with their conceptions of the evolution of spiritual religion, take the subordination of sacrifice to obedience as a clear token of late date. We may, however, recall 1 Sam. xv. 22, and venture to doubt whether the alleged process of spiritualising has been so clearly established, and its stages dated, as to afford a criterion of the age of a psalm. In the first part, the current of thought starts from thankfulness for individual deliverances (vv. 1-3); widens into contemplation of the blessedness of trust and the riches of Divine mercies (vv. 4, 5); moved by these and taught what is acceptable to God, it rises to self-consecration as a living sacrifice (vv. 6-8); and, finally, pleads for experience of God's grace in all its forms on the ground of past faithful stewardship in celebrating these (vv. 9-11). The second part is one long-drawn cry for help, which admits of no such analysis, though its notes are various. The first outpouring of the song is one long sentence, of which the clauses follow one another like sunlit ripples, and tell the whole process of the psalmist's deliverance. It began with patient waiting; it ended with a new song. The voice first raised in a cry, shrill and yet submissive enough to be heard above, is at last tuned into new forms of uttering the old praise. The two clauses of ver. 1 ("I" and "He") set over against each other, as separated by the distance between heaven and earth, the psalmist and his God. He does not begin with his troubles, but with his faith. "Waiting, he waited" for Jehovah; and wherever there is that attitude of tense and continuous but submissive expectance, God's attitude will be that of bending to meet it. The meek, upturned eye has power to draw His towards itself. That is an axiom of the devout life confirmed by all experience, even if the tokens of deliverance delay their coming. Such expectance, however patient, is not inconsistent with loud crying, but rather finds voice in it. Silent patience and impatient prayer, in too great a hurry to let God take His own time, are equally imperfect. But the cry, "Haste to my help" (ver. 13), and the final petition, "My God, delay not," are consistent with true waiting.