The fervour of the psalmist's supplication is strikingly expressed by his use in the first clause, of the word which is ordinarily employed for the shrill notes of rejoicing. It describes the quality of the sound as penetrating and emotional, not the nature of the emotion expressed by it. Joy is usually louder-tongued than sorrow; but this suppliant's need has risen so high that his cry is resonant. To himself he seems to be at "the end of the earth"; for he measures distance not as a map-maker, but as a worshipper. Love and longing are potent magnifiers of space. His heart "faints," or is "overwhelmed." The word means literally "covered," and perhaps the metaphor may be preserved by some such phrase as _wrapped in gloom_. He is, then, an exile, and therefore sunk in sadness. But while he had external separation from the sanctuary chiefly in view, his cry wakes an echo in all devout hearts. They who know most about the inner life of communion with God best know how long and dreary the smallest separation between Him and them seems, and how thick is the covering spread over the heart thereby. The one desire of such a suppliant is for restoration of interrupted access to God. The psalmist embodies that yearning in its more outward form, but not without penetrating to the inner reality in both the parallel petitions which follow. In the first of these, (ver. 2 _b_) the thought is fuller than the condensed expression of it. "Lead me on" or in, says he, meaning, Lead me _to_ and set me _on_. His imagination sees towering above him a great cliff, on which, if he could be planted, he might defy pursuit or assault. But he is distant from it, and the inaccessibility which, were he in its clefts, would be his safety, is now his despair. Therefore he turns to God and asks Him to bear him up in His hands, that he may set his foot on that rock. The figure has been, strangely enough, interpreted to mean a rock of difficulty, but against the usage in the Psalter. But we do not reach the whole significance of the figure if we give it the mere general meaning of a place of safety. While it would be too much to say that "rock" is here an epithet of God (the absence of the definite article and other considerations are against that), it may be affirmed that the psalmist, like all devout men, knew that his only place of safety was in God. "_A_ rock" will not afford adequate shelter; our perils and storms need "_the_ Rock." And, therefore, this singer bases his prayer on his past experience of the safe hiding that he had found in God. Place of refuge and strong tower are distinctly parallel with "rock." The whole, then, is like the prayer in Psalm xxxi. 2, 3: "Be Thou to me a strong rock. For Thou art my rock."