*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged. In this verse he acknowledges not only that he had to contend outwardly with his enemies and the troubles which they occasioned him, but that he was also afflicted inwardly with sorrow and anguish of heart. It is also necessary to observe the manner of expression which he here employs, and by which he intimates that the weight and number of his trials had accumulated to such an extent that they filled his whole heart, even as a flood of waters bursting every barrier, and extending far and wide, covers a whole country. Now, when we see that the heart of David had sometimes been wholly filled with anguish, we need no longer wonder if at times the violence of temptation overwhelm us; but let us ask with David, that even whilst we are as it were at the point of despair, God would succor us.
The troubles of my heart - The sorrows which spring upon the heart - particularly from the recollections of sin.
Are enlarged - Have become great. They increased the more he reflected on the sins of his life.
O bring thou me out of my distresses - Alike from my sins, and from the dangers which surround me. These two things, external trouble and the inward consciousness of guilt, are not infrequently combined. Outward trouble has a tendency to bring up the remembrance of past transgressions, and to suggest the inquiry whether the affliction is not a divine visitation for sin. Any one source of sorrow may draw along numerous others in its train. The laws of association are such that when the mind rests on one source of joy, and is made cheerful by that, numerous other blessings will be suggested to increase the joy; and when one great sorrow has taken possession of the soul, all the lesser sorrows of the past life cluster around it, so that we seem to ourselves to be wholly abandoned by God and by man.
The troubles of may heart are enlarged - The evils of our captive state, instead of lessening, seem to multiply, and each to be extended.
The troubles of my heart (n) are enlarged: [O] bring thou me out of my distresses.
(n) My grief is increased because of my enemies cruelty.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged,.... His enemies being increased, which troubled him; the floods of ungodly men made him afraid; the waters of affliction were come into his soul, and spread themselves, and threatened to overwhelm him: or it may be rendered, as by some, "troubles have enlarged my heart" (h); made him wiser, increased his knowledge and experience; see Psalm 119:67; but the former seems better to agree with what follows;
O bring thou me out of my distresses; or "straits" (i); for the enlargement of his troubles was the straitening of his heart; and therefore he applies to the Lord to bring him out of his afflicted circumstances, in which he was penned up, as in a strait place, on every side, and which were such that he could not free himself from; but he knew that God could deliver him.
(h) "dilataverunt cor meum", Vatablus; "reddiderunt cor meum latius", Gussetius, p. 786. (i) "ab angustiis meis", Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius; so Musculus, Piscator, Michaelis.
The Hiph. הרחיב signifies to make broad, and as a transitive denominative applied to the mind and heart: to make a broad space = to expand one's self (cf. as to the idea, Lamentations 2:13, "great as the sea is thy misfortune"), lxx ἐπληθύνθησαν, perhaps originally it was ἐπλατηύνθησαν. Accordingly הרחיבוּ is admissible so far as language is concerned; but since it gives only a poor antithesis to צרות it is to be suspected. The original text undoubtedly was הרחיב וממצוקותי (הרחיב, as in Psalm 77:2, or הרחיב, as e.g., in 2-Kings 8:6): the straits of my heart do Thou enlarge (cf. Psalm 119:32; 2-Corinthians 6:11) and bring me out of my distresses (Hitzig and others).
*More commentary available at chapter level.