For thy arrows go down in me. He shows that he was constrained by dire necessity to ask an alleviation of his misery; for he was crushed under the weight of the burden which he sustained. This rule is always to be observed in our prayers -- to keep God's promises present to our view. But God has promised that he will chastise his servants, not according to their deserts, but as they are able to bear. This is the reason why the saints so often speak of their own weakness, when they are severely oppressed with affliction. David very properly describes the malady under which he labored, by the terms, the arrows and the hand, or the chastisement of God. Had he not been persuaded that it was God who thus afflicted him, he could never have been brought to seek from him deliverance from his affliction. We know that the great majority of men are blinded under the judgments of God, and imagine that they are entirely the events of chance; and scarcely one in a hundred discerns in them the hand of God. But, in his sickness, as in all his other adversities, David views the hand of God lifted up to punish him for his sins. And certainly, the man who estimates his affliction only by the feeling of pain which it produces, and views it in no other light, differs nothing from the beasts of the field. As every chastisement of God should remind us of his judgment, the true wisdom of the saints, as the prophet declares, "to look to the hand of him who smiteth."-- (Isaiah 9:13) The pronoun thy is therefore emphatic. David's words are, as if he had said, I have not to do with a mortal man, who can shoot his arrows with a force only in proportion to his own strength, but I have to do with God, who can discharge the arrows that come from his hand with a force altogether overwhelming.

For thine arrows slick fast in me - See the notes at Job 6:4. The word rendered "stick fast" - נחת nâchath - means properly to go or come down; to descend; and the literal idea here would be, "thine arrows come down upon me." It is not so much the idea of their "sticking fast" when in the wound or flesh; it is that they come down upon one, and pierce him. The meaning is, that he was afflicted "as if" God had wounded him with arrows - arrows which pierced deep in his flesh. Compare the notes at Psalm 45:5. The allusion is to the disease with which he was afflicted.
And thy hand presseth me sore - The same word is used here which in the former part of the verse is rendered "stick fast." The idea is, that the hand of God had "descended" or "come down" upon him, prostrating his strength, and laying him on a bed of pain.

Thine arrows stick fast in me - This no doubt, refers to the acute pains which he endured; each appearing to his feeling as if an arrow were shot into his body.

For thine (c) arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
(c) Your sickness, with which you have visited me.

For thine arrows stick fast in me,.... Meaning either words with which as a father the Lord rebuked him; and which were sharp and cutting, entered into him and abode with him, and gave him much pain and uneasiness; and by which he concluded that his rebukes were in wrath and hot displeasure; such as those in 2-Samuel 12:11; so the words of men are compared to arrows, Psalm 57:4 or outward afflictions, attended with inward trouble of soul; for as judgments are the arrows of God, such as famine, pestilence, &c. Ezekiel 5:16, Deuteronomy 32:21; so the chastening dispensations of Providence, under which the people of God themselves are, are so called, because they oftentimes come swiftly, suddenly, and at unawares, and are very pungent and distressing; and sometimes stick fast and continue long, by reason of which they are inwardly wounded, and conceive of God as sorely displeased with them; see Job 6:4;
and thy hand presseth me sore; the afflicting hand of God, which lay heavy upon him; and is a mighty hand when laid on such worms as mortal sinful men are, who cannot bear up under it, unless they have divine supports; see Job 19:21. This is by some supposed to be some bodily disease inflicted on him; some have thought of the leprosy, which was a stroke from the hand of God; but this is not likely, since he must have been deposed and shut up; the Jews indeed say (e) that he was a leper six months, and that the divine Presence was taken from him; a late learned man (f) thinks it was the smallpox, from the unsoundness of his flesh, the soreness of the disease, the stench of it, temporary blindness, and his friends standing aloof from him; though perhaps no other than affliction of mired for sin, comparable to the disease described, is meant.
(e) In R. Obadiah in loc. (f) De Laney's Life of King David, vol. 2. p. 146.

arrows . . . and thy hand--the sharp and heavy afflictions he suffered (Deuteronomy 32:23).

Arrows - Thy judgments outward and inward.