(6) He hath set me in dark places.--A verbal reproduction of Psalm 143:3. The "dark places" are those of hell or Hades. For dead of old read dead eternally or dead for ever, the adverb looking forward rather than back.

Verse 6. - This verse is verbally reproduced in Psalm 143:3. In dark places; i.e. in Hades (comp. Psalm 88:7). As they that be dead of old. A strange comparison; for what difference can it make whether the dead are men of the ancient or the modern world? The rendering, however, though perfectly admissible, is less suitable to the context than as they that are forever dead; who have entered "the land from which there is no return" (an Assyrian title of Hades). Comp. "the everlasting house," i.e. the grave (Ecclesiastes 12:5), "the everlasting sleep" (Jeremiah 51:39, 57).

3:1-20 The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. It was an affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. The struggle between unbelief and faith is often very severe. But the weakest believer is wrong, if he thinks that his strength and hope are perished from the Lord.He hath set me in dark places,.... In the dark house of the prison, as the Targum; in the dark dungeon where the prophet was put; or the captivity in which the Jews were, and which was like the dark grave or state of the dead; and hence they are said to be in their graves, Ezekiel 37:12. Christ was laid in the dark grave literally:

as they that be dead of old: that have been long dead, and are forgotten, as if they had never been; see Psalm 88:5; or, "as the dead of the world" (f), or age; who, being dead, are gone out of the world, and no more in it. The Targum is,

"as the dead who go into another world.''

(f) , Sept. "quasi mortuos seculi", Montanus, Calvin.