For I am poor and needy - I am helpless and dependent. I am in a condition where I need thy gracious interposition.

And my heart is wounded within me - I am as one that is prostrated by a weapon - as if my heart had been pierced. I have no courage, no strength. I am like one who lies wounded on a battlefield.

I am poor and needy - I am allicted and impoverished; and my heart is wounded - my very life is sinking through distress.

For I am poor and needy,.... As he was in human nature, being born of poor parents, brought up in a mean manner, had not where to lay his head, and was ministered to by others; though he was Lord of all, and immensely rich in the perfections of his nature, and in his vast empire and dominion, and the revenues arising from thence; see 2 Corinthians 8:9. It may here chiefly respect his helpless and forlorn estate as man, at the time of his sufferings and death; see Psalm 40:17.

And my heart is wounded within me; with the sins of his people on him, with a sense of divine wrath, and when under divine desertions, especially when his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, Matthew 26:38.

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

109:21-31 The psalmist takes God's comforts to himself, but in a very humble manner. He was troubled in mind. His body was wasted, and almost worn away. But it is better to have leanness in the body, while the soul prospers and is in health, than to have leanness in the soul, while the body is feasted. He was ridiculed and reproached by his enemies. But if God bless us, we need not care who curses us; for how can they curse whom God has not cursed; nay, whom he has blessed? He pleads God's glory, and the honour of his name. Save me, not according to my merit, for I pretend to none, but according to thy-mercy. He concludes with the joy of faith, in assurance that his present conflicts would end in triumphs. Let all that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him. Jesus, unjustly put to death, and now risen again, is an Advocate and Intercessor for his people, ever ready to appear on their behalf against a corrupt world, and the great accuser.