Psalms 77:3-4

There is somewhat very singular, and, at first reading, very strange, in these expressions. Doth the remembrance of God, as a gracious covenant God, tend to increase affliction? Surely every remembrance of God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, must have a blessed tendency to give comfort. What is it then? I venture to consider these words as referring to Christ, who, as the sinner's Surety, was looking forward to the conflicts of the garden and the cross: there Jesus had a baptism to be baptized within the contemplation of which he was straitened, until it was accomplished. God's justice upon the sinner, and God's holy law avenging itself upon the sinner's Surety, might well be supposed to induce such afflictions in the mind. See the evangelist's account, Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34.