The psalmist thanks God because He delivered him of a mortal danger, accompanied with spiritual decline and, probably, with depression. Is not it a completely real situation for us also nowadays? We also tend to call our experiences of troubles hell and to compare the exit from them with return to life.
But the psalm is not simply poetry, vivid expression of one’s feelings. It is prayer, and besides such prayer, on which several generations of believers learned to pray. And real prayer - is not self-expression, but communication, dialogue with God. It remains dialogue even when only Man pronounces words. The apostle Paul talks about such prayer that it is the Holy Spirit who prays in us with “groanings which cannot be uttered”, indeed the Holy Spirit intercedes us every truth. Here also, in the prayer that pronounces the psalmist, opens a truth exceeding his understanding: God really brings up the soul from the grave, He will really resuscitate the deaths. And we know that the fulfillment of this prediction has already begun.
