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Psalm 6:6 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
⁶I am weary with my groaning;
every night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears.

I am weary with my groaning. I am exhausted or worn out with it. That is, his sorrows were so deep, and his groaning was so constant that his strength failed. He became faint under the weight of his sorrows. All persons in trouble have experienced this effect—the sense of weariness or exhaustion from sorrow.

Every night I make my bed swim. That is, he wept so much that his bed seemed to be immersed in tears. This is, of course, hyperbolical language, expressing in a strong and emphatic manner the depth of his sorrows.

I drench my couch with my tears. The word here rendered water means to melt, to flow down; then, in Hiph., to cause to flow, to dissolve. The sense here is that he caused his couch to flow or overflow with his tears. We would say he flooded his bed with tears. This verse discloses the true source of the trials referred to in the psalm. It was some deep mental anguish—some source of grief—that exhausted his strength and that laid him on a bed of languishing. No circumstances in the life of David better accord with this than the troubles which existed on account of the ungrateful and rebellious conduct of Absalom, and it is most natural to refer it to this. Many a parent since the time of David has experienced all, both mental and bodily, which is here described as a consequence of the ingratitude and evil conduct of his children. The tragedy of “Lear” turns entirely on this.

By Albert Barnes and Edward D. Andrews