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Return, O Lord - Once I had the light of thy countenance, by sin I have forfeited this; I have provoked thee to depart: O Lord, return! It is an awful thing to be obliged to say, Return, O Lord, for this supposes backsliding; and yet what a mercy it is that a backslider may Return to God, with the expectation that God will return to him!
Return, O Lord, deliver my soul - As if he had departed from him, and had left him to die. The word “soul” in this place is used, as it often is, in the sense of “life,” for in the next verse he speaks of the grave to which he evidently felt he was rapidly descending.
O save me - Save my life; save me from going down to the grave. Deliver me from these troubles and dangers.
For thy mercies‘ sake -
(a) As an act of mere mercy, for he felt that he had no claim, and could not urge it as a matter of right and justice; and
(b) in order that God‘s mercy might be manifest, or because he was a merciful Being, and might, therefore, be appealed to on that ground.
These are proper grounds, now, on which to make an appeal to God for his interposition in our behalf; and, indeed, these are the only grounds on which we can plead with him to save us.