Psalms 40:2

Out of an horrible pit— As David often compares himself in distress to a sinking and drowning man; so here he compares the affliction from which he had been relieved, to that of a man thrown into some loathsome and nauseous dungeon, with much filth in it; such a one, we will suppose, as Jeremiah was cast into, chap. Psalms 38:6. Mudge, observing that this is a metaphorical way of speaking familiar to the sacred writers, adds, "Though, perhaps, it may here be literal, and Jeremiah the author of the psalm after he had been delivered from his dungeon."