If the fourth Psalm may be regarded as an evening hymn, then the fifth may be treated as a morning meditation.
As a rule, the early morning hours are best for devotion, prayer, and the exercise of faith. "In the morning will I direct my prayer... and will look up." Like a steady and determined archer, David directs his prayer. He takes careful aim, steadies himself, prays intelligently and perseveringly, and then looks up as though he were expecting and anticipating an answer.
Praying by spasms and without a fixed aim is like throwing a line and sinker into the water without a worm or minnow.
Here is one of the golden keys which unlock the storehouses of God, "and will look up." The poet prays expectantly, anticipatively, and believingly. He "directs" his prayer and then looks up for the answer. The Old Testament seers and sages ofttimes prayed with the palms of their hands held up and out towards the sky as though they expected God to put something in them.
This hymn also declares that:
(1) God has no pleasure in the wicked,
(2) God loves holiness,
(3) God hates sin,
(4) He is set to destroy the wicked (verses 5-10).
The song rises to a grand crescendo, closing with a description of the happiness of the holy (verses 11-12).
"Lamartine in his 'Travels in the Holy Land,' when speaking of the great mountain-blocks of white marble, says, 'In looking back upon them from a distant standpoint, they appeared like great masses of gold as the sun shone upon them, - bright and dazzling.' The children of GOD are blocks of spiritual marble, and have a brightness superior to that of gold, when the polish of entire sanctification is put upon them." - S. Cates