Psalm 142

⁵ I cried out to You, O Lord:
I said, “You are my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.

⁶ Attend to my cry,
For I am brought very low;
Deliver me from my persecutors,
For they are stronger than I.

⁷ Bring my soul out of prison,
That I may praise Your name;
The righteous shall surround me,
For You shall deal bountifully with me.”

the cave (intro) — either the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1ff.) or the cave at Ein Gedi, among the Rocks of the Wild Goats (1 Samuel 24:1ff). In both cases, David was fleeing Saul who wanted to kill him.

A proper biblical definition [of worship] entails any outward expression by believers that affirms God for who He is and what He does. It is therefore unquestionably an act of worship for David to pour out his complaint before God (v.2; as also in Psalm 77:3), for in doing so he is affirming who God is, not simply as his Creator, but as his Father—a Father who earnestly desires to hear and respond to all that fills the heart of His deeply beloved child. … As David emphasizes four times in the opening two verses, [his complaint] is “poured out” to God alone.  Hence, when Paul exhorts the Philippian Christians to “do all things without complaining or arguing” (Philippians 2:14) he is not contradicting the clear example of David (or Job, among many others), but rather emphasizing the importance of refraining from such as part of our witness to unbelievers, “among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). — Wechsler, pages 339-340.

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The second parameter of “worshipful” complaint (v.7a) is that it is motivated ultimately by the desire to further God’s glory. Hence … David draws his complaint to a conclusion by imploring God to bring his soul out of prison (here, intended as a figurative reference to circumstantial-psychological “darkness,” despair and depression), not simply for the sake of his personal comfort and ease, but so that he may give thanks to God’s name—i.e., that by resolving the situation about which he is complaining, God would enable David to (1) express his worship in the way that God legislated by offering Him sacrifice at the Tabernacle (which he was prevented from doing as a fugitive from Saul), and (2) enhance the basis of God’s praise by adding yet another distinct act of His redemption thereto. — Wechsler, page 341.

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The final parameter of worshipful complaint (v.7b) is the tempering thereof by affirming God’s promises—specifically, by affirming His promise of future and final victory. It is this time that David envisions by his closing, confident assertion, “The righteous will surround me”—a situation that was certainly never true during David’s lifetime. — Wechsler, page 341.

Williams’ take:

David when in the cavern reviews his experiences prior to his descent into it (vs.3-6); prays that he may be delivered out of it; and believes that his prayer will be heard (v.7). In all this he was a type of his Son and Lord.

The reader is invited to contemplate Messiah when shut up in the prison-house of Sheol (vs.1-2, 7); he is permitted to hear Him reviewing before God His life as Man (v.3); His anguish and prayer when hanging on the tree (vs.4-6); His petition to be delivered out of the death-world; His assurance that that prayer will be heard (v.7); and the subsequent joy that His resurrection would cause to His people (v.7) …

His absolute abandonment and loneliness when in the hands of the High Priests and of Pilate, and when nailed to the tree, are declared in verse 4; and in verses 5-6 His unfailing faith in, and dependence upon, God up to the last moment that in “the land of the living” He suffered the rage and cruelty of His persecutors is touchingly expressed. — Williams, pages 410-411.