King David was sick and bedridden for thirteen years. His enemies waited. "When will he die and his name perish?" (Psalm 41:6). The midrash reports that seven sheep were laid beside him daily, trying to restore his warmth — and it wasn't enough. He groaned in his psalms: "All night I drench my bed with tears; I soak my couch with weeping" (Psalm 6:7). This was not saintly detachment. This was a man suffering in full.
The Binding of Isaac enters this passage because the rabbis saw in David's suffering a parallel structure: the righteous are tested in proportion to their capacity to bear it. Abraham had been tested thirteen times before the binding — and the binding was the culmination, the test that proved everything. David's thirteen years of illness were their own ordeal, and at the end of it, he begged for mercy and was heard. Isaiah's promise applied: "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31).
The connection the rabbis make is about the structure of faith under pressure. Both Abraham and David were at the end of their physical resources when the rescue came. The Binding was not resolved because Abraham was strong enough to endure it — it was resolved because he trusted beyond his strength. David's recovery was not the result of medical success. It came when he turned back to prayer. The eagle's flight is not about power. It is about letting the wind carry you when your own wings have given out.