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Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 38:20

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Psalms 38:20

They who render evil for good are also adversaries to me, because I follow what is good.

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For I hope in you, Yahweh. You will answer, Lord my God.

For I said, “Don’t let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.”

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.

For I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin.

But my enemies are vigorous and many. Those who hate me without reason are numerous.

They who render evil for good are also adversaries to me, because I follow what is good.

Don’t forsake me, Yahweh. My God, don’t be far from me.

Hurry to help me, Lord, my salvation.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading holds that being repaid evil for good is a foundational complaint of the wisdom and lament traditions, animating Job, Ecclesiastes (7:15; 8:14), and Psalm 73. On this view Psalm 38:20 voices the universal problem of undeserved suffering rather than describing a specific healing-and-exorcism ministry. Critics argue that pairing this generic theodicy protest with the ministry summary in Acts 10:38 reads a particular fulfillment into the most general of laments. The psalm's concern, they note, is the injustice of persecution, not a forecast of any individual's career.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading takes Psalm 38:20's complaint of being repaid evil for good as anticipating the summary of Jesus' ministry as one who went about doing good yet was unjustly rejected (Acts 10:38). Proponents argue that Christ is the definitive instance of the righteous doer of good who receives hostility in return, the pattern reaching its fullest expression when his goodness provokes the ultimate rejection. They read the resurrection as reversing that injustice and so resolving the psalm's protest. On this view Jesus embodies and vindicates the righteous sufferer of the lament.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Acts 10:38 Not cited by the New Testament

    Acts 10:38 is Peter's summary of Jesus' ministry and makes no quotation, citation, or verbal allusion to Psalm 38:20; the pairing is thematic.