Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.
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O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
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(38-1) A Psalm of David, to make memorial. (38-2) O LORD, rebuke me not in Thine anger; neither chasten me in Thy wrath.
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Psalms 38:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 54:8 In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says Yahweh your Redeemer.
- Psalms 6:1 Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your anger, neither discipline me in your wrath.
- Hebrews 12:5-11 You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
- Psalms 70:1 Hurry, God, to deliver me. Come quickly to help me, Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 30:11 For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”
- Jeremiah 10:24 Yahweh, correct me, but gently; not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.
- Isaiah 27:8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
- Habakkuk 3:2 Yahweh, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Yahweh. Renew your work in the middle of the years. In the middle of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy.
- Psalms 88:7 Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves.
- Psalms 88:15-16 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted. Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.
- Deuteronomy 9:19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (27 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1 O Jehovah! rebuke me not in thy wrath…
1 O Jehovah! rebuke me not in thy wrath As I have already expounded this verse in the beginning of the sixth psalm, where it occurs, and that I may not prove tedious to the reader, I shall notice it more briefly here. David does not expressly ask that his afflictions should be removed, but only that God would moderate the severity of his chastisements. Hence we may infer, that David did not give loose reins to the desires of the flesh, but offered up his earnest prayer in a duly chastened spirit of devotion. All men would naturally desire that permission should be granted them to sin with impunity. But David lays a restraint upon his desires, and does not wish the favor and indulgence of God to be extended beyond measure, but is content with a mitigation of his affliction; as if he had said, Lord, I am not unwilling to be chastised by thee, but I entreat thee, meanwhile, not to afflict me beyond what I am able to bear, but to temper the fierceness of thy indignation according to the measure of my infirmity, lest the severity of the affliction should entirely overwhelm me. This prayer, as I have said, was framed according to the rule of godliness; for it contains nothing but what God promises to all his children. It should also be noticed, that David does not secretly indulge a fretful and repining spirit, but spreads his complaint before God; and this he does, not in the way of sinful complaining, but of humble prayer and unfeigned confession, accompanied with the hope of obtaining forgiveness. He has used anger and wrath as denoting extreme rigour, and has contrasted them with fatherly chastisement.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He desireth not to be exempted from God’s rod,…
He desireth not to be exempted from God’s rod, but that he would so moderate his hand, that he might be able to bear it.
To put himself and others in mind of God’s chastisement for sin.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 38:1 « A Psalm of David, to bring…
Psa 38:1 « A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. » O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance] Made purposely for a memorial, both of what he had suffered and from what he had been delivered. See 1Ch 16:4 Exo 30:16 Lev 2:2; Lev 6:15. Recordatio autem intelligitur miseriae ex misericordia, Psa 132:1 Isa 62:6; Isa 63:7. It is probable that David had so laid to heart the rape of his daughter Tamar, the murder of his eldest son, Amnon, the flight of his next son, Absalom, and other troubles that befell him (Basil thinks Absalom’s conspiracy, Ahithophel’s perfidy, Shimei’s insolence, &c.), that it cost him a great fit of sickness; out of which hardly recovering, he penned this and some other psalms (as the 35th, 39th, 40th), but this especially, for a memento, to remind him of his own recent misery and God’s never failing mercy to him. Both these we are wondrous apt to forget, and so both to lose the fruit of our afflictions, by falling afresh to our evil practices (as children soon forget a whipping), and to rob God, our deliverer, of his due praises; like as with children eaten bread is soon forgotten. Both these mischiefs to prevent, both in himself and others (for we are bound not only to observe God’s law, but also to preserve it as much as may be from being broken), David composed this psalm, for to record, or to cause remembrance (see the like title, Psa 70:1), and for a form for a sick man to pray by, as Kimchi noteth; not to be sung for those in purgatory, as some Papists have dreamed.
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Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath] He beginneth and endeth the psalm with petitions, filleth it up with sad complaints; wherein we shall find him groaning, but not grumbling; mourning, but not murmuring, for that is not the guise of God’s people. He beginneth with Eheu Iehova non recuso coargui et castigari. "Correct me, O Lord, but with judgment; not in anger, lest thou bring me to nothing," Jer 10:24. See Psa 6:1. {See Trapp on "Psa 6:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I confess I both deserve chastisement and need it,…
I confess I both deserve chastisement and need it, and therefore I desire not that thou wouldst remove it, but only moderate it. See the same expression Psa 6:1.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The title of this psalm is very observable; it…
The title of this psalm is very observable; it is a psalm to bring to remembrance; the 70th psalm, which was likewise penned in a day of affliction, is so entitled. It is designed, 1. To bring to his own remembrance. We will suppose it penned when he was sick and in pain, and then it teaches us that times of sickness are times to bring to remembrance, to bring the sin to remembrance, for which God contended with us, to awaken our consciences to deal faithfully and plainly with us, and set our sins in order before us, for our humiliation. In a day of adversity consider. Or we may suppose it penned after his recovery, but designed as a record of the convictions he was under and the workings of his heart when he was in affliction, that upon every review of this psalm he might call to mind the good impressions then made upon him and make a fresh improvement of them. To the same purport was the writing of Hezekiah when he had been sick. 2. To put others in mind of the same things which he was himself mindful of, and to teach them what to think and what to say when they are sick and in affliction; let them think as he did, and speak as he did.
I. He deprecates the wrath of God and his displeasure in his affliction (Psa 38:1): O Lord! rebuke me not in thy wrath. With this same petition he began another prayer for the visitation of the sick, Psa 6:1. This was most upon his heart, and should be most upon ours when we are in affliction, that, however God rebukes and chastens us, it may not be in wrath and displeasure, for that will be wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery. Those that would escape the wrath of God must pray against that more than any outward affliction, and be content to bear any outward affliction while it comes from, and consists with, the love of God.
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II. He bitterly laments the impressions of God's displeasure upon his soul (Psa 38:2): Thy arrows stick fast in me. Let Job's complaint (Job 7:4) expound this of David. By the arrows of the Almighty he means the terrors of God, which did set themselves in array against him. He was under a very melancholy frightful apprehension of the wrath of God against him for his sins, and thought he could look for nothing but judgment and fiery indignation to devour him. God's arrows, as they are sure to hit the mark, so they are sure to stick where they hit, to stick fast, till he is pleased to draw them out and to bind up with his comforts the wound he has made with his terrors. This will be the everlasting misery of the damned - the arrows of God's wrath will stick fast in them and the wound will be incurable. "Thy hand, thy heavy hand, presses me sore, and I am ready to sink under it; it not only lies hard upon me, but it lies long; and who knows the power of God's anger, the weight of his hand?" Sometimes God shot his arrows, and stretched forth his hand, for David (Psa 18:14), but now against him; so uncertain is the continuance of divine comforts, where yet the continuance of divine grace is assured. He complains of God's wrath as that which inflicted the bodily distemper he was under (Psa 38:3): There is no soundness in my flesh because of thy anger. The bitterness of it, infused in his mind, affected his body; but that was not the worst: it caused the disquietude of his heart, by reason of which he forgot the courage of a soldier, the dignity of a prince, and all the cheerfulness of the sweet psalmist of Israel, and roared terribly, Psa 38:8. Nothing will disquiet the heart of a good man so much as the sense of God's anger, which shows what a fearful thing it is to fall into his hands. The way to keep the heart quiet is to keep ourselves in the love of God and to do nothing to offend him.
III. He acknowledges his sin to be the procuring provoking cause of all his troubles, and groans more under the load of guilt than any other load, Psa 38:3. He complains that his flesh had no soundness, his bones had no rest, so great an agitation he was in. "It is because of thy anger; that kindles the fire which burns so fiercely;" but, in the next words, he justifies God herein, and takes all the blame upon himself: "It is because of my sin. I have deserved it, and so have brought it upon myself. My own iniquities do correct me." If our trouble be the fruit of God's anger, we may thank ourselves; it is our sin that is the cause of it. Are we restless? It is sin that makes us so. If there were not sin in our souls, there would be no pain in our bones, no illness in our bodies. It is sin therefore that this good man complains most of, 1. As a burden, a heavy burden (Psa 38:4): "My iniquities have gone over my head, as proud waters over a man that is sinking and drowning, or as a heavy burden upon my head, pressing me down more than I am able to bear or to bear up under." Note, Sin is a burden. The power of sin dwelling in us is a weight, Heb 12:1. All are clogged with it; it keeps men from soaring upward and pressing forward. All the saints are complaining of it as a body of death they are loaded with, Rom 7:24. The guilt of sin committed by us is a burden, a heavy burden; it is a burden to God (he is pressed under it, Amo 2:13), a burden to the whole creation, which groans under it, Rom 8:21, Rom 8:22. It will, first or last, be a burden to the sinner himself, either a burden of repentance when he is pricked to the heart for it, labours, and is heavy-laden, under it, or a burden of ruin when it sinks him to the lowest hell and will for ever detain him there; it will be a talent of lead upon him, Zac 5:8. Sinners are said to bear their iniquity. Threatenings are burdens. 2. As wounds, dangerous wounds (Psa 38:5): "My wounds stink and are corrupt (as wounds in the body rankle, and fester, and grow foul, for want of being dressed and looked after), and it is through my own foolishness." Sins are wounds (Gen 4:23), painful mortal wounds. Our wounds by sin are often in a bad condition, no care taken of them, no application made to them, and it is owing to the sinner's foolishness in not confessing sin, Psa 32:3, Psa 32:4. A slight sore, neglected, may prove of fatal consequence, and so may a slight sin slighted and left unrepented of.
IV. He bemoans himself because of his afflictions, and gives ease to his grief by giving vent to it and pouring out his complaint before the Lord.
1. He was troubled in mind, his conscience was pained, and he had no rest in his own spirit; and a wounded spirit who can bear? He was troubled, or distorted, bowed down greatly, and went mourning all the day long, Psa 38:6. He was always pensive and melancholy, which made him a burden and terror to himself. His spirit was feeble and sorely broken, and his heart disquieted, Psa 38:8. Herein David, in his sufferings, was a type of Christ, who, being in his agony, cried out, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. This is a sorer affliction than any other in this world; whatever God is pleased to lay upon us, we have no reason to complain as long as he preserves to us the use of our reason and the peace of our consciences.
2. He was sick and weak in body; his loins were filled with a loathsome disease, some swelling, or ulcer, or inflammation (some think a plague-sore, such as Hezekiah's boil), and there was no soundness in his flesh, but, like Job, he was all over distempered. See (1.) What vile bodies these are which we carry about with us, what grievous diseases they are liable to, and what an offence and grievance they may soon be made by some diseases to the souls that animate them, as they always are a cloud and cog. (2.) That the bodies both of the greatest and of the best of men have in them the same seeds of diseases that the bodies of others have, and are liable to the same disasters. David himself, though so great a prince and so great a saint, was not exempt from the most grievous diseases: there was no soundness even in his flesh. Probably this was after his sin in the matter of Uriah, and thus did he smart in his flesh for his fleshly lusts. When, at any time, we are distempered in our bodies, we ought to remember how God has been dishonoured in and by our bodies. He was feeble and sorely broken, Psa 38:8. His heart panted, and was in a continual palpitation, Psa 38:10. His strength and limbs failed him. As for the light of his eyes, that had gone from him, either with much weeping or by a defluxion of rheum upon them, or perhaps through the lowness of his spirits and the frequent returns of fainting. Note, Sickness will tame the strongest body and the stoutest spirit. David was famed for his courage and great exploits; and yet, when God contended with him by bodily sickness and the impressions of his wrath upon his mind, his hair is cut, his heart fails him, and he becomes weak as water. Therefore let not the strong man glory in his strength, nor any man set grief at defiance, however it may be thought at a distance.
3. His friends were unkind to him (Psa 38:11): My lovers (such as had been merry with him in the day of his mirth) now stand aloof from my sore; they would not sympathize with him in his griefs, nor so much as come within hearing of his complaints, but, like the priest and Levite (Luk 10:31), passed on the other side. Even his kinsmen, that were bound to him by blood and alliance, stood afar off. See what little reason we have to trust in man or to wonder if we disappointed in our expectations of kindness from men. Adversity tries friendship, and separates between the precious and the vile. It is our wisdom to make sure a friend in heaven, who will not stand aloof from our sore and from whose love no tribulation nor distress shall be able to separate us. David, in his troubles, was a type of Christ in his agony, Christ, on his cross, feeble and sorely broken, and then deserted by his friends and kinsmen, who beheld afar off.
V. In the midst of his complaints, he comforts himself with the cognizance God graciously took both of his griefs and of his prayers (Psa 38:9): "Lord, all my desire is before thee. Thou knowest what I want and what I would have: My groaning is not hidden from thee. Thou knowest the burdens I groan under and the blessings I groan after." The groanings which cannot be uttered are not hidden from him that searches the heart and knows what is the mind of the Spirit, Rom 8:26, Rom 8:27.
In singing this, and praying it over, whatever burden lies upon our spirits, we would by faith cast it upon God, and all our care concerning it, and then be easy.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither…
O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure,.... This and the following clause are the same as in Psa 6:1, only instead of wrath there it is anger; See Gill on Psa 6:1.
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Psalms 38:2
psa 38:2
psa 38:2
psa 38:2For thine arrows stick fast in me,.... Meaning either words with which as a father the Lord rebuked him; and which were sharp and cutting, entered into him and abode with him, and gave him much pain and uneasiness; and by which he concluded that his rebukes were in wrath and hot displeasure; such as those in Sa2 12:11; so the words of men are compared to arrows, Psa 57:4 or outward afflictions, attended with inward trouble of soul; for as judgments are the arrows of God, such as famine, pestilence, &c. Eze 5:16, Deu 32:21; so the chastening dispensations of Providence, under which the people of God themselves are, are so called, because they oftentimes come swiftly, suddenly, and at unawares, and are very pungent and distressing; and sometimes stick fast and continue long, by reason of which they are inwardly wounded, and conceive of God as sorely displeased with them; see Job 6:4;
and thy hand presseth me sore; the afflicting hand of God, which lay heavy upon him; and is a mighty hand when laid on such worms as mortal sinful men are, who cannot bear up under it, unless they have divine supports; see Job 19:21. This is by some supposed to be some bodily disease inflicted on him; some have thought of the leprosy, which was a stroke from the hand of God; but this is not likely, since he must have been deposed and shut up; the Jews indeed say (e) that he was a leper six months, and that the divine Presence was taken from him; a late learned man (f) thinks it was the smallpox, from the unsoundness of his flesh, the soreness of the disease, the stench of it, temporary blindness, and his friends standing aloof from him; though perhaps no other than affliction of mired for sin, comparable to the disease described, is meant.
(e) In R. Obadiah in loc. (f) De Laney's Life of King David, vol. 2. p. 146.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain David complains of God's displeasure and his own sin,…
David complains of God's displeasure and his own sin, ver. 1-5. Of his bodily sickness, ver. 6-10. Of the unkindness of his friends and the injuries of his enemies, ver. 11-20. Prays to God for help, ver. 21, 22. A psalm of David to bring to remembrance. Title of the psalm. To bring, &c. - Either, to God, that by this humble and mournful prayer, he might prevail with God, to remember and pity him; or, to himself, that by reviewing this psalm afterwards, he might call to mind his former danger and misery, and God's wonderful mercy in delivering him; and that others also might remember what God had done to him.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain David prays God to have mercy upon him, and…
PSALM XXXVIII
David prays God to have mercy upon him, and gives a most
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affecting account of his miserable state, 1-10;
complains of his being forsaken by his friends, and cruelly
persecuted by his enemies, 11-16;
confesses his sin; and earnestly implores help, 17-22.
NOTES ON PSALM XXXVIII
The title in the HEBREW states this to be A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. The CHALDEE; "A Psalm of David for a good memorial to Israel." The VULGATE, SEPTUAGINT, and AETHIOPIC: "A Psalm of David, for a commemoration concerning the Sabbath." The ARABIC: "A Psalm in which mention is made of the Sabbath; besides, it is a thanksgiving and a prophecy." Never was a title more misplaced or less expressive of the contents. There is no mention of the Sabbath in it; there is no thanksgiving in it, for it is deeply penitential; and I do not see that it contains any prophecy. The SYRIAC: "A psalm of David, when they said to the Philistine king, Achish, This is David, who killed Goliath; we will not have him to go with us against Saul. Besides, it is a form of confession for us." It does not appear that, out of all the titles, we can gather the true intent of the Psalm.
Several conjectures have been made relative to the occasion on which this Psalm was composed; and the most likely is, that it was in reference to some severe affliction which David had after his illicit commerce with Bath-sheba; but of what nature we are left to conjecture from the third, fifth, and seventh verses. Whatever it was, he deeply repents for it, asks pardon, and earnestly entreats support from God.
Verse 1. O Lord, rebuke me not] He was sensible that he was suffering under the displeasure of God; and he prays that the chastisement may be in mercy, and not in judgment.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 38:1-2. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure…
Psa 38:1-2. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure — I confess that I both deserve chastisement and need it, and therefore I do not desire that thou shouldest entirely remove it, but only moderate it: see Psa 6:1. For thine arrows — Thy judgments inflicted on my outward and inward man; stick fast in me — Have entered deep into me, as נחיו בי, nichathu bi, is properly rendered; and thy hand presseth me sore — תנחת עלי, tinchath gnali, is come down upon me; as when a strong man lifts up his hand and weapon, that it may fall down with the greater violence, and make a deeper wound.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath -…
O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath - See the notes at Psa 6:1, where the same language occurs, except in the change of a single Hebrew “word,” that is, “wrath,” though expressing the same idea.
Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure - See the notes at Psa 6:1. The Hebrew in both is the same, except that in this place the negative particle is omitted, but without affecting the sense. It is not improbable that the one was copied from the other, or that this was composed with the language of the former in the memory. Thus we often use language with which we are familiar, as being well adapted to express our ideas.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Psalms 38
Psalms 38
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance
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1 O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath:
Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me,
And thy hand presseth me sore.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger;
Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
4 For mine iniquities are gone over mine head:
As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and are corrupt
Because of my foolishness.
6 I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly;
I go mourning all the day long.
7 For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease:
And there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and sore broken:
I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.
9 Lord, all my desire is before thee;
And my groaning is not hid from thee.
10 My heart panteth, my strength faileth me:
As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.
11 My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore;
And my kinsmen stand afar off.
12 They also that seek after my life lay snares for me;
And they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things,
And imagine deceits all the day long.
13 But I, as a deaf man, heard not;
And I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.
14 Thus I was as a man that heareth not,
And in whose mouth are no reproofs.
15 For in thee, O Lord, do I hope:
Thou wilt hear O Lord my God.
16 For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me:
When my foot slippeth they magnify themselves against me.
17 For I am ready to halt,
And my sorrow is continually before me.
18 For I will declare mine iniquity;
I will be sorry for my sin.
19 But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong:
And they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.
20 They also that render evil for good
Are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.
21 Forsake me not, O Lord:
O my God, be not far from me.
22 Make haste to help me,
O Lord my salvation.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
For the Title comp. Introduct., § 6, No. 3. The Psalm begins (Psa_38:7) with the same petition as Psalms 6, that God will bring the sufferings, endured by the petitioner as a punishment for his sins, to an end, that He will cease from His judgment of wrath. This prayer is based upon the fact, that the sufferings, sent upon him by God (Psa_38:2) and deserved by great sins (Psa_38:3-4), have entirely worn him out in body and soul (Psa_38:5-7), so that he can only sigh to God (Psa_38:8) in the greatest anguish and abandonment (Psa_38:9). For his friends have withdrawn from him (Psa_38:10), and his enemies, who aspire after his life, regard him as lost (Psa_38:11). But he does not heed them, or contradict them (Psa_38:13-14), but has put his hope in God (Psa_38:15-16). For he is now in the most extreme bodily weakness and anguish of heart, on account of his sins, the guilt of which he confesses (Psa_38:17-18); and his enemies are active, numerous, and they hate him, although he has given them no reason, but rather has sought to do them good (Psa_38:19-20), hence his sighing prayer for the help of Jehovah, whom his faith is still able to apprehend and confess as his God, and as his salvation (Psa_38:21-22). Hengst supposes that this Psalm did not originate from the circumstances of an individual, but was uttered by the righteous personified, and that the peculiar sufferings are due to the enmity of the wicked, whose number and superiority is regarded as an evidence of Divine visitation, which thus considered, make him miserable and worn out in body and soul. Others suppose that the sufferings of the entire people, or the pious portion of them, occasioned by heathen oppressors or ungodly enemies, are described by a late prophet (Chald., Isaki, Rosenm. II.), perhaps by Jeremiah (De Wette), under the figure of a sickness. These views, however, are opposed by the contents and statements of the Psalm A real man laments, sighs, and implores, on account of plagues which severely afflict him personally; but the cause of his sufferings does not appear to be wicked enemies, who abuse him and wound him bodily (Hitzig with reference to Jer_20:2, which however the strong self-accusations do not suit), or whose attacks and complaints had caused his sufferings, which are described partly under the figure of sickness, partly are brought under the idea of moral guilt (Hupfeld). The enemies are not mentioned until the second half of the Psalm, and then, it is true, as deadly enemies, yet not as those which have caused the bodily sufferings described fully at the beginning, but rather as those who have used these things as snares and accusations against him. The bodily sufferings are represented as a real sickness, although not exactly as leprosy (Ewald, Köster, Maurer); yet the sick man himself regards his miserable condition as sufferings sent by God as a punishment for his sins; and from this visitation is developed his consciousness of guilt, his continued moral pain, his confession of sin, and at the same time his correct behaviour towards his adversaries and his God, towards his adversaries, which without reason, yea, against all right, are at enmity with him, instead of thanking him for the benefits they have received, and recognizing his moral efforts; towards his God, on whom he ceases not to wait as his help, abandoning all self-help, and all excuses, and to whom as near to assist him, he exclusively directs his prayer. By this view the bond of unity between the two parts of this Psalm, often missed, may be shown, and its relationship with, as well as its difference fromPs. 6, be placed in a stronger light; so likewise its order among David’s penitential Psalms 5
Str I. [Ver 1. This verse is the same as Psa_38:1 of Psalms 6, with merely one verbal substitution of the synonym קֶצֶף for אַף Bakius has the following paraphrase: “Corripe sane per legem, castiga per crucem, millies promerui, negare non possum; sed castiga, quæso, me ex amore ut pater, non ex furore et fervore, ut judex; ne punias justitiæ rigore, sed misericordiæ dulcore.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_38:2. For Thine arrows have sunk into me.—This figurative expression is used not only of leprosy (Job_6:4), but likewise of hunger (Eze_5:16), and generally of calamities of Divine visitation (Deu_32:23). Hence it follows from this various use of the figure, that it is inadmissible to limit this to a particular kind of visitation, yet not that the following description of sickness is to be regarded merely as figurative.
Str II Psa_38:3. Soundness.—The expressions in Isa_1:6, which are entirely similar, do not imply that they are figurative in this Psalm. For Isaiah refers to the body of the people. In such a connection he might very well look upon sins as abscesses, and moral ruin under the figure of phases of sickness, without danger of being misunderstood. But this explanation is inadmissible for this Psalm, although it has been promoted by the Vulgate after the Sept., which has in Psa_38:3 b: non est pax ossibus meis, and in Psa_38:7 a, with many ancient Psalters after the Cod. Vat. of the Sept., anima mea impleta est illusionibus, whilst the Cod. Alex., as likewise Symmach. has the reading ψύαι instead of ψυχή.—[No health in my bones.—Perowne: “Such is the proper and original meaning of the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom), integritas; “peace,” being the derived meaning, peace only there properly existing, where all is complete and entire, nothing wanting.” The same is true with the German Heil which is used here by most interpreters.—C. A. B.]
[Psa_38:4. Gone over my head.—A usual figure of danger and trouble taken from a flood of water, comp. Psa_18:16.—Too heavy for me.—They are conceived as a burden weighing upon the conscience, incapable of being borne any longer. Comp. Gen_4:13, and Psa_32:4, where the hand of God is felt in them—C. A. B.]
[Str. III. Psa_38:5. My bruises stink and run.—Alexander: “The two verbs both denote suppuration, the first in reference to the offensive smell, the second to the running or discharge of matter.”—Foolishness:—Perowne: “His sin, as seen now in its true light, showing itself to be folly, for all sin is self-destruction. This confession of his sin is in fact, at the same time, a confession of the justice of his punishment.”
Psa_38:6. I am bent, I am bowed down exceedingly, all day long I go about squalid.—Delitzsch: “Being so deeply sick in soul and body, he must be greatly bent and bowed down. נַעֲוָה of the writhing contraction of the body, Isa_21:3, שָׁחַח of the bowed-down attitude, Psa_35:14, הלֵּךְ of a clumsy, drawling walk.” קדֵר literally black with dirt, squalid, in allusion to the Oriental custom of putting ashes on the head, and going about with rent and soiled garments as a sign of mourning, vid.Psa_35:14.—C. A. B.]
Str. IV. Psa_38:7. For my loins are full of dryness.—נִקְלֶה is understood by Sept. and Symmach. [vid. Psa_38:3] not of “blasted or kindled” (properly roasted, dried at the fire), but after another derivation (Isa_3:5), of disrespect and scorn. The loins are brought into view as the seat of strength, but are here designated not as dried out, dried up (Luther, Hengstenberg), which, so far as they had become weak, would be full of that which contempt heaped upon the sick man, full of scorn, which issues from the loins (Schegg); they are here described as full of dryness. It is doubtful whether we could understand by this “blasted” (Camph.). Burning sores (Ewald) would be better. The reference is certainly not to a burning fever (Chald., Calvin, Geier, et al.) in the bowels (many recent interpreters after Bochart); still less as a figurative expression of the withering, consuming power of sorrow (Hupf.). The construction demands a material object, leads rather to a special condition of sickness.
Psa_38:8. [I am benumbed, cold, chilly, torpid, in contrast with the warmth and energy of life. It is used of the disappearing of the warmth of life, and at the same time of the stopping of the pulse and even life itself. Perowne thinks that it refers to the alternations of a fever fit, and refers to the burning inflammation in the preceding verse. But it is better with our author not to think of a fever, but of a state of feebleness, in connection with the real loathsome disease which was upon him.—C. A. B.]—I roar from the moaning of my heart.—Hitzig proposed the reading לְבי or לָביא instead of לִבִּי (Begriff der Kritik, S. 120 sq.). and to translate “I cry more than the roaring of the lion.” Afterwards he rejected this conjecture, and contended against it, to the regret of Olsh. The words are not at all tautological, but express that the sighing of the mouth originates from the moaning of the heart.
[Str. V. Psa_38:10. My heart palpitates—Alexander: The palpitation of the heart, denoting violent agitation, is combined with loss of strength and dimness of the eyes, so often mentioned as a sign of extreme weakness. See above on Psa_13:3 and compare Psa_6:7; Psa_31:9; Psa_40:12”—C. A. B]
Str VI. Psa_38:11-12. Away from the presence of my plague—The translation of Luther originates from the Vulgate, amici mei—adversum me appropinquaverunt. It has likewise in the following line; vim faciebant (ἐξεβιάζοντο), in stead of: have laid snares. The Sept. has read נגש instead of נקש or confounded the two. But the latter is rendered evident here by a play upon the words in the Hebrew.
[Str. VII. Psa_38:13. Deaf—dumb.—Alexander: “The same two words for deaf and dumb are used together in Exo_4:11. Not only the idea, but the form of expression in this sentence, is copied by Isaiah in his prophetical description of Christ’s sufferings (Isa_53:7), and seems to have been present to our Saviour’s own mind when He ‘held his peace’ before the High Priest (Mat_26:62-63), and ‘gave no answer’ to the Roman Governor (Joh_19:9).”
Psa_38:14. In whose mouth there are no replies.—Delitzsch: “The consciousness of guilt and resignation stop his mouth, so that he may not and cannot refute the false accusations of his enemies; he has no counter evidence to justify himself.”—C. A. B.]6
Str. VIII. [Psa_38:15. Thou wilt hear.—The thou is emphatic, and is thus contrasted strongly with the enemies before whom the Psalmist was dumb, making no replies, but pleading alone before God. Riehm: “This expectation is based upon reasons adduced by three כִּי following one another, yet co-ordinate; Psa_38:16, upon the wish which he has expressed, and to which God is to respond by hearing it; Psa_38:17, upon the greatness of his misery; Psa_38:18, upon his penitence.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_38:17. The Vulgate after the Sept. differs from the Hebrew text, and has: in flagella paratus sum. [The Hebrew text is, however, correct, and the translation I am ready to halt or fall down sufficiently assured.—C. A. B ]
Str. IX. Psa_38:19. But mine enemies are lively, are numerous.—The reading maintained by the ancient translations חַיִּים may be interpreted after 1Sa_25:6. Most recent interpreters suppose after Houbigant that this reading is a corruption from חִנָּם, that is, without cause, Psa_35:19; Psa_69:4.
Psa_38:20. After this verse many Greek and Latin, all the Æthiopic, and some of the Arabic, and one of the Syriac Psalters, have the additional clause: et projecerunt me dilectum tanquam mortuum abominatum (comp. Isa_14:19), explained by Theodoret of Absalom’s behaviour towards David.
[Str. X. Psa_38:21-22. These petitions are frequent in the Psalms. Comp. Psa_10:1; Psa_13:1; Psa_22:1; Psa_22:19; Psa_35:22. Delitzsch: “He closes with sighs for help. He does not gain that the darkness of wrath should be lighted up. The fides supplex does not become fides triumphans. But the closing words, ‘Lord, my salvation,’ show the difference between Cain’s penitence and David’s. True penitence has faith in itself, it doubts of self, but not of God.”—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. When a man perceives the chastening hand of God in his severe sufferings, and tastes the righteousness of the Lord therein, his sufferings may be very painful, yet if he values his communion with God, the experience of the Divine wrath and his grief on account of his personal guilt will be still more painful. Therefore he will pray first, not for the cessation of his bodily sufferings, his external plague, his temporal affliction, although he may be laid upon a bed of painful sickness and worried even to the exhaustion of his strength; he prays, first of all, for the removal of the angry judgment of God and the anxiety of heart on account of his sins.
2. In severe sickness and other visitations of God, we learn, often for the first time, the crushing weight of the chastening hand of God, the depth of guilt which exceeds all human thought and imagination, the deadly power of sin which destroys soul and body. But this most tormenting experience helps the sinner to permanent health, if he does not complain, in his cries over his misery or the treatment he has received, but charges himself with folly and sin, and if he does not despair, but confesses his guilt with penitence.
3. He has to undergo a severe conflict if his friends withdraw from him in the days of his necessity and anguish, when Divine chastisement has come upon him, and his enemies approach him with charges and accusations, especially if he is entitled to a very different treatment on account of his previous relations with them. Thus the genuineness of his repentance is tested. The decision with reference to salvation takes place, when the afflicted man earnestly withstands every temptation to self-justification, renounces all attempts to help himself, and resigns himself with sincere self-abnegation to God with confession and prayer, and waits on God with the hope that his prayer will be heard.
4. The virtue of this patient, devout and trusting waiting upon God, consists in the faith of the penitent, by which, in all his ill desert, he yet apprehends God as his God, and trusts in Him as the God of his help notwithstanding the superiority of his enemies and the strong feeling of his own weakness. He leaves the manner and the means of help to God. But he may pray most pressingly that God will draw near; for this is a token to the penitent of His mercy and a sign of His readiness to grant his supplication; for although he is forsaken by all the world and despairs of himself, yet he does not doubt, but knows and apprehends his salvation in God the Lord. Psa_22:19; Psa_35:3.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Sin prepares wrath, and the wrath of God has sharp weapons; but God may be sought by the penitent.—Sin involves the visitation of Divine wrath, but repentance implores and obtains forbearance.—Sin ruins people; but those who are converted to God will not be lost.—Fire in the conscience is worse than fire in the bones.—The fire of the Divine wrath should excite not only grief on account of the punishment of sin, but likewise sincere repentance in the heart of the sinner.—Stricken by the hand of God, accused by his own conscience, forsaken by his best friends, attacked by his worst enemies, the sinner is yet not ruined, but delivered, if he is converted to God in his misery by his sins.—Whom God visits with chastisement He will take to Himself, but it is necessary that He should rescue him from the way of ruin.—It is not enough to taste the consequences of sin, you must confess their punishableness, their folly, their guilt, if you would obtain deliverance.—He who totters under the hand of God may be saved from falling, if he grasps the hand which smites him.—God chastises sinners earnestly, but not in order to kill them, but to give life, if they will only observe and learn to seek Him.—True repentance does not despair; although abandoned by all the world, it seeks salvation in God.—The sick-bed may become a bed of victory, 1) by humiliation under the strong hand of God; 2) by penitent confession of sin; 3) by believing apprehension of God as the God of help and salvation.
Starke: God can seldom bring us to repentance without chastisement, and He chastens us in order that we may not regard ourselves as guiltless.—No one knows what the anguish of conscience is, who has not experienced it, and been obliged to struggle with sin and the wrath of God, there is no grief in the world to be compared with it.—The hearts of many are like a rock from which the arrows rebound. Blessed are those whose souls are wounded unto salvation by God’s arrows.—Sin wounds a man unto death, not only in his soul, but often it seizes upon his body and makes him utterly miserable.—It is lamentable, that whilst every animal helps his fellow, man alone causes all kinds of sufferings and mishaps to his fellows.—It is not necessary for you to hear and speak when God has taken this upon Himself for you. You may be entirely still.—The ungodly and hypocritical seek to deny and conceal their sins as far as possible, but the pious confess that they are guilty before God and man.—The pious have their faults, but this is not the reason why they are persecuted by the world, it is because they will not live as the world would have them.—If it is your desire not to be forsaken by God, take care that you do not depart from Him by a wicked life and conformity to the world.
Luther: Truly to feel sin and tremble on account of a wicked conscience, is torture above all other torture. External persecutors boldly help to this; for they hunt a man in his conscience, boast against the righteous, that God is with them.—And because He withholds consolation, such terror of heart must ensue, as if God were angry on account of sin. But yet David teaches us to hold fast and not despair, and defends himself against their boasting with prayers, and rises upon Divine promises, and lays hold of his cause by the true handle. …. Thus we should pray and not despair in any anxiety of soul, although we are sinners and feel deeply the burden of sin and its tempest.——Osiander: We should not pray that our Heavenly Father should not chastise us at all (comp. Heb_12:5), but that He should chastise us with the rod of the parent and not punish us with the sword of justice.—Selnekker: I am well satisfied with my cross, for my sinful nature needs it well.—Frisch: If God has shot His arrows from heaven into you, you must send the arrows of prayer to heaven, and implore His grace; if He has laid His heavy chastening hand upon your neck, you must lay your hand of faith on your heart; thus will He bind up your wounds and quicken you after the affliction.—Rieger: At first David depends on the mercy of God; then he invokes the searching omniscience of God; finally he supplicates the speedy help of God.—Tholuck: We acquire a deeper knowledge of the state of our hearts, by our behaviour when afflicted (impatient complaints, faint-heartedness, disinclination to prayer), than we ever could in good days.—If the tempter can convince the soul, when sufferings are long continued, that God does not trouble Himself at all about it, that is the hottest affliction.—Diedrich: God sends afflictions upon us that we may thereby be brought to a more thorough knowledge of ourselves.—Taube: In time of trouble we see how soon our own strength fails, and the humble knowledge of this is one of the blessings of repentance.—Thym: We are comforted under the severest pains. 1) By the word about Christ, 2) by prayer to Christ, 3) by strength from Christ.—The sufferings of earth: 1) their nature; 2) their origin; 3) our behaviour under them.
[Matt. Henry: Our wounds, by sin, are oftentimes in a bad condition, no care taken of them, no application made to them, and it is owing to the sinner’s foolishness, in not confessing sin. Psa_32:3-4. A slight sore neglected may prove of fatal consequences, and so may a slight sin, slighted and left unrepented of.—The less notice we take of the unkindness and injuries that are done us, the more we consult the quiet of our own minds.—When our enemies are most clamorous, ordinarily it is our prudence to be silent, or to say little, lest we make ill worse.—If we are truly penitent for sin, that will make us patient under affliction, and particularly under unjust censures.—Barnes: Trouble never accomplishes its proper effect unless it leads us to God; and anything that will lead us to Him is a gain in the end.—No Christian, when he comes to die, ever feels that he has been too much afflicted, or that any trial has come upon him for which there was not occasion, and which was not designed and adapted to do him good.—Spurgeon: It seems strange that the Lord should shoot at His own beloved ones, but in truth He shoots at their sins rather than them, and those who feel his sin-killing shafts in this life, shall not be slain with His hot thunderbolts in the next world.—It is well when sin is an intolerable load, and when the remembrance of our sins burdens us beyond endurance.—None more lonely than the broken-hearted sinner, yet hath he the Lord for his companion.—Until the Holy Ghost applies the precious blood of Jesus, a truly awakened sinner is covered with raw wounds which cannot be healed nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment.—We shall not be left of the Lord. His grace will succor us most opportunely, and in heaven we shall see that we had not one trial too many or one pang too severe.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[5][Delitzsch: “In this Psalm a peculiarity of the penitential Psalms is repeated, namely, that the petitioner has to lament not only that his soul and body are worn out, but likewise over external enemies, who come forth as his adversaries and make his sins an occasion of preparing ruin for him. This is owing to the fact that the Old Testament believer, whose consciousness of sin was not so spiritual and deep as in the believer of the New Testament, almost always was sensible of the external act of sin. The enemies which then would prepare for him ruin, are the instruments of the Satanic power of evil, who desire his death, whilst God desires his life, as is likewise felt by the New Testament believer even without external enemies.”—C. A. B.]
[6][Calvin sees two reasons for his silence; (1) his enemies would not suffer him to speak; (2) his own patient submission to the will of God. Perowne thinks that only the last is prominent here, but it seems better with Delitzsch to think of his own consciousness of guilt, under the severity of the Divine chastisement stopping his mouth with reference to the slanders of his enemies as he appeals to God to hear him as in Psa_38:15 sq.—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Rebuke me not in thy wrath—The psalm opens…
1. Rebuke me not in thy wrath—The psalm opens with the words of Psa_6:1. David trembles lest the chastisement should pass over to the severity of condign punishment.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. In words almost identical with Psa_6:1 the Psalmist…
1. In words almost identical with Psa_6:1 the Psalmist deprecates the severity of a chastisement which seems to proceed from an angry Judge rather than from a loving Father. The emphasis is on in thy wrath … in thy hot displeasure. Cp. Jer_10:24. For similar expressions of a sense of guilt under suffering, see Psa_25:18; Psa_31:10; Psa_39:10 ff.; Psa_40:12.
1–8. The chastisement of sin.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) O Lord, rebuke.—See Note, Psa_6:1, of which verse…
(1) O Lord, rebuke.—See Note, Psa_6:1, of which verse this is almost a repetition.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain THIS is the third of the penitential psalms, and…
THIS is the third of the penitential psalms, and is appropriately recited by the Church on Ash Wednesday. Of all the penitential psalms it is the one which shows the deepest marks of utter prostration of heart and spirit under a combination of the severest trials, both mental and bodily. The mind of the writer is racked by a sense of God"s displeasure (vers. 1, 2, etc.), by grief at the desertion of friends (ver. 11), by fear of the machinations and threats of enemies (vers. 12, 19, 20). His body is smitten with disease, the flesh without soundness, the bones full of aches, the loins agonized with a sense of burning, the heart palpitating, the strength and sight failing (vers. 3-10) And through all there is the feeling that the whole is the result of his own sin (vers. 3-5, 18). Still the writer is not reduced to despair. He clings to God (vers. 1, 9, 15, 21, 22). He accepts his sufferings as a just chastisement. He confesses his iniquity, and is sorry for his sin. He prays to God (vers. 1, 21); he pours out his complaints to him (ver. 9); he hopes in him (ver. 15); finally, he calls upon him as "his Salvation" (ver. 22).
The psalm is ascribed to David by the title, but is not generally allowed to be his. It is assigned commonly to an unknown sufferer. Still, some modern critics, notably Canon Cook, in the "Speaker"s Commentary," accept the statement of the title, and find the psalm very suitable to the circumstances of David "at the period just preceding the revolt of Absalom." Canon Cook holds that "at that time there are indications that David was prostrate by disease, which gave full scope to the machinations of his son and his abettors." If this were so, the Davidical authorship would certainly he probable; but the absence of any mention of such an illness from the Second Book of Samuel is a difficulty which cannot easily be got over.
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The psalm falls into three divisions: From ver. 1 to ver. 8; from ver. 9 to ver. 14; and from ver. 15 to the end. Each part begins with an appeal to God, whereon follows a description of the writer"s sufferings. Part ill both begins and ends with an appeal to God.
O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. (comp. Psa_6:1, where the first of the penitential psalms begins similarly) The prayer is for the cessation of God"s wrath, rather than of the "rebuke" which has resulted from it. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. (see the comment on Psa_6:1)
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-22. Sin stinging like an adder.
This has been called one of the penitential psalms. It may be called so without any severe strain of language; and yet its penitential tone is very far removed from that of either the thirty-second or the fifty-first psalm. There is little doubt that there is a sincere acknowledgment of the sin; but here the main stress of the grief seems to be attributable rather to the suffering consequent upon the sin, than to the guilt of the sin itself. And we cannot resist the conviction that an undue reticence (which, alas! often results in an infrequent and inadequate warning against sins of the flesh) has somewhat warped and fettered the remarks of many expositors. For the physical suffering which is here detailed with distressing precision, points to sin as the cause thereof to that sin which is one of the seriously poisoning influences in our social fabric, and against which no pleadings can be too tender, and no warnings can be too loud. Let us first study the case, and then utilize it.
I THE CASE STATED. Even before entering into detail, it is obvious that the case is one of intense suffering. The details, however, will show us but too clearly what the suffering was, and how it was accounted for.
1. There had been the commission of sin. Vers. 3-5 give us three terms "foolishness," iniquity. " The sin was one which brought about a great deal of:
2. Bodily disorder. Note the following expressions:
a. "My flesh" (ver. 3).
b. "My bones" (ver. 3).
c. "My loins" (ver. 7).
d. "No soundness" (ver. 3).
e. "No health" (ver. 3).
f. "Wounds" (ver. 5).
g. "Ulcers" (ver. 5, Hebrew).
h. "Offensive" (ver. 5).
i. "Burning" (ver. 7).
j. This alternating with deathly coldness (ver. 8).
k. "Palpitation" (ver. 10).
l. The frame bent and bowed with the suffering (ver. 6).
m. "Failing strength" (ver. 10).
n. "Dimness of sight" (ver. 10).
Surely this puts before us, in no obscure fashion, the terrible physical woe which the writer was enduring.
3. T reat mental anguish.
(1) God"s arrows struck very deeply into his soul (ver. 2).
(2) God"s hand pressed heavily upon him (ver. 2).
(3) He went abroad as a mourner (ver. 6).
(4) He roared groaned aloud all the day long.
It may not be always possible to affirm that such and such suffering is the effect of this or that specific sin. But sometimes we can. And it is no wonder if sins of the flesh bring fleshly suffering. It is an ordained law of God that it should be so. Hence the sufferings are rightly regarded as "the arrows of God.
4. In his trouble, lovers and friends stand aloof from him. Even neighbours and kinsmen drew themselves afar off (ver. 11). Earthly friends are like swallows, who come near in fine weather, and fly away ere the weather turns foul.
5. He was laden with reproach, and even beset with snares. (Ver. 12)
6. He did not and could not reply. To the charges laid at his door he had no justifications to offer, and therefore said nothing (cf. ver. 14, Hebrew). This was so far wise.
7. Though silent to man, he pours out his heart to God. He calls God his God; even though guilt lies heavily on the soul.
a. He declares the whole case before the mercy-seat (ver. 9).
b. He confesses the sin (ver. 18).
c. He deprecates the Divine displeasure (ver. 1).
d. He appeals for help (ver. 22).
Note: There is a great difference between men who "are overtaken in a fault," and those whose life is one perpetual sin of alienation from God. David lived in an age when lustfulness was scarcely recognized as wrong at all, save where the holy Law of God had gleamed on it with the searching light of Heaven. If David fell into this sin, it was because he was injured by the low conventional standard of his day. If he regarded it as sin, and mourned over it, it was because he was under the educating influence of that Word which was as "a lamp to his feet, and a light unto his path.
8. While David moans his sin as threatening him with destruction and ruin, he looks for salvation in God and God alone. (Ver. 22) "O Lord my Salvation.
II THE CASE UTILIZED. Here is evidently a psalm which is one of a number that contain a rehearsal of the writer"s private experience. They profess to be that, and therefore, unless some good reason to the contrary is shown, we rightly assume that they are that. The expositor who desires to deal faithfully with all the psalms, and with the whole of each psalm, will often find himself between two opposite schools. On one side, there are those who would enclose every psalm within the limits of a naturalistic psychology; while there are others who seem to regard every psalm as referring directly or indirectly to Christ. (f2) But while the second and forty-fifth psalm. can by no means be accounted for by a rationalistic psychology, so this thirty-eighth psalm can by no means be applied to the Messiah directly or indirectly. Let us not select facts to fit a theory; but study all the facts, and frame the theory accordingly. In this personal moan and groan we have:
1. Suffering following on sin. Of what kind the sin was there can be little question. And if we wonder that David could fall into such sin, we may well ask What can be expected of a man who had six wives? (2Sa_3:2-5) The Law of God might, indeed, be the rule of his life, but he was injured and corrupted by falling into the conventionalisms of his day; and hence in his private life he came far short of his own professed ideal. Is not the like incongruity between the ideal and the actual often seen even now?
2. If it was owing to "conformity to the world" that David thus sinned, it was because he had before him God"s revelation of the evil of sin that he was so bowed down under a sense of the guilt thereof. The revealed Law of God stood high above the level to which he had attained; hence a shame and self-loathing on account of sin, which would nowhere else have been known.
3. Smarting under the sense of guilt, David yet tells God all. He knew God to be one "pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin;" and hence the burdens of sin and guilt, as well as of care, were laid before the mercy-seat. (Psa_32:5)
4. At times, however, words fail; then the desire and the groaning are perfectly understood. (Ver. 9) Who does not understand something of this that knows anything of the "energies of prayer"? There are "groanings which cannot be uttered." As there are "songs without words," so are there "prayers without words." For the grief consequent upon sin may be, and often is, aggravated by the desertion of those friends who will smile on us when we are prosperous, and will turn their backs on us when adversity comes. But, even so, it is an infinite mercy to be shut up to God, and to let the heart lie "naked and opened" before One who will never misunderstand, and who will never forsake us.
5. For our God is Jehovah our Salvation. " That is his revealed name, and to it he will ever be true. See how gloriously "the sure mercies of David" are set forth in Psa_89:26-33. God is "a just God, and a Saviour". (Isa_45:21) Hence we should never let our consciousness of guilt drive us from him; rather should it always make us "flee unto" him "to hide us.
6. Hence only those who have the light of God"s revelation can possibly have any gospel for men smarting under the guilt of sin. We do not know any one passage in Scripture in which the combination is more remarkable of a man whose sin has brought deepest shame and agony upon him, and who yet is laying hold of God under that beautiful, that matchless name, "my Salvation" (ver. 22). Very often, indeed, the word "salvation" in the Old Testament means mainly, if not exclusively, temporal deliverance. Here, at any rate, it cannot be so limited; for the salvation required to meet the case of woe thus laid before God must be one which includes cancelling guilt, purifying from corruption, and healing disease. And that revelation of God as our Salvation which was made in germ to the Hebrews, is disclosed more fully to us under Christ. He is "made wisdom from God unto us, even righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; that (according as it is written) he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord". (1Co_1:30, 1Co_1:31) In the very volume where sin is dealt with most seriously, it is also treated most hopefully; and the very revelation which cries with trumpet-power, "All have sinned," also cries, "Look unto me, and be ye saved. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-22. Thoughts in affliction.
The preacher saith, "In the day of adversity consider". (Ecc_7:14) We should "call to remembrance
I THE HAND OF GOD IN AFFLICTION. Our afflictions may be various, and have various causes. But we should look higher than mere human instrumentality, or the action of natural laws. We should acknowledge the hand of God (ver. 2). What a change this makes! It soothes our resentments. It calms our fears. God sees all. He knows how we suffer. He who has stricken us can heal our wounds. He who has "pressed us sore" is able to pour joy into our hearts.
II THE CONNECTION OF SIN WITH AFFLICTION. If there is suffering, there must have been sin. We may not be able to trace the connection; and we may greatly err and wound others cruelly if we say that certain sufferings are the result of certain sins. But, while we are not to judge others, we should judge ourselves. Our sufferings ought to bring our sins to remembrance. And the more strictly we scan our lives, and the more severely we search our hearts, the more will our sins increase, till their pressure and weight become intolerable, and we cry out, "They are too heavy for me" (ver. 4).
III THE INADEQUACY OF ALL HUMAN AID IN AFFLICTION. Affliction is a great revealer. It not only shows us much as to ourselves, but also as to others. It proves who are true and who are false; who are worthy and who are unworthy; who may be trusted to stand by us, and who will wax cold and forsake us, "having loved this present world." Job bitterly complained of his friends: "Miserable comforters are ye all." The psalmist was still more sorely tried: "My lovers and friends stand aloof from my sore" (ver. 11). Even when true and willing, our friends can do but little for us in our greatest straits. Counsel is good. Sympathy is better. Generous aid is better still. But the best of all, the only help that goes to the root of the matter, is when some true friend, like Jonathan, "strengthens our hands in God.
IV THE DIVINE RESOURCES OF THE GODLY IN AFFLICTION. There is prayer. The disciples in trouble came to Jesus and told him all. So we may pour out all our heart to God (ver. 9). There is compression. It is a marvellous relief to bring our sins to God (ver. 18). The burden that is too heavy for us will fall off when we cast ourselves as humble penitents at the foot of the cross. There is renewed consecration. Whatever comes, we must hold fast to our hope. Every danger and strait, every great fear that pales the face and makes the heart grow faint, should lead us to the renewal of our vows, and the reinvigoration of our purpose to "follow only what is good" (ver. 20). Above all, there is refuge in God. From the beginning, and all through, the psalmist is with God, confessing, pleading, appealing; and in the end he gathers up all the desire of his heart in the earnest cry, "Forsake me not, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord my Salvation!" (vers. 21, 22).
Thus he found comfort; and so may we also. Jerome said, "If any sickness happen to the body, we are to seek for the medicine of the soul;" and the true and only Physician of the soul is Christ. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-22. A fearful picture of the sufferings which a great sin can cause.
Supposed to be one of David"s penitential psalms.
I COMPLICATED MENTAL AND BODILY SUFFERING. (Vers. 1-8)
1. Dread of Gods further anger. Guilt makes a man full of fear and apprehension (ver. 1).
2. His sin was realized as an intolerable burden. (Ver. 4) A load that he was unable to carry; or a great wave passing over his head and threatening to overwhelm him.
3. His sin was an enfeebling and disquieting sorrow. (Vers. 6, 8) Continual, unintermittent, that made life one lasting agony.
4. Mental suffering brought on great bodily suffering and prostration. Body and mind react upon each other when any great trouble comes upon us; and we are reduced to the deepest pitch of misery.
II HE IS PUNISHED BY MEN AS WELL AS BY GOD. (Vers. 9-14)
1. His friends are alienated, and refuse him any comfort. (Vers. 10, 11) When we feel forsaken of God and man, then our cup of agony is full, This was our Lord"s experience at the Crucifixion.
2. His enemies also seek to give him his death-blow. (Vers. 12, 19, 20) They endeavour to take advantage of his fall to ruin him and take his life. How bad men "rejoice in the iniquity" of the righteous!
3. Conscious of sin, he is obliged to be silent. (Vers. 13, 14) Consciousness of guilt makes him unable to refute the false charges of his enemies. Of what avail is it to speak when we are deeply self-condemned? This is an aggravation of our punishment, when we cannot defend ourselves. before our foes.
III HE RENOUNCES ALL SELF-HELP TO HOPE IN GOD. (Vers. 15-22)
1. If God did not hear him, his enemies would rejoice over him. For he himself was so weak that he had no strength to contend with them (vers. 16, 17).
2. He will earnestly repent and confess his sin. (Ver. 18) This is our only way of restoration to the favour of God or man. Repentance is the earnest turning away from the sin with sincere loathing of mind.
3. An imploring cry for speedy rescue. (Vers. 21, 22) When we feel as on the brink of death, we do not think of "God"s time;" we are impatient for deliverance, and we cry for present help in our time of trouble.
LESSON. Think into what straits and suffering a man"s sins have power to bring him, and what his opportunity of salvation is in Christ. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Title. A Psalm of David, to bring remembrance. David…
Title. A Psalm of David, to bring remembrance. David felt as if he had been forgotten of his God, and, therefore, he recounted his sorrows and cried mightily for help under them. The same title is given to Psalm 70, where in like manner the psalmist pours out his complaint before the Lord. It would be foolish to make a guess as to the point in David's history when this was written; it may be a commemoration of his own sickness and endurance of cruelty; it may, on the other hand, have been composed by him for the use of sick and slandered saints, without special reference to himself.
Divisions. The Psalm opens with a prayer, Ps 38:1; continues in a long complaint, Ps 38:2-8; pauses to dart an eye to heaven, Ps 38:9; proceeds with a second tale of sorrow, Ps 38:10-14; interjects another word of hopeful address to God, Ps 38:15; a third time pours out a flood of griefs, Ps 38:16-20; and then closes as it opened, with renewed petitioning, Ps 38:21-22.
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Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. Rebuked I must be, for I am an erring child and thou a careful Father, but throw not too much anger into the tones of thy voice; deal gently although I have sinned grievously. The anger of others I can bear, but not thine. As thy love is most sweet to my heart, so thy displeasure is most cutting to my conscience. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Chasten me if thou wilt, it is a Father's prerogative, and to endure it obediently is a child's duty; but, O turn not the rod into a sword, smite not so as to kill. True, my sins might well inflame thee, but let thy mercy and longsuffering quench the glowing coals of thy wrath. O let me not be treated as an enemy or dealt with as a rebel. Bring to remembrance thy covenant, thy fatherhood, and my feebleness, and spare the servant.
Title. The first word, MIZMOR, or Psalm, is the designation of forty-four sacred poems, thirty-two of which are ascribed to David. The English reader must observe, that this word is not the same in the original Hebrew as that which forms the general title of the book of Psalms; the latter expressing a Hymn of Praise. The word Psalm, however, as used both in the context and in the titles of the individual compositions, is uniformly Mizmor in the original; a term which accurately defines their poetical character. To explain its proper meaning I must have recourse to the beautiful and accurate definition of Bishop Lowth. "The word Mizmor signifies a composition, which in a peculiar manner is cut up into sentences, short, frequent, and measured by regular intervals." ...He adds that Zamar means to cut or prune, as applied to the removing superfluous branches from trees; and, after mentioning the secondary sense of the word, "to sing with a voice or instrument, "gives it as his opinion, that Mizmar may be more properly referred to the primary sense of the root, so as to mean a poem cut up into short sentences, and pruned from all superfluity of words, which is the peculiar characteristic of the Hebrew poetry. John Jebb.
Title. The title that David gives this Psalm is worth your notice. A Psalm of David to bring to remembrance. David was on his deathbed as he thought, and he said it shall be a Psalm of remembrance, to bring sin to remembrance, to confess to God my uncleannesses with Bathsheba, to bring to my remembrance the evils of my life. Whenever God brings thee under affliction, thou art then in a fit plight to confess sin to God, and call to remembrance thy sins. Christopher Love.
Title. The Psalm is to bring to remembrance. This seems to teach us that good things need to be kept alive in our memories, that we should often sit down, look back, retrace, and turn over in our meditation things that are past, lest at any time we should let any good thing sink into oblivion. Among the things which David brought to his own remembrance, the first and foremost were, (1) his past trials and his past deliverances. The great point, however, in David's Psalm is to bring to remembrance, (2) the depravity of our nature. There is, perhaps, no Psalm which more fully than this describes human nature as seen in the light which God the Holy Ghost casts upon it in the time when he convinces us of sin. I am persuaded that the description here does not tally with any known disease of the body. It is very like leprosy, but it has about it certain features which cannot be found to meet in any leprosy described either by ancient or modern writers. The fact is, it is a spiritual leprosy, it is an inward disease which is here described, and David paints it to the very life, and he would have us to recollect this. A third thing the Psalm brings to our remembrance is, (3) our many enemies. David says, that his enemies laid snares for him, and sought his hurt, and spoke mischievous things, and devised and imagined deceits all the day long. "Well, "says one, "how was it that David had so many enemies?" How could he make so many? Must he not have been imprudent and rash, or perhaps morose? It does not appear so in his life. He rather made enemies by his being scrupulously holy. His enemies attacked him, not because he was wicked, but as he says, in this very Psalm, they were his enemies because he loved the thing which is good. The ultimate result of the religion of Christ is to make peace everywhere, but the first result is to cause strife. Further, the Psalm reminds us of, (4) our gracious God. Anything which drives us to God is a blessing, and anything which weans us from leaning on the arm of flesh, and especially that weans us from trying to stand alone, is a boon to us. C. H. S
Whole Psalm. The most wonderful features in this Psalm, are the depth of misery into which the psalmist gradually plunges in his complaints in the first part of it, the sudden grasp at the arm of mercy and omnipotence that is made in Ps 38:8, and the extreme height of comfort and consolation that it reaches in the end. Benjamin Weiss.
Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. But is it not an absurd request, to require God not to rebuke me in his anger; as though I thought he would rebuke me if he were not angry? Is it not a senseless suit to pray to God not to chasten me in his displeasure, as though he would chasten me if he were not displeased? The most froward natures that are, will yet be quiet as long as they be pleased: and shall I have such a thought of the great yet gracious God, that he should be pleased and yet not be quiet? But, O my soul, is it all one, to rebuke in his anger and to rebuke when he is angry? He may rebuke when he is angry, and yet restrain and bridle in his anger; but to rebuke in his anger is to let loose the reins to his anger; and what is it to give the reins to his anger, but to make it outrun his mercy? And then what a miserable case should I be in, to have his anger to assault me, and not his mercy ready to relieve me? To have his indignation fall upon me when his lovingkindness were not by to take it off! Oh, therefore, rebuke me not in thine anger, O God, but let thy rebuking stay for thy mercy; chasten me not in thy displeasure, but let thy lovingkindness have the keeping of thy rod. Sir Richard Baker.
Ver. 1. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure, etc. Both these words, which we translate to chasten, and hot displeasure, are words of a heavy and of a vehement signification. They extend both to express the eternity of God's indignation, even to the binding of the soul and body in eternal chains of darkness. For the first, jasar, signifies in the Scriptures, vincire, to bind, often with ropes, often with chains; to fetter, or manacle, or pinion men that are to be executed; so that it imports a slavery, a bondage all the way, and a destruction at last. And so the word is used by Rehoboam, "My father chastised you with whips, but I will chasten you with scorpions." 1Ki 12:11. And then, the other word, chamath, doth not only signify hot displeasure, but that effect of God's hot displeasure which is intended by the prophet Esay: "Therefore hath he poured forth his fierce wrath, and the strength of battle, and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew it not, and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart." These be the fearful conditions of God's hot displeasure, to be in a furnace, and not to feel it; to be in a habit of sin, and not know what leads us into temptation; to be burnt to ashes, and so not only without all moisture, all holy tears, but, as ashes, without any possibility that any good thing can grow in us. And yet this word, chamath, hath a heavier signification than this; for it signifies poison itself, destruction itself, for so it is twice taken in one verse: "Their poison is like the poison of a serpent" Ps 58:4; so that this hot displeasure is that poison of the soul, obduration here, and that extension of that obduration, a final impenitence in this life, and an infinite impenitableness in the next, to die without any actual penitence here, and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter. David therefore foresees, that if God rebuke in anger, it will come to a chastening in hot displeasure. For what should stop him? For, "if a man sin against the Lord, who will plead for him?" says Eli. "Plead thou my cause, " says David; it is only the Lord that can be of counsel with him, and plead for him and that Lord is both the judge and angry too. John Donne.
Title. The art of memory. Holy memorabilia. The usefulness of sacred remembrance.
Ver. 1. The rebuke of God's wrath.
1. Richly deserved.
2. Reasonably dreaded.
3. Earnestly deprecated.
B. Daries.
Ver. 1. The evil consequences of sin in this world. J. J. Blunt.
Ver. 1. The bitterest of bitters, thy wrath; why deprecated; and how escaped.
"A Sacred Septenarie, "etc., by ARCHIBALD SYMSON, 1638, contains an Exposition of this Psalm. See Vol. I, p. 74.
"Meditations and Disquisitions upon the Seven Psalmes of David, commonly called the Penitential Psalmes." By Sir RICHARD BAKER, Knight: London: 1639, (4to.) contains "Meditations upon the XXXVIII. Psalme."
Psalms 38:2*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath: neither…
Psa_38:1-22
O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath: neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.
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Great personal affliction
I. Elements of aggravation.
1. A dread of Divine displeasure (Psa_38:1).
2. A crushing sense of sin (Psa_38:4).
3. The desertion of professed friends (Psa_38:11).
4. The assaults of enemies (Psa_38:19-20).
II. Means of relief.
1. Remembrance of Gods cognizance of his sufferings (Psa_38:9).
2. Power of self-control (Psa_38:13).
3. Unbounded confidence in God (Psa_38:15).
4. Penitential confession of sin (Psa_38:18).
5. Importunate appeals to heaven. (Homilist.)
Things to be remembered
The title to this psalm is: A psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. This seems to teach us that good things need to be kept alive in our memories, that we should often sit down, look back, retrace, and turn over in our meditation things that are past, lest at any time we should let any good thing sink into oblivion.
I. Among the things that David brought to his own remembrance were his past trials and his past deliverances.
1. Such a remembrance will prevent your imagining that you have come into the land of ease and perfect rest.
2. They will refresh your memories with regard to the mercy of God, and so will stir you up to gratitude.
3. Such a remembrance will be of great service to you, if you are at this time enduring the like exercises. What God was, that He is. Having begun to deliver you, He will not afterwards forsake you.
II. The great point, however, in Davids psalm is to bring to remembrance the depravity of our nature. There perhaps is no psalm which more fully than this describes human nature as seen in the light which God the Holy Ghost casts upon it in the time when tie convinces us of sin. It is a spiritual leprosy, it is an inward disease which is here described, and David paints it to the very life, and he would have us recollect this. Child of God, let me bring to your remembrance the fact that you are by nature no better than the vilest of the vile. Children of wrath even as others, are you. Remember old John Bradfords remark; whenever he saw a man go by his window to Tyburn to be hanged--and he lived at that time where he saw them all--Ah! said he, there goes John Bradford if the grace of God had not prevented.
III. third thing the psalm brings to our remembrance is our many enemies. David says that his enemies laid snares for him, and sought his hurt, and spoke mischievous things, and devised deceits all day long. Well, says one, how was it that David had so many enemies? Must lie not have been imprudent and rash, or perhaps morose? It does not appear so in ills life. He rather made enemies by his being scrupulously holy, because he loved the thing which is good. Now you must not suppose that because you seek to live in all peaceableness and righteousness, that therefore everybody will be peaceable towards you. I come not to send peace upon earth, but a sword. The ultimate result of the religion of Christ is to make peace everywhere, but the first result is to cause strife. When the light comes, it must contend with the darkness; when the truth comes, it must first combat error; and when the Gospel comes, it must meet with enemies; and the man who receives the Gospel will find that his foes shall be they of his own household.
IV. The psalm reminds us of our gracious God. Praise the grace that has held you till now. Keep in remembrance the patience of God in enduring with you, the power of God in restraining you, the love of God in instructing you, and the goodness of God in keeping you to this day. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Psalms 38
Psalms 38
THIS is a long-drawn wail. passionate at first, but gradually calming itself into submission and trust, though never passing from the minor key. The name of God is invoked thrice (Psa_38:1, Psa_38:9, Psa_38:15), and each time that the psalmist looks up his burden is somewhat easier to carry, and some "low beginnings of content" steal into his heart and mingle with his lament. Sorrow finds relief in repeating its plaint. It is the mistake of coldblooded readers to look for consecution of thought in the cries of a wounded soul: but it is also a mistake to be blind to the gradual sinking of the waves in this psalm, which begins with deprecating Gods wrath, and ends with quietly nestling close to Him as "my salvation."
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The characteristic of the first burst of feeling is its unbroken gloom. It sounds the depths of darkness, with which easy-going, superficial lives are unfamiliar, but whoever has been down into them will not think the picture overcharged with black. The occasion of the psalmists deep dejection cannot be gathered from his words. He, like all poets who teach in song what they learn in suffering, translates his personal sorrows into language fitting for others pains. The feelings are more important to him and to us than the facts. and we must be content to leave unsettled the question of his circumstances, on which, after all, little depends. Only, it is hard for the present writer, at least, to believe that such a psalm, quivering, as it seems, with agony, is not the genuine cry of a brothers tortured soul, but an utterance invented for a personified nation. The close verbal resemblance of the introductory deprecation of chastisement in anger to Psa_6:1 has been supposed to point to a common authorship, and Delitzsch takes both psalms, along with Psalms 32 and Psalms 51, as a series belonging to the time of Davids penitence after his great fall from purity. But the resemblance in question would rather favour the supposition of difference of authorship, since quotation is more probable than self-repetition. Jer_10:23 is by some held to be the original, and either Jeremiah himself or some later singer to have been the author of the psalm. The question of which of two similar passages is source and which is copy is always ticklish. Jeremiahs bent was assimilative, and his prophecies are full of echoes. The priority, therefore, probably lies with one or other of the psalmists, if there are two.
The first part of the psalm is entirely occupied with the subjective aspect of the psalmists affliction. Three elements are conspicuous: Gods judgments, the singers consciousness of sin, and his mental and probably physical sufferings. Are the "arrows" and crushing weight of Gods "hand," which he deprecates in the first verses, the same as the sickness and wounds, whether of mind or body, which he next describes so pathetically? They are generally taken to be so, but the language of this section and the contents of the remainder of the psalm rather point to a distinction between them. It would seem that there are three stages, not two, as that interpretation would make them. Unspecified calamities, recognised by the sufferer as Gods chastisements, have roused his conscience, and its gnawing has superinduced mental and bodily pain. The terribly realistic description of the latter may, indeed, be figurative, but is more probably literal. The reiterated synonyms for Gods displeasure in Psa_38:1, Psa_38:3, show how all the aspects of that solemn thought are familiar. The first word regards it as an outburst, or explosion, like a charge of dynamite: the second as "glowing, igniting"; the third as effervescent, bubbling like lava in a crater. The metaphors for the effects of this anger in Psa_38:2 deepen the impression of its terribleness. It is a fearful fate to be the target for Gods "arrows," but it is worse to be crushed under the weight of His "hand." The two forms of representation refer to the same facts, but make a climax. The verbs in Psa_38:2 are from one root, meaning to come down, or to lie upon. In Psa_38:2 a the word is reflexive, and represents the "arrows" as endowed with volition, hurling themselves down. They penetrate with force proportionate to the distance which they fall, as a meteoric stone buries itself in the ground. Such being the wounding, crushing power of the Divine "anger" its effects on the psalmist are spread out before God, in the remaining part of this first division, with plaintive reiteration. The connection which a quickened conscience discerns between sorrow and sin is strikingly set forth in Psa_38:3 in which "Thine indignation" and "my sin" are the double fountainheads of bitterness. The quivering frame first felt the power of Gods anger, and then the awakened conscience turned inwards and discerned the occasion of the anger. The three elements which we have distinguished are clearly separated here; and their connection laid bare.
The second of these is the sense of sin, which the psalmist feels as taking all "peace" or well-being out of his "bones" as a flood rolling its black waters over his head, as a weight beneath which he cannot stand upright, and again as foolishness, since its only effect has been to bring to him not what he hoped to win by it, but this miserable plight.
Then, he pours himself out with the monotonous repetition so natural to self-pity, in a graphic accumulation of pictures of disease, which may be taken as symbolic of mental distress, but are better understood literally. With the whole, Isa_1:5-6, should be compared, nor should the partial resemblances of Isaiah 53 be overlooked. No fastidiousness keeps the psalmist from describing offensive details. His body is scourged and livid with parti-coloured, swollen weals from the lash, and these discharge foul-smelling matter. With this compare Isa_53:5, "His stripes" (same word). Whatever may be thought of the other physical features of suffering, this must obviously be figurative. Contorted in pain, bent down by weakness, dragging himself wearily with the slow gait of an invalid, squalid in attire, burning with inward fever, diseased in every tortured atom of flesh, he is utterly worn out and broken. {same word as "bruised," Isa_53:5} Inward misery, the cry of the heart, must have outward expression, and, with Eastern vehemence in utterance of emotions which Western reticence prefers to let gnaw in silence at the roots of life, he "roars" aloud because his heart groans.
This vivid picture of the effects of the sense of personal sin will seem to superficial modern Christianity exaggerated and alien from experience; but the deeper a mans godliness, the more will he listen with sympathy, with understanding and with appropriation of such piercing laments as his own. Just as few of us are dowered with sensibilities so keen as to feel what poets feel, in love or hope, or delight in nature, or with power to express the feelings, and yet can recognise in their winged words the heightened expression of our own less full emotions, so the truly devout soul will find, in the most passionate of these wailing notes, the completer expression of his own experience. We must go down into the depths and cry to God out of them, if we are to reach sunny heights of communion. Intense consciousness of sin is the obverse of ardent aspiration after righteousness, and that is but a poor type of religion which has not both. It is one of the glories of the Psalter that both are given utterance to in it in words which are as vital today as when they first came warm from the lies of these long dead men. Everything in the world has changed, but these songs of penitence and plaintive deprecation, like their twin bursts of rapturous communion, were "not born for death." Contrast the utter deadness of the religious hymns of all other nations with the fresh vitality of the Psalms. As long as hearts are penetrated with the consciousness of evil done and loved, these strains will fit themselves to mens lips.
Because the psalmists recounting of his pains was prayer and not soliloquy or mere cry of anguish, it calms him. We make the wound deeper by turning round the arrow in it, when we dwell upon suffering without thinking of God; but when, like the psalmist, we tell all to Him, healing begins. Thus, the second part (Psa_38:9-14) is perceptibly calmer, and though still agitated, its thought of God is more trustful, and silent submission at the close takes the place of the "roaring," the shrill cry of agony which ended the first part. A further variation of tone is that, instead of the entirely subjective description of the psalmists sufferings in Psa_38:1-8, the desertion by friends and the hostility of foes, are now the main elements of trial. There is comparative peace for a tortured heart in the thought that all its desire and sighing are known to God. That knowledge is prior to the hearts prayer, but does not make it needless, for by the prayer the conviction of the Divine knowledge has entered the troubled soul, and brought some prelude of deliverance and hope of answer. The devout soul does not argue "Thou knowest, and I need not speak," but "Thou knowest, therefore I tell Thee"; and it is soothed in and after telling. He who begins his prayer, by submitting to chastisement and only deprecating the form of it inflicted by "wrath," will pass to the more gracious thought of God as lovingly cognisant of both his desire and his sighing, his wishes and his pains. The burst of the storm is past, when that light begins to break through clouds, though waves still run high.
How high they still run is plain from the immediate recurrence of the strain of recounting the singers sorrows. This recrudescence of woe after the clear calm of a moment is only too well known to us all in our sorrows. The psalmist returns to speak of his sickness in Psa_38:10, which is really a picture of syncope or fainting. The hearts action is described by a rare word, which in its root means to go round and round, and is here in an intensive form expressive of violent motion, or possibly is to be regarded as a diminutive rather than an intensive, expressive of the thinner though quicker pulse. Then come collapse of strength and failure of sight. But this echo of the preceding part immediately gives place to the new element in the psalmists sorrow arising from the behaviour of friends and foes. The frequent complaint of desertion by friends has to be repeated by most sufferers in this selfish world. They keep far away from his "stroke," says the psalm, using the same word as is employed for leprosy, and as is used in the verb in Isa_53:4 ("stricken"). There is a tone of wonder and disappointment in the untranslatable play of language in Psa_38:11 b. "My near relations stand far off." Kin are not always kind. Friends have deserted because foes have beset him. Probably we have here the facts which in the previous part are conceived of as the "arrows" of God.
Open and secret enemies laying snares for him, as for some hunted wild creature, eagerly seeking his life, speaking "destructions" as if they would fain kill him with their words, and perpetually whispering lies about him, were recognised by him as instruments of Gods judgment, and evoked his consciousness of sin, which again led to actual disease. But the bitter schooling led to something else more blessed-namely, to silent resignation. Like David, when he let Shimei shriek his curses at him from the hillside and answered not, the psalmist is deaf and dumb to malicious tongues. He will sneak to God, but to man he is silent, in utter submission of will.
Isa_53:7 gives the same trait in the perfect Sufferer, a faint foreshadowing of whom is seen in the psalmist; and 1Pe_2:23 bids all who would follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, like Him open not their mouths when reviled, but commit themselves to the righteous Judge.
Once more the psalmist lifts his eyes to God, and the third invocation of the Name is attended by an increase of confidence. In the first part, "Jehovah" was addressed; in the second the designation "Lord" was used; in the third, both are united and the appropriating name "my God" is added. In the closing invocation (Psa_38:2-3) all three reappear, and each is the plea of a petition. The characteristics of these closing verses are three: humble trust, the marshalling of its reasons, and the combination of acknowledgment of sin and professions of innocence. The growth of trust is very marked, if the first part, with its synonyms for Gods wrath and its deprecation of unmeasured chastisement and its details of pain, be compared with the quiet hope and assurance that God will answer, and with that great name "my Salvation." The singer does not indeed touch the heights of triumphant faith; but he who can grasp God as his, and can be silent because he is sure that God will speak by delivering deeds for him and can call Him his Salvation, has climbed far enough to have the sunshine all round him, and to be clear of the mists among which his song began. The best reason for letting the enemy speak on unanswered is the confidence that a mightier voice will speak. "But thou wilt answer, Lord, for me" may well make us deaf and dumb to temptations and threats, calumnies and flatteries.
How does this confidence spring in so troubled a heart? The fourfold "For" beginning each verse from 15 to 18 (Psa_38:15-18) weaves them all into a chain. The first gives the reason for the submissive silence as being quiet confidence; and the succeeding three may be taken as either dependent on each other, or, as is perhaps better, as coordinate and all-assigning reasons for that confidence. Either construction yields worthy and natural meanings. If the former be adopted, trust in Gods undertaking of the silent sufferers cause is based upon the prayer which broke his silence. Dumb to men, he had breathed to God his petition for help, and had buttressed it with this plea, "Lest they rejoice over me," and he had feared that they would, because he knew that he was ready to fall and had ever before him his pain, and that because he felt himself forced to lament and confess his sin. But it seems to yield a richer meaning, if the "Fors" be regarded as coordinate. They then become a striking and instructive example of faiths logic, the ingenuity of pleading which finds encouragements in discouragements. The suppliant is sure of answer because he has told God his fear, and yet again because he is so near falling and therefore needs help so much, and yet again because he has made a clean breast of his sin. Trust in Gods help, distrust of self, consciousness of weakness, and penitence make anything possible rather than that the prayer which embodies them should be flung up to an unanswering God. They are prevalent pleas with Him in regard to which He will not be "as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth there is no reply." They are grounds of assurance to him who prays.
The juxtaposition of consciousness of sin in Psa_38:18 with the declaration that love of good was the cause of being persecuted brings out the twofold attitude, in regard to God and men, which a devout soul may permissibly and sometimes must necessarily assume. There may be the truest sense of sinfulness, along with a clear-hearted affirmation of innocence in regard to men, and a conviction that it is good and goodwill to them, not evil in the sufferer, which makes him the butt of hatred. Not less instructive is the double view of the same facts presented in the beginning and end of this psalm. They were to the psalmist first regarded as Gods chastisement in wrath, His "arrows" and heavy "hand," because of sin. Now they are mens enmity, because of his love of good. Is there not an entire contradiction between these two views of suffering, its cause and source? Certainly not, but rather the two views differ only in the angle of vision, and may be combined, like stereoscopic pictures, into one rounded, harmonious whole. To be able so to combine them is one of the rewards of such pleading trust as breathes its plaintive music through this psalm, and wakes responsive notes in devout hearts still.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain This is a psalm of David to call to…
INTRODUCTION
This is a psalm of David to call to remembrance his past life, and, no doubt, has especial reference to his sin with Bathsheba. It calls up to the view of his memory the sins of the past, the afflictions of the past, the enemies of the past, and the mercies of the past. It is well to have times of remembrance in life, like milestones on the road, to remind of the journey we have travelled, and to inspire us onward to the future. The past is not entirely to be forgotten; it is to be called up as evidence of our own depravity, of the Divine faithfulness, and as a profitable moral reflection for the soul.
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A CONSCIENCE AWAKENED BY A SENSE OF THE DIVINE CHASTISEMENT
(Psa_38:1-22.)
I. That the Divine chastisement is greatly afflictive to men. This is evident throughout the entire psalm; in fact, it would appear as though the writer were unable to find similitude by which to liken, or language in which to express, his moral pain occasioned by the Divine chastisement.
1. The Divine chastisement makes men apprehensive of the wrath of God (Psa_38:1). David, no doubt, felt that he justly merited the Divine rebuke in its mood of strong displeasure. He had sinned, and sin always leads men to regard God as offended. It changes the Divine favour into disapprobation. The soul is certain to view God through its own moral experiences, and hence, according to its consciousness of innocence or guilt, He appears as a Father or as a Judge. The Divine anger is the bitterest element in the sorrow of the good.
2. The Divine chastisement is keen in its penetration into the soul of man (Psa_38:2). The Divine chastisements are keen, swift, and penetrating as barbed arrows. They are shot unseen; they come unexpected; they make little noise; they are abiding in their injury. Thus it is with those who are convinced of sin. The arrow of the Holy Spirit penetrates to their innermost soul, and causes terrible pain of conscience. God’s arrows always his their mark, and are intended to remind of the bitterness of sin.
3. The Divine chastisement makes men morally loathsome to themselves (Psa_38:3; Psa_38:5). Here we see the view which an awakened conscience takes of its moral condition. When the soul is wounded by sin it becomes offensive to its own inner gaze. The sinner, when under conviction by the Spirit of God, sees all his life as one festering sore, and loathes it with penitential grief.
4. The Divine chastisement leads men to an overwhelming consciousness of sin (Psa_38:4). A man, when under the rebuke of God, feels himself to be overwhelmed in the sea of his sins. There is no human refuge for him. No light reaches him. The number of man’s sins are an index to the woe of the Divine chastisements. If the sins were not deep the rebuke would not be so loud. Sin is a heavy burden, and if not cast upon the Lord, will sink the sinner into perdition.
5. The Divine chastisement leads men into grievous unrest (Psa_38:3-8). The Divine chastisement penetrates to the inner being of man, even to the bones, and causes unrest. The good in this condition are like a ship in the storm. There can be no quietude of soul where there is sin. An awakened conscience can only obtain peace in Christ, who is the Prince of peace.
6. The Divine chastisement divests life of all human joy (Psa_38:10).
II. That the Divine chastisement often tests the sincerity and worth of human friendship. “My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off (Psa_38:11).
1. The Divine chastisement tests the sincerity of human friendship. Friends, who are thick as eagles on a carcase while the feast lasts, are scarce in that neighbourhood when the repast is over. When the devil divested Job of his property, he also relieved him of his imagined friends. When men are undergoing the Divine chastisement they are generally left in loneliness. Then companions fear lest they should share the woe of their afflicted comrade. They stand aghast at the reversed condition of things. At such times relatives are false to the natural affection they ought to bear toward their brother in adversity. Our Lord was forsaken by His disciples. Only true friendship survives the test of adversity.
2. The Divine chastisement generally stimulates the cunning policy of the wicked (Psa_38:12). And thus it often happens that in the hour of Divine chastisement inward grief of soul is combined with outward exigencies. When wicked men see the good in trouble then they consider it a favourable time for executing their hellish schemes. They are unmerciful; they are cowardly; their strength is in stealth; they are malicious; they are ever active; they promote slander; they delight in lies. God only can defeat their cunning devices.
3. The Divine chastisement leads men to examine the moral tendency of their lives (Psa_38:17-18). Here the Psalmist acknowledges the moral weakness of his life, in that he is ready to halt in despair. He also confesses his sin without reservation of thought or language. Thus the Divine chastisement revealed him to himself in no pleasing light. David reviews his life in its inner meaning and in its public bearing, and intimates that his enemies accuse him falsely. Sorrow makes men review all their social and moral relationships.
III. The Divine chastisements call into requisition the self-restraint of the good. “But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth” (Psa_38:13-14). David was silent, notwithstanding the strong provocations of his enemies. He probably knew that it would be but little use to contend with them by words, and that if he did, he would only arouse them to fiercer anger. Hence he manifests the wisdom of silence. It is generally wise to treat angry and slanderous men with silence. Silence is the language of dignified innocence. It is a token of noble self-control. Man has the ability to subdue his natural feelings when they are unduly excited by cruel enemies. Christ answered his accusers not a word. It is the token of a strong soul that it can bear slander and persecution in silence, only seeking the Divine vindication and protection.
IV. That the Divine chastisements awaken the repentant soul to importunate prayer. “Forsake me not, O Lord. O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation” (Psa_38:21-22). Thus, if David was silent toward men, he was not silent toward God, and in trouble it is far better to pray to God than to talk to men. Prayer enables men to be self-contained. David said that, if Heaven forsook him, he would indeed be friendless. The Divine Companionship is the protection of the good from all the plottings of wicked men. Adverse circumstances awaken men to earnest prayer—to prayer which is soon triumphant in its experience of the salvation of God.
LESSONS:—
1. How many are afflicted by the chastisements of Heaven.
2. How many are left companionless by the sorrows of life.
3. How many are driven to devotion by anguish of heart.
4. How the mischief of the wicked may be turned by God to the good of the prayerful.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain I. This passage, strictly and plainly interpreted, represents a…
Psa 38:9
I. This passage, strictly and plainly interpreted, represents a fact that is without exception: "Lord, all my desire is before Thee." In a certain sense, every being susceptible of desire may say this. The desires of all beings are before God; His eye is ever upon them. Every heart lives in Him, and He is and must be better acquainted with each spirit than that spirit can ever be with itself. This fact suggests two thoughts. (1) How great must God be to be capable of such knowledge. (2) How near does such knowledge bring us to God.
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II. The text represents also the performance of an important duty. David was in the habit of prayer. All his desires were before God by prayer. He had the habit of speaking to God about everything. This habit of David is likewise our duty. Notice: (1) Prayer is sometimes restrained. There are desires pent up in the soul that are consuming the soul like fire, or eating into the soul like rust. (2) Groaning is sometimes effectual, fervent prayer, and the sort of prayer that avails much.
III. These words represent a state of hallowed privilege. If all my desire be before God, and my groaning be not hid from Him, then (1) there is hope of the desire being satisfied; (2) there is no need for anxiety or fear.
IV. Here, too, is a large provision of rest for the soul. How quiet a man may be, and ought to be, who can speak to God thus. The most common ordinances are the surest channels of relief. Prayer is as old as sin in man; but it is far from being worn out, and there is no substitute for prayer.
V. Here, too, is a comfortable thought for seasons of weakness and of discouragement, for instance when in devotion the mind fails, and the mind does sometimes fail, especially in the case of the sick. And, again, when all things appear to be working against us, and working to our injury, what a consolation it is to feel that the very pressure of business upon a man’s spirit is better known to God than it is to the man of business himself!
VI. The text is also a plea in prayer: "All my desire is before Thee." The spirit of prayer has been produced and has been expressed in supplication; and now that there is no restraint in prayer, give to me, work for me, respond according to Thy promise to the thirstings and to the longings of this heart.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 1877, p. 127.
I. The first thought here is the efficacy of prayer. (1) It cleanses and purifies the desires. (2) It availeth much with God.
II. The second clause opens a yet deeper depth. There are groanings which cannot become prayers, and "my groaning is not hid from Thee." (1) Believe, first, that God does hear our groaning, and that in hearing it He hears that which first drew Him from His throne to Gethsemane and Calvary. (2) Believe, further, that He is striving by all the agencies and ministries of His love to bring out that groaning into confession. (3) Believe, lastly, that when He has taught you the "speech of the penitent, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee," you may tune your heart and your lips to praise.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 114.
Reference: Psa 38:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1564.
Psa 38:17
There are some roads in which we cannot halt, the road, for instance, which leads to death. There are paths in which it is well to halt: the paths of infidelity and scepticism, unbelief, vain and evil imagination, corrupt and unholy desire, and of outward transgression. But there are paths in which the traveller too often feels ready to halt.
I. Which are these paths? (1) In the path of simple confidence in the redeeming God we are sometimes ready to halt. (2) In the path of implicit and unquestioning obedience we are ready to halt. (3) In the path of the patient endurance of sorrow we are ready to halt. (4) In the path of resisting evil we are ready to halt. (5) In the path of doing good to others we are ready to halt.
II. But why ready to halt? (1) One is ready to halt because he is so weak, (2) another because he is so weary, (3) some because they are disappointed, (4) others because they are ready to despair.
III. What shall those who are ready to halt do? (1) If they will, they may complain. They may complain to God, but not of God. (2) They should consider their ways. (3) They ought to pray. (4) They must not yield to weariness, but battle with it, and go on. Consistency, integrity, wisdom, gratitude, all say, "Go on." And the end saith, "Come on." Christ saith to the pilgrim ready to halt, "Move on. Go on."
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 136.
References: Psa 38:21.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 165; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 146.
Psa 39:1
I. How important it is that we should seek to order our speech aright, seeing that our words are the outcoming of our inmost heart, the revelation of the deepest, most hidden things which are there.
II. How important it is that we should order our speech aright, seeing that words reach so far, exercise so vast an influence. They have sometimes been called "winged," and so they are, travelling far and fast by paths of their own.
III. We might well pray this prayer, having regard to the difficulty of the duty which we here propose to ourselves: a difficulty so great that St. James could say, "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body."
IV. Consider the strict judgment and account to which God will call us for our use of this excellent talent of speech. "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned;" and from other sayings of Christ our Lord it is to be feared that many a light word, as it seems now, will prove heavy enough at the day of judgment: many a word lightly spoken now will have to be heavily accounted for then.
R. C. Trench, Sermons in Westminster Abbey, p. 114.
References: Psa 39:1.—R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 200; C. Wordsworth, Sermons at Harrow School, p. 198; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 74; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 60.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain The trial of the righteous which is the result…
The trial of the righteous which is the result of sin in them.
A psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
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The two psalms that close the series here take up the question of the holiness of God in connection with the sufferings of the righteous, which confessedly are many, and which, at the time which is continually before us, will be of such exceptional severity. Still they are both of the most general character, containing no special references to that time which would narrow their application in any way. The present one speaks of sin in the believer as that which necessarily entails suffering for him; the judgment of this being now, that in the day of judgment he may escape it (1Co 11:32). The New Testament shows us this as the Father’s judgment, the chastening of His own children that they may be partakers of His holiness (Heb 12:10). Not that this is the whole account, however, as the former passage shows; for God must needs maintain His character as the Governor of His creatures before all. So the apostle Peter warns us that "the time is come when judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely" -or "with difficulty" -"be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1Pe 4:17-18.)
1. The first section shows us therefore the soul under conviction, and in dread of the divine anger. We must not expect, notwithstanding the grace realized in the thirty-second psalm, that there will be here the clearness of knowledge which the New Testament has brought to us. Sin is felt and owned, and God’s anger is dreaded. Nay, already His arrows stick fast in the sufferer, and the mighty hand of God presses down upon him. He feels it in his whole condition, taking soundness from his flesh, and health from his bones. His sin is the burden upon him, a burden he has not strength to carry.
2. We have next the humiliation and misery of it. The wounds become open sores, which stink and are corrupt. But this corruption has its root in "folly," the opposition spiritually to divine wisdom. He is bent and bowed down under the pressure: mourning all the day long. Again, he cries out of the disease that fills him, no soundness anywhere at all; and again he complains of his feebleness, with an anguish that continually increases.
3. But in the very One who smites faith finds its refuge. He, the Omniscient, is not regardless of his desire, nor ignorant of his misery. To Him he turns when he is, as it were, forsaken of himself, and when his intimates avoid him as under the stroke of God; only his enemies remain, busy with plots against his life. With all this he is like a man deaf and dumb his mouth stopped, as one before God (Psa 39:9). Self-restrained, he has no reproofs, though their wickedness is transparent. But he has left all to God, in whom he anchors himself and is at rest. God shall answer for him.
4. But to Him he can speak therefore, and put it all before Him: and accordingly we find now the trial so put, but more the external part of it, the worst having found relief. First, the attitude of the enemies, ready to use every slip of his to exalt themselves by it. Himself too, so conscious of his readiness to halt, humbled and discouraged by his failure, the reality of his sin which he could not hide, and at which his soul trembled. And that which had abased and cast him down had strengthened and multiplied too his enemies, who persecuted him in fact, not for the failure which he confessed, but for the good which, spite of the failure, he had really followed. Common enough, we all know, is such conduct on the part of those who would fain hide under a cloak of righteousness what is mere hatred of righteousness itself! But how bitter then to the soul those sins of the righteous which give them their desired opportunity! But they use these to their own ruin, while God uses them to the humbling of His people, that He may come in for them.
5. So the psalmist turns to Him once more. The unerring government of God will make no mistake. He knows, after all, those who own Him God, their God; who cling in the consciousness of weakness and worthlessness to Him as Saviour. Their sins cannot make their need of Him less as that, nor change the Unchangeable, who, undeceived from the beginning, and for no good in them, has taken such place of relationship toward them. So the cry that ends the psalm has in it these tokens -so simple as they are -of answer and acceptance, Jehovah my God", "Lord, my salvation"! He who can cry from the heart thus will certainly find God no less than his faith accounts Him.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain This Ps. may be compared with Psalms 6. It…
This Ps. may be compared with Psalms 6. It is the prayer of one who, like Job, is in great bodily suffering (Psa_38:1-10), and is also deserted by his friends (Psa_38:11), and beset by treacherous enemies (Psa_38:12, Psa_38:19-20). He is conscious that his trouble is due to bis sin (Psa_38:4, Psa_38:18), and appeals trustfully to God for pardon, healing, and deliverance. The description of personal suffering is too minute for a purely national Ps. It has been suggested that the author, if not David, may have been Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 20). This is another of the Pss. for Ash Wednesday.
Title.—The phrase 'to bring to remembrance' probably indicates that the Ps. was used in connexion with the offering of the 'memorial' of incense (Isa_66:3 mg), or of the shewbread with incense (Lev_24:7), or of the meat offering with incense (Lev_2:2).
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1. This v. repeats Psa_6:1.
2. Arrows] represent God's judgments as sent from afar, while His hand suggests closer dealing.
3. Rest] RV 'health.'
4. Sin is compared first to a flood, and then to a burden.
7. Loathsome disease] RV 'burning,' inflammation.
14. No reproofs] no arguments in his own defence.
15. His silence before men is explained by his hope in God.
20. While the Psalmist admits his own sin he is at the same time a sufferer for righteousness: see on Psa_25:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain (See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 38
Psalm 38
The Suffering Saint and Confession of Sin
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1. Suffering and Humiliation (Psa 38:1-8)
2. Looking to the Lord (Psa 38:9-15)
3. Confession and prayer (Psa 38:16-20)
This Psalm is read by the Jews on the day of atonement. It pictures great suffering in body and soul; it reminds us in different ways of the book of Job. (See and compare Psa 38:2 with Job 6:4; Psa 38:4 with Job 23:2; Psa 38:11 with Job 19:13; the loathsome disease, with no soundness in the flesh, also reminds of Job’s experience.) And the suffering one looks to Jehovah, He is his hope. He confesses his sins, pleads, “Make haste to help me, O Lord of my salvation.” And that cry will always be answered.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Prayer for Relief from a Burden of Guilt.
Prayer for Relief from a Burden of Guilt.
A psalm of David, to bring to remembrance, to remind God of His great mercy toward poor sinners, the hymn probably being intended for that part of worship when the meat-offering was added to the sacrifice, for its sweet savor was to rise to Jehovah with the prayer of the faithful,
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v. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath, although, as David knew, he well deserved it; neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure, with the full rigor of divine justice.
v. 2. For Thine arrows stick fast in me, the arrows of God’s anger having sunk into his flesh, and Thy hand presseth me sore, in the misfortune or in the dread which was oppressing him.
v. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Thine anger, his body being ill in consequence of Jehovah’s indignation over his sins; neither is there any rest in my bones, no proper health and peace, because of my sin, the results of which affected both body and mind with their afflictions.
v. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head, passing over him like an overwhelming flood; as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me, the burden bearing down upon his conscience exceeding his strength.
v. 5. My wounds, the bruises which he, figuratively, bore by reason of his sins, stink and are corrupt, not only having an evil odor, but also running like an open, festering sore, because of my foolishness, this designation being chosen since all sin is folly and self-destruction.
v. 6. I am troubled, bent over with the disease of his soul; I am bowed down greatly, as with a sickness which contracts the body in writhing pains; I go mourning all the day long, literally, "squalid," black with filth, on account of the ashes and the soiled garments indicating his mourning.
v. 7. For my loins, usually representing robust strength, are filled with a loathsome disease, full of dry burning, as if gangrene were setting in; and there is no soundness in my flesh, all his former health had left him.
v. 8. I am feeble and sore broken, chilled, benumbed, and utterly crushed; I have roared, with loud sighs and cries, by reason of the disquietness of my heart, which caused his lips to groan and moan.
v. 9. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, Jehovah knows the longing which the sufferer feels in the midst of his misery; and my groaning is not hid from Thee. David refers to this fact in order to stimulate the mercy of the Lord.
v. 10. My heart panteth, palpitating from violent agitation, as if barely surviving the trouble, my strength faileth me; as for the light of mine eyes, the strength of his vision, it also is gone from me, this condition resulting from extreme weakness of the whole body.
v. 11. My lovers and my friends, those whose acquaintance and friendship he valued, stand aloof from my sore, on account of the stroke, or plague, which the Lord had laid upon him; and my kinsmen stand afar off, deserting him in this extremity.
v. 12. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me, taking this opportunity when he is in trouble to show their spite; and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, planning his destruction, and imagine deceits, meditating upon malicious tricks, all the day long.
v. 13. But I, as a deaf man, heard not, he deliberately shut his ears in order not to be provoked to a reply to their insulting speeches; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth, the consciousness of his guilt causing him to keep silence, to despair of ever helping himself, and to trust in Jehovah alone.
v. 14. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs, who does not venture to adduce any counterevidence to justify himself. In this way a believer opens his heart and makes his complaint to the Lord in the midst of the trouble besetting him.
v. 15. For in Thee, O Lord, do I hope, as the only one to whom he could safely turn in his great trouble; Thou wilt hear, an emphatic, trustful expectation, O Lord, my God.
v. 16. For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me, the honor of the Lord’s name demanding that He save His servant, lest the mockery strike Him also; when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me, puffing themselves up and jeering at the simple faith of the believer, whose trust is shattered by his tribulations.
v. 17. For I am ready to halt, on the point of falling with lameness, and my sorrow is continually before me, his feeling of guilt serving to keep his misery always before his eyes.
v. 18. For I will declare mine iniquity, openly confessing his guilt; I will be sorry for my sin, filled with anxiety on its account.
v. 19. But mine enemies, by way of contrast to his dejected state, are lively, full of vitality and vigor, and they are strong; and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied, coming against him in ever-increasing numbers.
v. 20. They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries, because I follow the thing that good is, the persecution of the pious on the part of the wicked being the ordinary, the usual thing in the world. But David, and every true believer with him, clings to his faith in Jehovah and in the pardoning mercy promised in the Gospel. V21. Forsake me not, O Lord, by giving him up to the will of his enemies or to the misery of utter despair; O my God, be not far from me, ready for his assistance.
v. 22. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my Salvation, for in Him alone he could find deliverance from sin and its consequences. Such is the prayer of every believer when he feels the power of sin. And true repentance leads to faith; it despairs of itself, but keeps its trust in the Lord unshaken. And this confidence is not a vain trust.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
do not rebuke me in your anger ... do not punish me in your wrath
These phrases mean basically the same thing and the idea is repeated for emphasis. (See: Parallelism)
your arrows pierce me
The severity of Yahweh's punishment of the writer is spoken of as if Yahweh had shot arrows into the writer. AT: "Your punishment is as painful as if you had shot arrows into me" (See: Metaphor)
your hand presses me down
Yahweh's punishment of the writer is spoken of as if Yahweh was smashing the writer with his hand. Here, "hand" refers to Yahweh's power. AT: "your power knocks me down" (See: Metaphor and Metonymy)
translationWords
psalm
David
Yahweh
rebuke
anger
punish
wrath
bow and arrow
hand
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ps 38 This psalm is a lament and prayer…
Ps 38 This psalm is a lament and prayer for healing. The psalmist’s suffering is associated with his unconfessed sin. He confesses his sin and entrusts his case to the Lord.
38:title asking God to remember him: The meaning of this phrase is uncertain (also in 70:title).
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38:1-17 These verses form a prelude to the psalmist’s confession (38:18) and describe his woeful condition.
38:1-4 The psalmist’s sins had triggered the Lord’s anger and rage, resulting in the arrows and blows of discipline and rebuke; as a result, his whole body is sick.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.