Psalms 38: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A prayer of David asking God not to correct him in anger. He describes a body worn down by sickness and pain, a heart weighed down by his own sin, friends and relatives who keep their distance, and enemies who lay traps and plot against him. He stays silent toward his accusers, admits his wrongdoing, and asks God to stay near and come quickly to help him.

Claim by Claim

1. 38:1
   • The speaker addresses the LORD.
   • The speaker asks God not to rebuke him in anger.
   • The speaker asks God not to discipline him in hot wrath.
2. 38:2
   • God's arrows have sunk into the speaker.
   • God's hand has come down heavily upon the speaker.
3. 38:3
   • There is no soundness in the speaker's flesh.
   • The lack of soundness is because of God's indignation.
   • There is no health in the speaker's bones.
   • The lack of health in his bones is because of the speaker's sin.
4. 38:4
   • The speaker's iniquities have gone over his head.
   • His iniquities are like a heavy burden.
   • The burden is too heavy for him.
5. 38:5
   • The speaker's wounds stink.
   • The speaker's wounds are festering.
   • This is because of the speaker's foolishness.
6. 38:6
   • The speaker is bent and distorted.
   • The speaker is bowed down greatly.
   • The speaker goes about mourning all day long.
7. 38:7
   • The speaker's loins are filled with burning.
   • There is no soundness in the speaker's flesh.
8. 38:8
   • The speaker is numb and feeble.
   • The speaker is crushed severely.
   • The speaker has cried out aloud.
   • His crying out is because of the groaning of his heart.
9. 38:9
   • The speaker says all his longing is before the Lord.
   • The speaker's groaning is not hidden from the Lord.
10. 38:10
    • The speaker's heart throbs violently.
    • The speaker's strength has left him.
    • The light of the speaker's eyes is also gone from him.
11. 38:11
    • The speaker's loved ones and friends keep away from his affliction.
    • The speaker's kinsmen stand far off.
12. 38:12
    • Those who seek the speaker's life lay snares for him.
    • Those who seek the speaker's harm speak of ruin.
    • They plot deceits all day long.
13. 38:13
    • The speaker, like a deaf man, does not hear.
    • The speaker is like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
14. 38:14
    • The speaker is like a man who does not hear.
    • In the speaker's mouth there are no arguments in reply.
15. 38:15
    • The speaker waits in hope for the LORD.
    • The speaker says the Lord his God will answer.
16. 38:16
    • The speaker asked God to hear him.
    • The speaker said this so that his enemies would not rejoice over him.
    • When the speaker's foot slips, they exalt themselves against him.
17. 38:17
    • The speaker is ready to fall.
    • The speaker's pain is continually before him.
18. 38:18
    • The speaker declares his iniquity.
    • The speaker is anxious because of his sin.
19. 38:19
    • The speaker's enemies are vigorous and alive.
    • The speaker's enemies are strong.
    • Those who hate the speaker falsely are many.
20. 38:20
    • Those who repay evil for good oppose the speaker.
    • They oppose him because the speaker pursues what is good.
21. 38:21
    • The speaker asks the LORD not to forsake him.
    • The speaker asks his God not to be far from him.
22. 38:22
    • The speaker asks the Lord to hurry to help him.
    • The speaker calls the Lord his salvation.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

38:1

Where the King James prints LORD in capitals it is standing in for the Hebrew personal name of God, four consonants usually written YHWH, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. Ordinary "Lord" (as in verses 9, 15 and 22) translates a different Hebrew word, adonai, meaning master. "Chasten" means to discipline or correct, the way a parent corrects a child, not to punish in court.

38:2

Sudden illness or disaster was commonly pictured across the ancient Near East as arrows shot by a god. The speaker is describing his sickness, not a literal wounding.

38:3

"Bones" in Hebrew often stands for the whole physical frame, and by extension for the person's very self, so "no rest in my bones" means the trouble reaches all the way through him.

38:4

The Hebrew word behind "iniquities" covers three linked ideas at once: the wrong act itself, the guilt it leaves behind, and the punishment that follows. The image here is water rising over a drowning man's head, and then a pack too heavy to lift.

38:5

The word rendered "foolishness" is not stupidity but moral recklessness, knowingly doing the wrong thing. Hebrew wisdom writing uses it as a near-synonym for wrongdoing.

38:6

Grief in ancient Israel was public and physical: walking bent over, dressing in rough sackcloth, going about with the head down and refusing normal comforts. He is saying he lives permanently in the posture of a mourner.

38:7

The Hebrew word behind "loins" covers the lower back, hips and inner organs, the body's core rather than a precise organ. The word the King James translates "loathsome disease" is uncertain; it may mean burning, that is fever or inflammation, and modern translations differ.

38:8

"Roared" translates a verb used elsewhere of a lion's roar. It describes a loud, wordless cry of pain, not speech.

38:9

He means God already knows what he longs for, before he says a word about it.

38:10

"The light of mine eyes" is a standard Hebrew idiom for vitality. Bright eyes meant life and strength; eyes going dark meant strength draining away, and sometimes nearness to death.

38:11

In 1611 English "lovers" simply meant those who love him, family and close friends, with no sexual sense. Keeping distance from a diseased person was not only fear: skin disease and discharges made a person ritually unclean under Israelite law, so contact was avoided and the sick could be excluded from ordinary community life.

38:12

"Imagine" here has its older sense of scheming or plotting, not picturing something in the mind. "Mischievous" is far stronger than in modern use: it means destructive, aimed at ruin.

38:13

"Dumb" in 1611 English meant unable to speak, with no suggestion of stupidity. The picture in verses 13 and 14 is of someone accused who makes no reply to the charges against him.

38:14

"Reproofs" here means the answers you fire back at someone accusing you. In a public quarrel or a legal dispute you were expected to defend yourself out loud, so having no reproofs in your mouth means refusing to argue your own case.

38:15

In the King James, to "hope" in God is not just wishing. It means waiting for him, sure that he will act.

38:16

"When my foot slippeth" is an idiom for stumbling into disaster or disgrace. "Magnify themselves against me" means to make themselves big at his expense, to gloat.

38:17

"Halt" in 1611 English means to limp or stumble, not to stop. The line says he is on the point of collapse.

38:18

"I will be sorry" translates a word closer to being anxious or in dread about something than to feeling regret.

38:19

The Hebrew here is disputed. One reading takes the word as "living," giving the King James "lively", meaning vigorous and thriving, the opposite of the sick speaker. A very similar-looking word means "without cause," which is how many modern translations read it, matching the second half of the verse.

38:21

To "forsake" someone is to walk away and leave them completely alone.

38:22

"Salvation" in Hebrew usually means concrete rescue (being pulled out of danger, illness or enemies), rather than an afterlife. The word is a noun used as a title here: you who are my rescue.