Psalm 38:10

Psalm 38 is one of the seven penitential psalms, with Psalms 6, 32, 51, 102, 130 and 143, prayers in which a sinner laments, confesses and pleads for mercy. It is a psalm of David. It opens with a plea for mercy under God’s rebuke, and the verses before this passage describe how his sin weighs on him. There is “no soundness” in his flesh, his iniquities are a burden too heavy for him, he goes “mourning all the day long”, and his loins are “filled with a loathsome disease” (Psalm 38:1–8).

Verse 9 turns from describing the affliction to speaking directly to the Lord about it, and the verses that follow add two new sorrows: the friends who keep away and the enemies who plot. After this passage David declares his hope (Psalm 38:15–22). That closing part of the psalm opens with “For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God,” and ends by asking the Lord to stay near and make haste to help him.

The occasion of the psalm is unknown to us. It may belong to a time of illness, to the aftermath of a sin such as the matter of Bathsheba or the census, or to Absalom’s rebellion, when many turned against David. Because it is left open, its words fit anyone who suffers under sin, sickness and the hostility of others. In Israel illness and misfortune were often taken as signs of God’s displeasure, a link the Lord himself qualifies when his disciples ask whether a man was born blind for his own sin or his parents’ (John 9:1–3). That way of thinking lies behind much of what happens to David in these verses.

David calls on God as “Lord”, ʼĂdônây, an emphatic form of the word for lord or master that is used as a name of God alone and means “my Lord”. He speaks as a servant to the Master he trusts, even while he suffers under that Master’s hand.

“All my desire” translates taʼăvâh, a longing or craving, and here it is the whole longing of a sick and burdened man: for healing, for relief from his suffering, for rescue from his enemies and for fellowship with God restored. “My groaning”, ʼănâchâh, is a sigh or groan, the sound grief and pain make when words give out. The verb çâthar means to hide or conceal, so “is not hid from thee” says simply that every bit of it is in God’s sight. The two halves of the verse say the same thing twice, as Hebrew poetry often does. “All my desire” is matched by “my groaning”, and “before thee” by “not hid from thee”, and the doubling makes the point firm: God sees everything David carries.

God’s knowledge reaches past our words. A psalm says that he knows our thoughts and every word on our tongue (Psalm 139:2–4), and Hebrews says that all things lie open before his eyes (Hebrews 4:13). Paul goes further. When we are at a loss how to pray, he says, the Spirit himself makes intercession for us “with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26–27). The same mercy runs through the laments of the Psalter, such as Psalm 6 and Psalm 130, where the afflicted cry out to God and are heard.

“My heart panteth” joins lêb, the heart, the word Scripture uses for the inner person with its feelings, will and mind, to çâchar, a verb that means to travel round, as a merchant goes about his trade, and in its intensive form to palpitate. David’s heart throbs and races. “My strength faileth me” pairs kôach, vigour or force, with ʻâzab, to loosen, let go or forsake, so his strength has let go of him and left. Then “the light of mine eyes”, ʼôwr, light, with ʻayin, the eye, “is gone from me”. The light of the eyes was a common Hebrew way of speaking of life and well-being. Its loss can include dimmed eyes, and it reaches to joy and hope as well, so the brightness of life itself has gone out for him.

The verse moves from the racing heart to the failing strength to the darkened eyes, and the “also” of the last line marks it as one more loss on top of the others. The whole man is worn out together, body, emotions and spirit, under sickness, sorrow and the weight of guilt. David prays in the same way in another psalm, asking for mercy because he is weak and his bones are vexed (Psalm 6:2–3), and the long lament of Lamentations 3:1–20 speaks out of the same exhaustion of soul. The Lord David speaks to is the God who gives power to the faint (Isaiah 40:29).

“My lovers and my friends” are the people closest to David, those bound to him by affection and those he kept company with. They “stand aloof from my sore”. “Aloof from” translates neged, the part opposite, so they stand over against his affliction, where they can see it and keep apart from it. “My kinsmen”, qârôwb, are literally his near ones, for the word means near in place, time or kin, and here it means his relatives. The near ones “stand afar off”. The second line of the verse takes the loss from chosen friends to his own blood, and the abandonment is complete.

The “sore”, negaʻ, is a blow or stroke. The word is used most often of a skin sore or diseased spot, and also of a plague or wound sent by God or caused by another person. In this psalm it is the affliction David has been describing, and it is the very thing his friends keep away from.

Family and community were the main source of a person’s support and security in ancient Israel. Severe illness was often taken as a sign of God’s displeasure, and so the sick could be shunned even by those closest to them, who feared contagion, feared being linked with someone under God’s anger, or believed the suffering was deserved. Job knew this. He complains that his brothers, his relatives and his friends have all turned from him (Job 19:13–19), and the friends who came to comfort him (Job 2:11) went on to accuse him. Another psalmist says, “I am become a stranger unto my brethren” (Psalm 69:8).

Human loyalty can give way in the hour of need, and the Lord’s holds. David speaks to him through the whole psalm, and another psalm says, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up” (Psalm 27:10). His promise to his people is “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). The verse also puts a question to every fellowship of believers, because the friends of verse 11 show what it looks like to stand back from someone’s sore when we could come near with the love of Christ.

Beyond the friends who stay away are enemies who press close to do harm. “They also that seek after my life” uses bâqash, to search out or strive after, and “my life” is nephesh, the breath and life of a living being, so they want him dead or ruined. “Lay snares” is nâqash, to trap with a noose, a word from the hunter’s craft for a hidden trap. The second “seek”, in “they that seek my hurt”, translates a different verb, dârash, to follow after or search out. These men “speak mischievous things”, havvâh, a word from a root meaning to covet eagerly and rush upon, which means desire and also ruin or calamity. Their words aim at his downfall, through slander and false accusation. They “imagine deceits”: hâgâh means to murmur or ponder, the muttering of a mind that turns a thing over, and mirmâh, here in the plural mirmoth, is fraud, deceit and treachery. They do it “all the day long”, kol-hayyom, built on the ordinary word for day, and their plotting runs from morning to night.

In a society where honour and reputation counted for so much, words could do as much damage as blows, and a sick man was an easy target. The enemies prey on one already afflicted, and that makes their cruelty worse.

“But I” turns from the enemies to David himself. “As a deaf man” is chêrêsh, deaf, and “heard” is shâmaʻ, to hear with attention and understanding. “As a dumb man” is ʼillêm, speechless, and “openeth” is pâthach, to open wide, used with peh, the mouth, the organ of speech. David can hear and he can speak, and he acts as one who could do neither. He lets their words pass and keeps his mouth shut.

Verse 14 says it again with the same verb for hearing and the same word for mouth: “Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.” The word for “reproofs”, tôwkêchâh, means correction or rebuke, and also refutation, argument and proof offered in one’s own defence. It is used of people as well as of God. It names Job’s own arguments in his case before God (Job 23:4) and a friend’s open rebuke (Proverbs 27:5), and in the next psalm God corrects man “with rebukes” (Psalm 39:11). David keeps back every argument, defence and rebuke he might have turned on his accusers.

These verses reach their fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. David suffered in part for his own sin. Jesus was sinless, and he bore the weight of ours, so every part of this passage meets in him with a depth beyond David’s.

Jesus knew the inward life that verse 9 lays before God, for he “knew what was in man” (John 2:24–25). He shared our groaning too. At the grave of Lazarus he “groaned in the spirit, and was troubled” (John 11:33), and in Gethsemane he was sorrowful and very heavy (Matthew 26:37).

He was left alone as David was. “Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled” (Matthew 26:56). “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11), and the crowd cried out for him to be crucified (Luke 23:21). His enemies plotted as David’s did. They “took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk” (Matthew 22:15), sought false witness against him (Matthew 26:59–60), and arranged his betrayal with Judas (Luke 22:3–6). On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

And he kept silent. Isaiah had foretold it: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Before the high priest “Jesus held his peace” (Matthew 26:62–63, Mark 14:61). Before Pilate “he answered nothing” (Matthew 27:12–14, Mark 15:5), and before Herod “he answered him nothing” (Luke 23:9). Peter sets this before us as our example: “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). His silence was obedience to his Father and the silence of the innocent Lamb of God, and the Father highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–9).

Because he went this way, he is a high priest “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15), and through him we come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). When the light of our eyes goes out, he is the light of the world (John 8:12), and his grace is sufficient for us in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

These verses give us the prayer of a man who has lost nearly everything a person leans on: his health, his strength, his friends, his family and his good name. What remains is the Lord, and David speaks to him with complete honesty about his sin and his sickness alike. The Lord he addresses sees all his desire and hears his groaning, so even a sigh is prayer before him.

They also show us who God is toward his people when others turn away. He stays near when friends stand far off. He sees the snares laid in secret and knows the lies spoken against his servants. He is the judge who answers for those who leave their cause with him, which is why David could close his mouth before his enemies and open his heart before God.

In Christ we have a Saviour who went further down this road than David, alone, betrayed and silent before his accusers, and so he understands every weakness we bring him. When words fail us, the groaning itself is known.