Psalms 38

O LORD, don’t rebuke me in your wrath! The penitential cry opens under memorial: he does not deny he deserves rebuke, but pleads against anger's unchecked heat.

Ask for fatherly discipline without the storm that would crush you. Bring guilt honestly; refuse both denial of sin and a prayer that only wants sin left alone.

Calvin: David does not expressly ask that afflictions be removed, but only that God would moderate the severity of his chastisements. He is content with mitigation—chastised, yet not beyond what he is able to bear; anger and wrath mark extreme rigor over against fatherly chastisement.

Spread the complaint before God in humble confession, not fretful murmur. Seek tempered severity under his hand; do not secretly bargain for impunity.

For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me. Wesley: Arrows—Thy judgments outward and inward. The wound is traced to the Lord's own arrows and hand, not to blind chance.

Name the pressure as his judgments, outer and inner. Bring the sunk arrows to him who shot them; do not explain the pain as mere accident.

Calvin: he was constrained by dire necessity to ask alleviation; the malady is the arrows and the hand of God. The pronoun thy is emphatic—he has to do with God, who can discharge arrows with overwhelming force. Scarcely one in a hundred discerns the hand of God in judgments.

Estimate affliction by more than raw pain. Look to the hand of him who smites; seek deliverance from the same Lord whose arrows have sunk in.

There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin. Wesley: Sin—Which hath provoked thee to deal thus severely with me. Flesh and bones fail under indignation that his own sin provoked.

Join the body's ruin to the sin that stirred severity. Do not separate indignation from guilt; confess the provocation while you feel the lack of soundness.

Calvin: as soon as he recognized affliction as from God, he turns to his own sin as the cause of divine displeasure. God is not a tyrant who exercises cruelty at random, but a righteous judge who manifests displeasure when grievously offended. Connect sins with his wrath.

Give God the praise of righteousness in the rod. Refuse the charge of divine cruelty; let sin explain the severity so confession can open toward mercy.

For my iniquities have gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. Wesley: Iniquities—Or, the punishment of mine iniquities, as this word is frequently used. Are gone—Like deep waters wherewith I am overwhelmed. Guilt and its weight crest over him like flood and load.

Own the overload without minimizing. Iniquities gone over the head are too heavy for self-management; cry for mercy under the deep waters.

Calvin: overwhelmed by sins as by a heavy burden, he faints under their weight, yet confesses he deservedly suffered. He does not quarrel like Cain (“My punishment is greater than I can bear”); he defends himself with the shield that he is afflicted by the just judgment of God.

Attribute the weight of wrath to your own sins as cause. Refuse the murmur that God is too severe; find rest only in imploring compassion and forgiveness.

My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness, Wesley: Foolishness—Sin. Putrid wounds are not random medical detail; they track to foolishness named as sin.

Call foolishness what it is. Do not dress guilt as a mere mistake of manners; let festering wounds drive honest naming of sin.

Calvin: long continuance of misery pleads for alleviation; by foolishness he does not extenuate as hypocrites who plead inadvertence, but acknowledges he was out of his right mind when he obeyed fleshly lusts against God. Sin is conjoined with folly or madness—maniacal fury flying in the Maker's face.

Own the madness of lust-driven disobedience. Refuse the soft plea of mere imprudence; ask mercy after long putrefying under deserved chastisement.

I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long. Day-long mourning matches a body and spirit already bent low under the rod.

Let bowed posture be prayer, not performance. Carry the mourning to the Lord who sees the prostration; do not harden into proud uprightness under his hand.

Calvin: bent and bowed beyond measure, this holy man was oppressed with extreme grief; he tacitly contrasts humility with the pride of many who refuse to be humbled by chastisements. Blackness of grief marks the face; there is no consolation but by laying aside stubbornness and submitting under God's mighty hand.

Bow rather than brace against the rod. Ask compassion as one already abased; refuse the insensibility that feels pain yet will not humble itself.

For my waist is filled with burning. There is no soundness in my flesh. Wesley: Disease—The disease might be some burning fever, breaking forth outwardly in carbuncles, or boils. It is true, this and the other expressions may be taken figuratively, but we should not forsake the literal sense of the words without necessity.

Take the burning seriously as bodily misery under guilt. Pray for relief of flesh that has no soundness; do not rush past literal pain into mere metaphor.

Calvin: reins or sides filled with burning or inflammation; covered with putrid sores. He confirms extreme grief—weakened and sore broken—not as cowardice, but as evidence that sufferings were severe in the extreme.

Own inflammatory misery without theatrical excess. Bring the burning sides to God; let severity of pain deepen dependence, not rebellion.

I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart. Feebleness and crushing meet an inward roar the heart cannot quiet.

The psalmist groans honestly under the turmoil. Do not polish the prayer into calm you do not feel; bring the crushed heart's noise to the Lord.

Calvin: uncontrollable emotions of the heart forced him to cry out; a courageous man does not ordinarily roar, so the severity must have been extreme. The roaring of the heart names inward disquiet that breaks into voice.

Admit the roar without shame before God. Severe grief may force cry and complaint; aim them as humble prayer, not as charge against his justice.

O Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you. Nothing of desire or sigh is offstage; the memorial prayer assumes he already sees.

Spread longing openly rather than hide sighing. Confidence that he sees is fuel for persevering prayer under sickness and guilt.

Calvin: either confident assurance that groanings are heard, or a declaration that he has poured all cares into God's bosom—substantially the same encouragement. Unbelief keeps minds captive; persuasion that groanings do not vanish produces alacrity in prayer. He had not howled into the air as the unbelieving do.

Disburden sorrows into his bosom. Refuse both secret fretting and public howling that never reaches God; pray as one sure he is witness and hearer.

As for the light of my eyes, it has also left me. Heart, strength, and eyesight fail together; the penitential body is nearly spent.

Name total weakness without despair of mercy. When light of the eyes is gone, still address the Lord who has all longing before him.

Calvin: the heart turns round—agitated, not knowing what to do—yet faith holds thoughts within God's word. Strength fails as of a dead man; the light of the eyes is taken—life's energy gone. Infirmity remains even in the obedient; storms threaten a thousand deaths.

Expect disquiet without abandoning the word. Restrain wandering counsel by his promises; pray from failed strength, not from pretended self-sufficiency.

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far off. Social abandonment compounds the plague; even nearest kin keep distance.

Bring isolation to God when friends stand aloof. Their distance does not cancel his nearness; ask help when human offices of kindness fail.

Calvin: friends cease the offices of humanity—from pride that despises, or cowardice that fears odium. It is a sore trial when a man with many friends is abandoned by them all. Lay forsakenness before God, whose province is to succor the betrayed.

Pray the empty circle. Do not treat aloof friends as final verdict; ask the Lord to take up what pride and fear have dropped.

Those who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long. Wesley: Deceit—They design mischief, but cover it with fair pretences. While friends withdraw, enemies work covered snares all day.

Name treachery without matching it. Fair pretences hide ruin-talk; wait on God rather than answer snare with snare.

Calvin: enemies vigorously seek his destruction by guileful conspiracy—snares, talk of ruin, secret deceit—while friends sit still. Lay these before God from his Word: he succors the miserable, restrains the wicked, and frustrates deceitful counsels.

Report the conspiracy in prayer, not in fleshly panic. Friends' cowardice and enemies' plots both drive you to the defender who alone can anticipate their designs.

But I, as a deaf man, don’t hear. I am as a mute man who doesn’t open his mouth. Wesley: Dumb—Was silent, to testify his humiliation for his sins, and his acceptation of the punishment which he had brought upon himself.

Practice penitential silence under accepted discipline. Mute endurance can mark humility; refuse the retort that would deny your guilt before God.

Calvin: like dumb and deaf—overwhelmed by false judgments and shut from self-defense, yet also patient, trusting God as defender. Those who depend only on the world rage when they cannot avenge; the one persuaded God is defender cherishes hope in silence (cf. Romans 12:19).

Give place to wrath by leaving vengeance with God. Hold peace when defense is denied; do not seize God's right to repay.

I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no rebukes. The deaf-mute posture repeats: no answering rebuke leaves the mouth.

Keep the mouth from retaliating rebuke. Silence can serve repentance; save speech for confession and plea to God.

Calvin: he held peace as if already convicted and struck dumb. It is difficult, when conscious of innocence toward men, to bear unjust condemnation as if argument had failed—yet he waits the heavenly Judge.

Endure misjudgment without snatching the last word. Wait the Judge; let absent rebukes mark trust, not defeated truth.

But for I hope in you, LORD. You will answer, Lord my God, who will answer. Waiting replaces self-defense; answer is expected from the Lord my God alone.

Fix waiting on the one who will answer. Do not abandon hope when mute before enemies; stake the reply on God.

Calvin: the source of patience is trusting God's grace so as to overcome worldly temptations. Hope alone frames the mind to meekness; he cherished hope by constant meditation on promises. Thou wilt answer—double defense against fainting (cf. Romans 5:4 joining patience to hope).

Patience is fed by meditating on God’s promise. When delay tempts despair, set his fidelity before you and wait for the answer he will give.

For I said, “Don’t let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips!” Wesley: When—When I fall into any misery, they triumph in the accomplishment of their desires. The fear is their boast over a slipped foot.

Pray against enemies' triumph without denying your slip. Ask that misery not become their gloating victory; keep the plea Godward.

Calvin: if forsaken, enemies would triumph—mockery that assails faith and treats God's promises as vain. He had already tasted their proud boastings; insolence should increase hope that God will help.

Treat their rejoicing as an assault on God's word, not only on your flesh. Plead that he not abandon you to their boast when the foot slips.

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me. Wesley: To halt—just falling into destruction. Before me—I am constantly sensible of thy just hand, and of my sins the cause of it.

Keep pain and justice in view together. Ready-to-fall urgency should deepen sense of the just hand and of sin as cause, not erase it.

Calvin: ready to halt is metaphorical—without speedy aid, no hope of restoration; he would walk as maimed all his days. Sorrow continually before him means no moment's relaxation; the disease is incurable unless God remedies.

Confess near-collapse without inventing a merely medical halt. Direct every request to God alone; aside from him you see only ruin.

I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Wesley: Declare—To thee. Open confession and sorrow address the Lord directly in the penitential center of the psalm.

Declare iniquity to God with sorrow that is more than regret for consequences. Let confession and grief meet at his feet while enemies still flourish.

Calvin: not so much a bare repeat of Psalm 32's confession before God for forgiveness, as bewailing his miserable condition—sin and iniquity naming afflictions that are tokens of wrath, so the world might regard him as condemned. Yet he does not deny the miseries proceed from sins; the godly, unlike the wicked, humble themselves at God's judgment seat.

Confess under the rod as one reading cause from effect. Own both the wretched tokens of displeasure and the sins that procured them; appear at his bar, not in self-justifying complaint.

But my enemies are vigorous and many. Those who hate me wrongfully. Wesley: Strong—Are thriving and flourishing. Wrongful hatred thrives while the penitent lies low.

Name the imbalance without envy turning to sin. Vigorous foes and wrongful hate drive you to God, not to matching their strength.

Calvin: while he lies filthy and wretched, enemies live in abundant prosperity and increase in power; they assail him wrongfully and without cause. Take care to injure no one, that God may favor your defense.

Contrast their thriving with your low estate before God. Plead innocence toward them without claiming sinlessness before him; ask him to judge wrongful hate.

Those who give evil for good are also adversaries to me, because I follow what is good. Evil repaid for good, and accusation aimed at the pursuit of good itself.

Keep following good when accused for it. Do not answer evil-for-good with revenge; bring the injustice to the Lord.

Calvin: more than abstaining from harm—he had done them all the good in his power; yet they hate him because he studies uprightness. Prefer the world's hatred to swerving from duty; God maintains his own cause in theirs.

Count opposition for good as expected, not as proof you should quit. Hold the testimony of a good conscience and ask God to defend the upright path.

Do not forsake me, LORD. My God, don’t be far from me! Forsaken by friends and pressed by foes, he asks the Lord not to match their distance.

Pray against divine forsaking with urgency. When kin stand far off, plead that God not be far; keep calling him my God.

Calvin: the sum of the prayer—forsaken of men and grievously afflicted, that God would receive and raise him. Three forms: not forsake, not be far, make haste. Saints unburden in language of fleshly feeling yet still pray in faith.

Ask nearness without pretending you never feel delay. Confess the fear of distance; cling to him as the God who does not finally abandon his own.

Make haste to help me, Lord, my salvation! Speed and salvation close the memorial psalm: help from the Lord who is himself salvation.

Pray haste without abandoning trust. Call him my salvation while you still wait; urgency and confidence belong together.

Calvin: make haste to come to my aid; waiting was wearisome according to the flesh, yet he does not pray in uncertainty—he calls God his salvation, a wall of defense against devices that assail faith. Whatever happens, he is assured of salvation in God.

Urge haste while naming him salvation. Let weariness speak, but set assurance of salvation in God as the wall that holds when help seems slow.