Psalm 38 Lament or penitential psalm written by David. In many other psalms David declared his innocence, especially in comparison to his enemies – but not in this one. This psalm came out of David’s anguish over his sin. No one is sure at what point in his life David wrote this. Psalm 38:15 is an example of the use of the three Hebrew words most commonly used to refer to God in one verse. LORD, translated Yahweh, referring to the covenant God of Israel. Lord, translated Adonai, referring to God as Master or person of respect. God, translated Elohim, the plural of the word for God in the generic sense.
1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down on me.
3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.
4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.
5 My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly.
6 I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning.
7 My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body.
8 I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
9 All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.
11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away.
12 Those who want to kill me set their traps, those who would harm me talk of my ruin;all day long they scheme and lie.
13 I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak;
14 I have become like one who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply.
15 Lord, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God.
16 For I said, “Do not let them gloat or exalt themselves over me when my feet slip.”
17 For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.
18 I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.
19 Many have become my enemies without cause; those who hate me without reason are numerous.
20 Those who repay my good with evil lodge accusations against me, though I seek only to do what is good.
21 Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God.
22 Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.
SECTONS:
I Plea for Mercy
II Description of Wretchedness (illness, mistreatment by enemies)
III Hope God will hear him and come to his aid
THEME: Physical consequences sometimes follows sin.
QUESTONS:
What does David ask of God?
How does David describe his suffering?
What does David say he will do?
Have you ever experienced physical symptoms that you thought was because of your sin?
Because of his sin, David is suffering physically and emotionally. His friends are leaving him and his enemies are increasing in number and power. David was being rebuked and chastened in God’s wrath, so he is saying to God “please stop doing these things to me.”
I hate to over-emphasize the metaphorical nature of the psalms. I want to be careful not to interpret something as figurative and poetic when perhaps it was meant to be understood as literal. Yet, we’ve already seen David speaking in highly poetic terms – God’s arrows are stuck in him. God has a hand that is pressing down on him. These images are very metaphorical and non-literal. They communicate truth – but the truth is represented by the pictures that he paints. The problem in interpreting lament psalms is that when we ourselves are lamenting to God, our laments are bland. We’re not thinking of expressing our difficulties with such vivid pictures. But David does this throughout the book of Psalms.
David uses a poetic device called hyperbole. Hyperbole is not lying, rather it’s stating emotional truth, which is usually not factual. God wasn’t really shooting arrows at David. Yet, that’s how David felt. No doubt there was some disease that David is experiencing as a result of God’s chastening. Do we think that sickness and disease is ever a part of God’s chastening of us? (In the book of Job, his friends believed everything Job suffered was the result of his sins. We know that was wrong. Jesus tells his disciples that “neither this man nor his parents sinned “to lead him to be a paralytic. So, we may think that sickness must never be a result of our sin. But the fact is that some people in the church at Corinth were sick because of that very reason. Their sin had been divisiveness.
Not every sickness, disease or trial is a result of someone’s sin. But God does sometime use sickness or disease to chasten his people. Derek Kidner put it something like this – to think that sickness is never the result of sin is as unwise as thinking that it is always the result of sin.
It’s one thing for friends and family to forsake you. But David’s enemies are pursuing him at the exact same time as a lot of other things were happening. All of David’s physical and emotional difficulties crowd around him and he acknowledges his helplessness. He knew his suffering was because of his sin, and he wouldn’t treat his own sin as a light matter or be ambivalent toward it. He would own it, confess it, and have sorrow over it. When we sin and confess it to the Lord, we might think that this will fix everything. Yet, sometimes it doesn’t. Our sin can sometimes cause irreversible damage. David has confessed and sought to do good, but his enemies are still there and are not going to magically disappear.
Have you ever found yourself ending your prayers with no clear resolution to your problems? All you have to rely on is the Lord ending his silence and coming to your aid. But God has promised to never leave or forsake us. So, let’s not be ashamed to pray that promise back to him. He will draw near to us as we draw near to him. May the Lord be swift to help us in every trial that each of us is experiencing and wrestling with today.
David describes the burden of sin as a weight upon him and feels the heavy hand of God. If we don’t confess our sins to God it leaves us feeling the burden and guilt over our actions. We can be disgusted with ourselves. Something feels “off” or not quite right. Just as guilt was overwhelming to David, our sin can take a terrible toll on our minds and emotions. Many times the reason for our discouragement, anxiety, and anger is due to our own sinfulness.
Sexual sins often bring about emotional and physical havoc that we choose to ignore. We don’t think about what will happen if we go through with a particular sin. The movies show us the pleasure of an affair. Rarely does it show all the ramifications for such sinful behavior. We don’t think about what life will be like at home or how the trust in our marriage and family is shattered. Or how our children will feel when they learn the truth. We don’t think about how everything will be turned upside down. Young adults, we don’t think about the consequences of pregnancy in high school or how lives will be forever altered by diseases and illness from such activity. We don’t consider the emotional scarring and damage that ensues from giving our bodies to someone who says they love us. Sin is devastating and we underestimate its destructive and corrupting effects.
“I will wait for you, O Lord”- waiting is:
- a time of testing: This is a time where our faith can be purified. Iften we just want to get out of what we have done. But this is a chance for us to be molded by what has happened
- a time of learning: We should learn from our actions and see what caused us to fall so we don’t repeat it. And we have to accept the consequences of our actions.
- a time of strengthening: We need to make ourselves more resolute to stand with God and against sin. Too often we just want to quit, give up, and move on. But we need to wait upon the Lord and learn from the experience.
“I confess my iniquity: We must also respond to sin with confession and not try to cover up what we have done. Concealing sin only make things worse. We need to accept responsibility for what we have done, and not blame others for our problems. No one will ever get away with any sin. God sees all.
But instead of running from God, we should run to God. Adam and Eve exemplified the wrong actions by running away from the presence of God. ‘Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” (Zechariah 1:3).
My Reflection:
I once saw a movie called “The Mission” with Robert Di Nero. It was about a man who formerly sold slaves. He was able to change his life and became a Jesuit priest. Yet he couldn’t let go of the guilt of his past and carried it like a heavy weight. The film showed how his fellow Jesuits, as penance, made him carry heavy baggage on his shoulders, day after day as they climed up and down the mountains. They wanted to teach him to willingly “let go” of the burden of guilt that had attached to him. He had to lug that huge and weighted load all around until finally his body and spirit completely gave out. He knew he couldn’t do it anymore. He was worn down. He had come to understand and to believe his sin had been forgiven and he could let go of the burden of that guilt.
I can relate to how it feels to carry such a weight and maybe you can too. In reality, Jesus forgives us as soon as we are truly sorry and ask him to forgive us. We don’t have to beg over and over again or work our debt away. We don’t have to carry guilt around for months or years before Jesus decides we have carried that burden long enough. He takes away the burden of our sin away immediately. Isaiah 43:25 says, “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” He not only forgives immediately and freely, but remembers our sins no more. We have no need to carry the burden of them all of our lives. For that I am eternally grateful.
SONG: Whiter than snow, Jesus Paid it All