Psalm 38: 1 – 22
Inflammation
A Psalm of David. To bring to remembrance.
1 O LORD do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure! 2 For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down. 3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. 5 My wounds are foul and festering 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 full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart. 9 Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You. 10 My heart pants, my strength fails me; As for the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me. 11 My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. 12 Those also who seek my life lay snares for me; Those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long. 13 But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; And I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. 14 Thus I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth is no response. 15 For in You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God. 16 For I said, “Hear me, lest they rejoice over me, lest, when my foot slips, they exalt themselves against me.” 17 For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually before me. 18 For I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin. 19 But my enemies are vigorous, and they are strong; And those who hate me wrongfully have multiplied. 20 Those also who render evil for good, they are my adversaries, because I follow what is good. 21 Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, be not far from me! 22 Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
I am starting to resent each chapter I prepare a study. I do not know about other people who love God’s Word and want to share His amazing truths with others, but I often go through personally the experience I read about in the Word.
Out of nowhere my right leg started itching and then from the ankles started swelling. The swelling each day worked up my leg and somewhat settled from my ankle up to and including my knee.
There is an old saying of ‘Physician heal thyself.’ In truth I will tell you that it is easier to diagnosis ailments of others then to figure out your own problem. So, I narrowed down my problem to inflammation.
Inflammation is a process by which the body's white blood cells and substances they produce protect us from infection with foreign organisms, such as bacteria and viruses.
However, in some diseases, like arthritis, the body's defense system -- the immune system -- triggers an inflammatory response when there are no foreign invaders to fight off. In these diseases, called autoimmune diseases, the body's normally protective immune system causes damage to its own tissues. The body responds as if normal tissues are infected or somehow abnormal.
Some, but not all, types of arthritis are the result of misdirected inflammation arthritis. is a general term that describes inflammation in the joints?
Inflammation may also be associated with general flu-like symptoms including:
Fever
Chills
Fatigue/loss of energy
Headaches
Loss of appetite
Muscle stiffness
When inflammation occurs, chemicals from the body's white blood cells are released into the blood or affected tissues to protect your body from foreign substances. This release of chemicals increases the blood flow to the area of injury or infection and may result in redness and warmth. Some of the chemicals cause a leak of fluid into the tissues, resulting in swelling. This protective process may stimulate nerves and cause pain.
The increased number of cells and inflammatory substances within the joint cause irritation, swelling of the joint lining and, eventually, wearing down of cartilage (cushions at the end of bones).
I have some company in my ailment in that the Psalmist went through everything I am presently going through. I guess that is somewhat comforting. I can relate physically and emotionally of what he was going through.
A Psalm of David. To bring to remembrance.
The Psalm is often described as a ‘penitential Psalm’, because if contains the idea of deep repentance at the thought of sin. It divides into three sections.
1). In the first section he addresses God as ‘YHWH’, the covenant God, the One against Whom he has offended by not walking in accordance with His requirements. The Psalmist describes the chastening that he is experiencing and acknowledges the heinousness of his sin that has brought this chastening on him (38.1-8).
2). In the second he addresses God as ‘Lord’ (Adonai), the sovereign Lord, the One Who rules all the world and those who are in it. He looks to his sovereign Lord for help amidst his own desertion by even his friends and loved ones (38.9-14).
3). In the third he addresses God in terms of ‘O YHWH’ and ‘O Lord (Adonai) my God’, titles given in parallel, thus combining the two names and signifying both his covenant God and his sovereign Lord. And he finally ends the Psalm with ‘O YHWH’, ‘O my God’ and ‘O Lord’ (Adonai), recalling the whole range of what YHWH is as his covenant God, as the God of creation (19.1-6) and as his sovereign Lord. He calls on YHWH his Lord for deliverance from his enemies in view of his own deep repentance and his confidence in the true faithfulness of YHWH, Who Is his God and Lord (38.15-22).
He commences with a prayer that, while God may rebuke and chasten him as he deserves, He will not do it so much in anger as in grieved love (38.1). He cannot bear the thought that God could be wholly at odds with him. And he then goes on to describe the experience that he is going through, the depths of his spiritual anguish (38.2), his deep sense of sin (38.3-4), and the consequent spiritual chastening which he is enduring (38.5-8), because of what he has done. He is going through a period of deep conviction of sin.
Whether he was actually physical experiencing fever and illness or was simply describing his spiritual darkness of spirit in similar terms is debatable. But either way it was making him search out his heart before God. He was experiencing the chastening of God for the good of his soul (Hebrews 12.3-11, “3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” 7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”).
1 O LORD do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure! 2 For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down.
Initially his prayer is to his covenant God, the One Whom he knows watches over him and cares for him. But he does not pray based on a cozy relationship, for he knows that he has sinned, and sinned deeply. He knows that he must thus endure God’s displeasure. He does, however, know that he does it to One Who will welcome his repentance, and has the remedy for his sin. Chastening may be his lot, but he does not want it to turn out to be condemnation.
So as one who is enduring the hand of God pressing heavily on him, and as one who is aware of God’s arrows being fired at him, and ‘piercing his body’, an apt picture of the ways in which God brings home conviction of sin, he yet prays that God will deal with him in mercy and chastening rather than in wrath. Acknowledging fully that he is receiving his just deserts, he does not want to feel that God is dealing with him only in judgment. He accepts God’s rebukes, and God’s manifestation of displeasure, as just, but he wants to be able to see them in terms of the chastening of a stern Father, rather than as evidence that he is cut off from God’s mercy. Let YHWH then remember that He is his God, and not treat him as one for whom there is no forgiveness. Let Him rather have compassion on him in his failure.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
He describes the state in which he finds himself as God’s chastening strikes home. His chastening may have been spiritual chastening which is being described here in vivid pictorial language, or it may well have included physical illness as one of God’s means of chastening (1 Corinthians 11.30, “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.”), but either way he is finding it difficult to cope with, not because of the fact of the spiritual pressure or the illness, but because of the deep underlying sense of the sin that was responsible for it. And this is because he is aware of God’s indignation against his sin and feels totally corrupt. He feels as though his flesh is rotten, and that he has no vestige of life within him, no ‘life in his bones’. (The bones of a man were often seen as representing his inner man). He feels that he is ‘dead in his sin’. He feels that his iniquities are so heavy that they are weighing him down, and that they are so many that they are overwhelming him. They are flowing over his head as though he were drowning in a river of them. For the truth is that he has seen himself as he really is in God’s sight.
Thus, in Paul’s words he could say, “in me, that is in my flesh, there is no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to do what is good I cannot discover” (Romans 7.18). And he really meant it. That is why he feels totally lost and unworthy, even though he knows in his heart that a merciful God will offer him hope.
Please take note of the two contrasts, ‘because of Your indignation --- because of my sin’. Both are bringing home to him the poverty of his spiritual condition, something which he now describes in more detail.
5 My wounds are foul and festering 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 full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart.
He is so overwhelmed by his sense of sin that he sees himself as wounded, with wounds that are putrefying and becoming loathsome. And he knows that all this because of his own folly. He does not try to hide from the truth. He has been very foolish, and now he is being made conscious of his own utter unworthiness. Thus he feels within himself a terrible pain at the thought of how sinful he is, and the result is that he is utterly bowed down by it to the earth. All day long he mourns over his sin, unable to obtain a sense of being forgiven, and his very loins are filled with a sense of burning as though gripped with fever (which, in fact, he may well have been). He feels that his flesh is unsound, and he feels continually faint and sore bruised. To him at that moment it is as though he cannot escape from his sin, and as though there can be no forgiveness for it (although happily, deep within him, he knows that there is such forgiveness, simply because of the compassion and mercy of God. That is why he is praying). Thus, he groans within himself because his heart is so disquieted. He is a man filled with a sense of his own unworthiness. Such is what happens to a man or woman when they come to a full awareness of the truth about themselves.
Some who have known such a sense of their sinfulness will recognise the picture only too well. Others may not have experienced such a deep sense of sin. But all must recognize that the pictures are describing the truth about our sins, whoever we are, whether we are conscious of it or not.
We see that sin:
. Results in our inner beings being unsound and unhealthy (verse 3).
. Results in our being loathsome and corrupt because of our foolishness (verse 5).
. Results in the destruction of our inner peace and confidence because of what we are (verses 6-8).
And this is true of us all even when we do not ourselves sense its awful effects. Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil (John 3.19, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”). They do not want to be reminded of their sinfulness. But those who do the truth come to the light, even when it reveals to them what they are, because by coming to the light they can have their sins dealt with, while at the same time manifesting their true condition of heart.
So as we come to His light (1 John 1.5-6, “his is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”) our sinfulness must be recognized by us all, some to a greater extent than others, although happily in our case being then followed by thankfulness that the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1.7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”). For the Psalmist that experience of such forgiveness still lies ahead.
Up to this point the Psalmist’s emphasis has been on his own personal state. It is his state of heart that is the concern of his covenant God. But now he turns his thoughts outwards towards the outer world and its attitude towards him, and it is therefore to his ‘Sovereign Lord’ (Adonai) that he now looks, the One Who rules over the affairs of men (although still as the One Who loves him and is concerned about him).
He knows that his Lord knows what is happening to him, and he reminds Him of the number of people who are against him, even those whom he knows should be there to support him, all adding to his sense of sin. And they have deserted him, and he is left friendless apart from his Lord. However, he refuses to condemn them. Indeed, he will not even rebuke them, for he knows that YHWH his Sovereign Lord is with him, and He will be his help.
9 Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You. 10 My heart pants, my strength fails me; As for the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.
Almost at the end of his tether he yet knows that his Lord is aware of his situation. It is this that sustains him. He can say to Him, ‘You know the way that I take’ (Job 23.10) and be aware that it is true. For he is confident that his Sovereign Lord knows all his desires, and is aware of all his groanings. He recognises that God is aware how fast his heart is beating, and that God knows that his strength is failing him. God must surely recognize that the light has gone from his eyes and that he is, as it were, struggling in the darkness.
11 My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. 12 Those also who seek my life lay snares for me; Those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long.
He knows that God is aware that his friends and relations have deserted him. That those who had professed to love him, including even his own kinsmen, are standing at a distance, not wanting to be associated with him because they see him as a political hazard, or even as being plague-ridden (whether really or symbolically). No one is ready to step in, to protect him. No one wants to be involved in a tricky situation. It is an experience that many a man of God engaged in controversy has had to face when others have been fearful of standing with him.
And meanwhile his enemies are laying snares in order to entrap him. And they have as their aim the taking of his life. He knows that they are slandering him, and speaking mischievous things about him. That lies and false rumours abound on their lips. And he is aware that all day long they plan their deceitful tactics to discredit him. They are out to get him, no matter what evil methods they have to use.
13 But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; And I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. 14 Thus I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth is no response. 15 For in You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God.
But the Psalmist refuses to be alarmed. He is not concerned by their lies and deceit, so his ears are deaf to their subtle words and calumnies. He will say nothing in his own defense, as though he was a man who had heard nothing, and had therefore nothing to reprove, or to plead in his own defense. While they may rail at him he will not retaliate against them. (This may suggest that had he wished to do so he could have gained vengeance on them). And why is he behaving in this magnanimous way? It is because his confidence is in his covenant God, and because he is confident that his Sovereign Lord will answer him in his need and will bring him through his trial. All his attention is on his God, and thus his ears are deaf to all else.
As we have seen verse 15 concludes his previous thoughts and makes sense of them. But it also prepares the way for his further thought, and so we include it again here. It is because his hope is in his covenant God, and because he is sure that his Sovereign Lord will answer him, that he has such confidence in spite of his sin and his desertion by those around him. And we should note also that at the root of his confidence is the fact that, despite his admitted sinfulness, he basically follows the thing that is good (verse 20). Thus he knows that, while he may have been weak and foolish, his God knows that the set of his heart is true (verse 20). It is because God knows the underlying state of his heart that he can have such confidence in His mercy.
16 For I said, “Hear me, lest they rejoice over me, lest, when my foot slips, they exalt themselves against me.” 17 For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually before me. 18 For I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin.
And it is because of his confidence that YHWH is with him, and that his Sovereign Lord and God will answer him, that he can stand there without fear. That is why he can speak lightly of men rejoicing over him when his foot slips. For he knows that they will never really be able to rejoice over his final downfall because his God is with him.
Nevertheless at present they speak boldly against him with their accusations, thinking that they really are about to bring about his downfall. They are sure that YHWH is on their side. But there is something that they are overlooking, and that is his genuine repentance before YHWH. For while they are making themselves so big against him and are ‘strutting their stuff’, he on his part is humbling himself before his God. He is openly declaring his iniquity and expressing regret for his sin. Thus he is sure that in the end they can only fail, because God will be on his side.
19 But my enemies are vigorous, and they are strong; And those who hate me wrongfully have multiplied. 20 Those also who render evil for good, they are my adversaries, because I follow what is good.
Nevertheless his enemies appear lively and strong. And now we come to the nub of the matter. While his enemies are lively and strong, those who hate him wrongfully are numerous, and they include among their number those who render evil for good. This reveals the fact that in the last analysis all their hatred is directed at him because he follows ‘the thing that is good’ (literally ‘for my following of good’). Now we know why he is confident that through YHWH he will triumph. It is because he is the one who alone is upholding YHWH’s truth and righteousness. He alone has the good of all in his mind. How then can YHWH not step in on his side?
21 Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, be not far from me! 22 Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
And so, he finishes his Psalm by calling confidently on his covenant God to help him, and not to forsake him. It is in this that his assurance lies, that YHWH at least will not forsake him. So although his friends and relatives might stand afar off from him (verse 11), and his enemies might act against him, he knows that God will not be far from him, and that He will act for him. Indeed, he is confident that He even then stands there ready to help him.
That is finally why he knows that he can call on Him to make haste to help him as the One Who is Sovereign Lord, and especially as the One Who is Lord over his very much needed deliverance. He is the Lord, his salvation. And he knows therefore that his request will be answered. For his sovereign Lord is also his Savior, He is his salvation, and his salvation is thus wholly of the Lord. And in view of that it cannot therefore fail.
