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Selected Verse: Psalms 38:1 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Ps 38:1	King James	A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
To bring to remembrance, or, remind God of His mercy and himself of his sin. Appealing to God for relief from His heavy chastisement, the Psalmist avows his integrity before men, complains of the defection of friends and persecution of enemies, and in a submissive spirit, casting himself on God, with penitent confession he pleads God's covenant relation and his innocence of the charges of his enemies, and prays for divine comfort and help. (Psa. 38:1-22) He deprecates deserved punishment, which is described (Psa 6:1), under the figure of bodily disease [Psa 38:3].

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

To bring to remembrance, or, remind God of His mercy and himself of his sin. Appealing to God for relief from His heavy chastisement, the Psalmist avows his integrity before men, complains of the defection of friends and persecution of enemies, and in a submissive spirit, casting himself on God, with penitent confession he pleads God's covenant relation and his innocence of the charges of his enemies, and prays for divine comfort and help. (Psa. 38:1-22)

He deprecates deserved punishment, which is described (Psa 6:1), under the figure of bodily disease [Psa 38:3].

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath - See the notes at Psa 6:1, where the same language occurs, except in the change of a single Hebrew "word," that is, "wrath," though expressing the same idea. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure - See the notes at Psa 6:1. The Hebrew in both is the same, except that in this place the negative particle is omitted, but without affecting the sense. It is not improbable that the one was copied from the other, or that this was composed with the language of the former in the memory. Thus we often use language with which we are familiar, as being well adapted to express our ideas.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
(Heb.: 38:2-9) David begins, as in Psa 6:1-10, with the prayer that his punitive affliction may be changed into disciplinary. Bakius correctly paraphrases. Psa 38:2 : Corripe sane per legem, castiga per crucem, millies promerui, negare non possum, sed castiga, quaeso, me ex amore ut pater, non ex furore et fervore ut judex; ne punias justitiae rigore, sed misericordiae dulcore (cf. on Psa 6:2). The negative is to be repeated in Psa 38:2, as in Psa 1:5; Psa 9:19; Psa 75:6. In the description, which give the ground of the cry for pity, נחת, is not the Piel, as in Psa 18:35, but the Niphal of the Kal נחת immediately following (root נח). קצף is anger as a breaking forth, fragor (cf. Hos 10:7, lxx φρύγανον), with ĕ instead of ı̆ in the first syllable, vowels which alternate in this word; and חמה, as a glowing or burning. חצּים (in Homer, κῆλα), God's wrath-arrows, i.e., lightnings of wrath, are His judgments of wrath; and יד, as in Psa 32:4; Psa 39:11, God's punishing hand, which makes itself felt in dispensing punishment, hence תּנחת might be attached as a mood of sequence. In Psa 38:4 wrath is called זעם as a boiling up. Sin is the cause of this experiencing wrath, and the wrath is the cause of the bodily derangement; sin as an exciting cause of the wrath always manifests itself outwardly even on the body as a fatal power. In Psa 38:5 sin is compared to waters that threaten to drown one, as in Psa 38:5 to a burden that presses one down. ככבּדוּ ממּנּי, they are heavier than I, i.e., than my power of endurance, too heavy for me. In Psa 38:6 the effects of the operation of the divine hand (as punishing) are wounds, חבּוּרת (properly, suffused variegated marks from a blow or wheals, Isa 1:6; from חבר, Arab. ḥbr, to be or make striped, variegated), which הבאישׁוּ, send forth an offensive smell, and נמקּוּ, suppurate. Sin, which causes this, is called אוּלת, because, as it is at last manifest, it is always the destruction of itself. With emphasis does מפּני אוּלתּי form the second half of the verse. To take נעויתי out of Psa 38:7 and put it to this, as Meier and Thenius propose, is to destroy this its proper position. On the three מפּני, vid., Ewald, 217, l. Thus sick in soul and body, he is obliged to bow and bend himself in the extreme. נעוה is used of a convulsive drawing together of the body, Isa 21:3; שׁחח, of a bowed mien, Psa 35:14; הלּך, of a heavy, lagging gait. With כּי in Psa 38:8 the grounding of the petition begins for the third time. His כּסלים, i.e., internal muscles of the loins, which are usually the fattest parts, are full of נקלה, that which is burnt, i.e., parched. It is therefore as though the burning, starting from the central point of the bodily power, would spread itself over the whole body: the wrath of God works commotion in this latter as well as in the soul. Whilst all the energies of life thus yield, there comes over him a partial, almost total lifelessness. פּוּג is the proper word for the coldness and rigidity of a corpse; the Niphal means to be brought into this condition, just as נדכּא means to be crushed, or to be brought into a condition of crushing, i.e., of violent dissolution. The מן of מנּהמת is intended to imply that the loud wail is only the utterance of the pain that is raging in his heart, the outward expression of his ceaseless, deep inward groaning.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

(Heb.: 38:2-9) David begins, as in Psa 6:1-10, with the prayer that his punitive affliction may be changed into disciplinary. Bakius correctly paraphrases. Psa 38:2 : Corripe sane per legem, castiga per crucem, millies promerui, negare non possum, sed castiga, quaeso, me ex amore ut pater, non ex furore et fervore ut judex; ne punias justitiae rigore, sed misericordiae dulcore (cf. on Psa 6:2). The negative is to be repeated in Psa 38:2, as in Psa 1:5; Psa 9:19; Psa 75:6. In the description, which give the ground of the cry for pity, נחת, is not the Piel, as in Psa 18:35, but the Niphal of the Kal נחת immediately following (root נח). קצף is anger as a breaking forth, fragor (cf. Hos 10:7, lxx φρύγανον), with ĕ instead of ı̆ in the first syllable, vowels which alternate in this word; and חמה, as a glowing or burning. חצּים (in Homer, κῆλα), God's wrath-arrows, i.e., lightnings of wrath, are His judgments of wrath; and יד, as in Psa 32:4; Psa 39:11, God's punishing hand, which makes itself felt in dispensing punishment, hence תּנחת might be attached as a mood of sequence. In Psa 38:4 wrath is called זעם as a boiling up. Sin is the cause of this experiencing wrath, and the wrath is the cause of the bodily derangement; sin as an exciting cause of the wrath always manifests itself outwardly even on the body as a fatal power. In Psa 38:5 sin is compared to waters that threaten to drown one, as in Psa 38:5 to a burden that presses one down. ככבּדוּ ממּנּי, they are heavier than I, i.e., than my power of endurance, too heavy for me. In Psa 38:6 the effects of the operation of the divine hand (as punishing) are wounds, חבּוּרת (properly, suffused variegated marks from a blow or wheals, Isa 1:6; from חבר, Arab. ḥbr, to be or make striped, variegated), which הבאישׁוּ, send forth an offensive smell, and נמקּוּ, suppurate. Sin, which causes this, is called אוּלת, because, as it is at last manifest, it is always the destruction of itself. With emphasis does מפּני אוּלתּי form the second half of the verse. To take נעויתי out of Psa 38:7 and put it to this, as Meier and Thenius propose, is to destroy this its proper position. On the three מפּני, vid., Ewald, 217, l. Thus sick in soul and body, he is obliged to bow and bend himself in the extreme. נעוה is used of a convulsive drawing together of the body, Isa 21:3; שׁחח, of a bowed mien, Psa 35:14; הלּך, of a heavy, lagging gait. With כּי in Psa 38:8 the grounding of the petition begins for the third time. His כּסלים, i.e., internal muscles of the loins, which are usually the fattest parts, are full of נקלה, that which is burnt, i.e., parched. It is therefore as though the burning, starting from the central point of the bodily power, would spread itself over the whole body: the wrath of God works commotion in this latter as well as in the soul. Whilst all the energies of life thus yield, there comes over him a partial, almost total lifelessness. פּוּג is the proper word for the coldness and rigidity of a corpse; the Niphal means to be brought into this condition, just as נדכּא means to be crushed, or to be brought into a condition of crushing, i.e., of violent dissolution. The מן of מנּהמת is intended to imply that the loud wail is only the utterance of the pain that is raging in his heart, the outward expression of his ceaseless, deep inward groaning.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
O Lord, rebuke me not - He was sensible that he was suffering under the displeasure of God; and he prays that the chastisement may be in mercy, and not in judgment.

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³ There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.

¹ To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

⁸ I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.

¹⁴ I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.

³ Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

⁷ For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh.

⁶ From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

⁶ I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

⁵ My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.

⁴ For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.

¹¹ When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.

⁴ For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

⁷ As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.

³⁵ Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.

⁶ For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.

¹⁹ Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.

⁵ Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

² For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

² Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.

² For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

¹ To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
² Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
³ My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long?
⁴ Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?
⁶ I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
⁷ Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.
⁸ Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.
⁹ The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer.
¹⁰ Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.