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Selected Verse: Psalms 38:4 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ps 38:4 |
King James |
For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
iniquities--afflictions in punishment of sin (Sa2 16:12; Psa 31:10; Psa 40:12).
gone over mine head--as a flood. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
For mine iniquities are gone over mine head - This is merely an enlargement of the idea suggested in the last verse - that his present sickness was to be traced to his sin, and that he was suffering the punishment for sin. The idea is here that his sins were very numerous and very aggravated. They had risen up around him, or had so accumulated that the mass rose, like waves of the sea, above his head. A somewhat similar idea - though the thought there refers rather to the number of sins than the degree of guilt - occurs in Psa 40:12 : "Mine iniquities ... are more than the hairs of my head."
As an heavy burden ... - That is, they are so heavy that I cannot bear them, and my frame has sunk under them. This might mean either that the sense of sin was so great that he could not bear up under it, but had been crushed by it (compare Psa 32:3-4); or that on account of sin, "as if" it were a heavy weight, he had been crushed by disease. The general idea is, that the real cause of his sickness was the fact that he was a great sinner, and that God was punishing him for it. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Iniquities - Or, the punishment of mine iniquities, as this word is frequently used. Are gone - Like deep waters wherewith I am overwhelmed. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| Mine iniquities are gone over mine head - He represents himself as one sinking in deep waters, or as one oppressed by a burden to which his strength was unequal. |
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
12 It may be that the LORD will look on mine affliction, and that the LORD will requite me good for his cursing this day.
3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.