Psalm XXXVIII
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
1 0 Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
4 For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden, they are
too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and are corrupt, 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 filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness
of my heart.
9 Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.
10 My heart panteth, my strength faileth me:
As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.
11 My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen
stand afar oif.
12 They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: And they that seek my heart speak mischievous things, And imagine deceits all the day long.
13 But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth
not his mouth.
14 Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.
15 For in thee, O Lord, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God.
16 For I said. Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over m.e: When my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.
17 For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.
18 For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.
19 But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong: And they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.
20 They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; Because I follow the thing that good is.
21 Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me.
22 Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.
Here is “The inhabitant saying, I am sick” — David, and every believer with him, and the Head of all believers, David’s Son, when he took his place in our world as The Inhabitant who was to heal the sicknesses of others. One writer vehemently asserts,” It is a prophetic prayer of Christ; it has no personal refe-PSALM XXXVUI. — THE LEPROSY OF SIN AnilORRED 129
ence whatever to David” (Tucker); while one of the ancient fathers is content with saying, “It would be hard not to apply to Christ a Psalm that as graphically describes his passion as if we were reading it out of the gospels. (Valde durum et contrarium est, ut ille Psalmus non pertineat ad Christum ubi habemus tam apertam passionem ejus tanquam ex Evangelio recitetur.” — Aug). We are content to notice that the tone of the voice of him that speaks is none other than that of the speaker in Psalm vi., as verse 1 in both is sufficient to prove. Nor is it unlike Psalm xxii., as verses 21 and 22 will at once suggest (Psa. xxii. 29). The difficulty in the way of supposing it used by the Lord Jesus, as descriptive of his feelings and state, when he took on our guilt by imputation, is not at all greater than in some passages of Psalms xl. and lxix., which almost no one doubts to be his utterances. There is some light cast on our Lord’s feelings under the imputation of our sins, if we consider verse 5 to be a statement of his abhorrence of the sin he bears: “My wounds stink and are corrupt” — i. e., there is inexpressible loathsomeness in my festering wounds, those wounds which I have been subjected to “because of my foolishness,” viz., the folly imputed to me (as in Psa. lxix. 5), the foolishness, the infatuation and sins of my people. He was weary of wearing that poisoned garment of our sins; he was weary of having our leprosy appearing on his spotless person; he was weary and woe-begone, and longed for the time when he should “appear without sin,” (Heb. ix. 28).
It is thus that we can understand it to have been used by Christ, and yet to be suitable at the same time, though in a different manner, to Christ’s redeemed ones, who feel their personal corruption and guilt. And in either case the title is appropriate, “To bring to remembrance” — just as in Psalm lxx, It speaks of God apparently forgetting the sufferer, so that a cry ascends, equivalent to, “Lord, remember David and all his afflictions.”
What a cry is verse 1, “Lord, rebuke me not,” &c., in the lips of the Head, or of the members. It conveys a foreboding apprehension of another wave of the wrath to come, ready to The CDiitents break over the already bruised soul. “If it be possible, let this cup pass I” What a groan is verse 2, “For thine arrows stick fast in, or, sink into nie” — one of which arrows we saw on the bow in Psalm vii. 1 2 — arrows that drink up the life-blood. What an overwhelming sight verse 4 presents, “Mine iniquities are gone over ray head,” — like the tide rising while he is within tide-mark. What convulsive agony is depicted in verse 6, “1 am racked uith pain, I am bowed down greatly. Day by day do I go in sadness.”
How terrible in their very calmness are verses 9 and TO:
“Lord, all my desire is before thee,
And my groaning is not hid from thee.
My heart panteth, my strength faileth, — The light of mine eyes — even that no longer remains to me;”
for weeping and sorrow have dimmed the eye; a state to which His members have been at times reduced, as when that remarkable disciple in the Highlands of Scotlanc? wept herself blind, through sorrow for sin, after her awakening. And then the gloomy cloud closes round Him, verse 1 1, “Lovers and friends stand aloof, — sympathy there is none. Nor does his gloom soon pass; for verse 17 renews the sad complaint, “/ am ready to halt,” i.e., to fall and be broken, for the keeper of Israel has to appearance forgotten me, and does not “keep my feet from sliding,” (Psa. cxxi. 3).
The deliverance is foreseen in verse 21, “Haste to my help;” to save me from those who are to me like Satan (ver. 20); and the fulness of it at last is implied and wrapt up in “0! Jehovah, my salvation.” If Jehovah is my salvation, then is He to me what he was to Moses at the Red Sea (Exod. xv. 2), and my triumph is sure and full. The Head and his members have a salvation from Jehovah of wondrous extent — beginning in the resurrection of the Head, and to be completed at the resurrection of all the members.
Read, then, in either application, this Psalm describes The Leprosy of sin abhorred by the righteous.