11 My lovers and my friends keep away from my disease; my relations keep far away.
Because of all those who are against me, I have become a word of shame to my neighbours; a cause of shaking the head and a fear to my friends: those who saw me in the street went in flight from me.
And all his friends and the women who came with him from Galilee, were waiting at a distance, watching these things.
He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me. My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds. I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country. At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him. My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.
And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he went by on the other side. And in the same way, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, went by on the other side.
So have you now become to me; you see my sad condition and are in fear. Did I say, Give me something? or, Make a payment for me out of your wealth? Or, Get me out of the power of my hater? or, Give money so that I may be free from the power of the cruel ones?
But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come.
They took away from him help and right, and who gave a thought to his fate? for he was cut off from the land of the living: he came to his death for the sin of my people.
And they made him a prisoner and took him away to the house of the high priest. But Peter went after them at a distance.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Psalms 38
Commentary on Psalms 38 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
PSALM 38
Ps 38:1-22. 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.
1-4. He deprecates deserved punishment, which is described (Ps 6:1), under the figure of bodily disease [Ps 38:3].
2. arrows … and thy hand—the sharp and heavy afflictions he suffered (De 32:23).
4. iniquities—afflictions in punishment of sin (2Sa 16:12; Ps 31:10; 40:12).
gone over mine head—as a flood.
5-8. The loathsomeness, corruption, and wasting torture of severe physical disease set forth his mental anguish [Ps 38:6]. It is possible some bodily disease was connected. The
loins are the seat of strength. His exhaustion left him only the power to groan [Ps 38:9].
9. That God can hear (Ro 8:26).
10. My heart panteth—as if barely surviving.
light … from me—utter exhaustion (Ps 6:7; 13:3).
11, 12. Friends desert, but foes increase in malignity.
12. seek after my life—(1Sa 20:1; 22:23).
13, 14. He patiently submits, uttering no reproaches or replies (Joh 19:9) to their insulting speeches;
15-17. for he is confident the
Lord—literally, "Sovereign" (to whom he was a servant), would answer his prayer (Ps 3:4; 4:1), and not permit their triumph in his partial halting, of which he was in danger.
18. Consciousness of sin makes suffering pungent, and suffering, rightly received, leads to confession.
19, 20. Still, while humbled before God, he is the victim of deadly enemies, full of malice and treachery.
enemies are lively—literally, "of life," who would take my life, that is, deadly.
21, 22. (Compare Ps 22:19; 35:3). All terms of frequent use. In this Psalm the language is generally susceptible of application to Christ as a sufferer, David, as such, typifying Him. This does not require us to apply the confessions of sin, but only the pains or penalties which He bore for us.