Bible Commentary - Psalms 38

This psalm is utterly depressing.

From beginning to end, it has just a single message: things are going really badly, and David is petitioning the LORD to help him.

Throughout our study of the Psalms, I have described some of the common formats, or styles, of the Psalter. This psalm is closest to a prayer psalm, which we learn by focusing on the purpose of the psalm.

A typical prayer psalm has three parts. It begins with a “problem statement”, a declaration of what’s going wrong in the author’s life. In the middle is a petition for deliverance, usually in an imperative tone: “save me, oh God!” In conclusion, prayer psalms generally end with praise in anticipation of God’s response. That is the basic formula, and individual psalms vary from this format on occasion, but they will usually have at least two out of three elements. Psalm 18 is a great example of a prayer psalm in “past tense”, i.e. a scenario where the deliverance has already occurred, and thus the problem statement, prayer for deliverance and God’s response have all happened, and David is telling us retrospectively what God has done in his life, but using the prayer formula.

In the case of Psalm 38, it differs from the typical formula because it has a problem statement and prayer for deliverance, but no corresponding praise in anticipation of God’s response. This is a bit surprising because in most cases David prays with considerable faith that God will respond to his need and bring deliverance.

In the case of this psalm, the omission of the typical “praise section” places more emphasis on David’s troubles. Coupled with the considerable lengthening of David’s “problem statement” and the absence of any description of God’s glory or righteousness, the overall tone of this psalm is very dark.

In this psalm, David highlights three particular problems that he is facing. The first and most obvious is physical suffering, injury or disease. Before going further, I want to emphasize that in some cases physical disease or suffering appears in the bible (and especially the psalms) as a metaphor for emotional suffering, grief or distress. For instance, Psalm 31:9-13 seems like it’s mostly a situational distress and David talks about his “strength failing”, and his “body [growing weak] with grief”. In this case it’s clear that he’s talking about his body suffering as a consequence of emotional pain or distress. Psalm 32:3-4 is a more ambiguous case, where David talks about his “bones wasting away” and his “strength was sapped” due to some otherwise undescribed sin. In this case, it could be either a metaphor or a real description of his physical decline. Like the present case, David viewed his physical suffering as a consequence of sin and probably as a manifestation of God’s wrath.

In the present psalm, David’s physical suffering is interwoven with two other sources of misery (which I have not yet described). It’s somewhat ambiguous whether this is a real suffering or purely metaphorical, but the fact that physical pain is such a recurring theme makes me view it as more likely to be a real thing. Simply put, if it were just a metaphor then I think David would be less persistent about it. In v. 5, David says “my wounds fester”. In v. 7, “my back is filled with searing pain”. In v. 11, “my friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds”. In v. 17, “my pain is ever with me”. As anyone who has experienced chronic pain would know, when enduring chronic pain it is difficult to think about anything else, and for such a religious person as David it would be easy to ascribe such pain as God’s punishment or wrath.

In conclusion, this psalm blends together the topic of physical pain with emotional guilt and sin. In part, the ambiguity between metaphor and real pain is because these two ideas (physical pain and emotional pain) are not clearly distinguished by David. Once again, anyone who has endured considerable emotional pain (such as the death of a loved one or a broken relationship) can attest that the emotional pain can manifest in the physical body, whether as insomnia, loss of appetite and sometimes even physical pain. Perhaps it is appropriate that David does not distinguish them, because suffering of the one kind so often produces suffering of the other.

This leads me to the second source of David’s misery: his pervading sense of guilt and awareness of his own sin. This is what takes an otherwise secular topic and makes it religious. David views both his physical and emotional suffering as the consequence of God’s wrath, itself a consequence of David’s sin. “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.” (v. 18) The suffering that manifests in David’s body has its ultimate origin in David’s soul and broken relationship with God. David says that his “wounds fester and are loathsome” - physical suffering - “because of my sinful folly” - spiritual brokenness (v. 5). This psalm seeks to repair his spiritual condition, that his physical condition may also be restored.

The third and final source of misery is David’s fairweather friends evaporating in the midst of his trial, and the resurgence of his enemies. As he physically weakens, his enemies perceive an opportunity to bring about his downfall, and his erstwhile friends likewise see little advantage in maintaining their loyalty to the weakened king. Sadly, during the time that David needs his friends the most, the time when David has the least to offer them, is the time that he is abandoned as his friends (and enemies) pursue a Darwinian optimization of their own personal interests. This is the time when David’s friends reveal themselves for who they are. When their friendship finally has a price, when there is a cost with no corresponding benefit to oneself, but only to the friend, those friends conclude that they never really cared about David. They were only exploiting the friendship for their own benefit, and as the fortune of David declines, the friends subsequent divorce themselves from him. The fact that David’s enemies would attack him is perhaps not a surprise, but the fact that his friends and neighbors abandon him is sadly revealing.

In the midst of this darkness, David sees hope in his one consistent friend and support, the LORD. “Do not forsake me” (v. 21). This is the prayer for deliverance. David’s problems are many, his physical suffering, opportunistic enemies and friends, and an overwhelming sense of guilt at his “folly” ultimately driving all of his misery. In all of this, David finds a single answer to his problems: it is in the LORD’s presence, that the LORD would “not be far from me”, that David will be forgiven his sin, healed his pain and delivered from his enemies.

As I previously mentioned, this psalm does not have any praise in anticipation of God’s deliverance, perhaps because David is so overwhelmed with pain that he simply cannot see past his current problems. David’s biggest sin and the time of his greatest crisis was immediately after his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah the Hittite. This resulted in the immediate death of his son through Bathsheba (though his later son and heir Solomon comes from the same woman), and the later rebellion of his son Absalom causing David’s temporary exile from power.

However, this psalm does not actually contain any indication of what sin David is talking about. This is a common trend for nearly all of the psalms; I call this “decontextualization” (I talked about this when discussing Psalms 4, 7 and 18). Just as with those psalms, I believe that Psalm 38 is deliberately excluding any mention of David’s actual sin so that it can be more relatable to our own situations. By removing David’s context, the structure of the psalm, the process of grieving, suffering and ultimate healing, can more easily fit with our own lives. Although we will likely never have a man killed so that we can steal his wife and then be overthrown from our kingdom by our own son, and David’s life is especially dramatic in ways that we will never experience, yet we do experience grief and guilt, suffering and redemption in all our own ways. Though David’s situation and life will never match our own, yet the emotions are eerily reminiscent of our own experiences. This is the thread that binds us all together and gives the Psalms such a profound power to speak into modern life in spite of their ancient origins.

In the same way that we can relate to David’s suffering, we can also relate to his solution. God’s presence is the answer. When God is with us, when he is near to us, we can also experience God’s salvation. Our emotional health, sense of wellbeing and contentment will flow from our communion with God’s presence, and no matter what happens, whether we are delivered or continue through trials, we can also say with David that we will “see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Ps. 27:13).