Text -- Psalms 38:1-3 (NET)

Psalm 38

38:1 A psalm of David, written to get God’s attention. O Lord, do not continue to rebuke me in your anger! Do not continue to punish me in your raging fury! 38:2 For your arrows pierce me, and your hand presses me down. 38:3 My whole body is sick because of your judgment; I am deprived of health because of my sin.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 38:1

¹ sn Psalm 38. The author asks the Lord to deliver him from his enemies. He confesses his sin and recognizes that the crisis he faces is the result of divine discipline. Yet he begs the Lord not to reject him.

² tn The Hebrew text reads simply, “to cause to remember.” The same form, the Hiphil infinitive of זָכַר (zakhar, “remember”), also appears in the heading of Ps 70. Some understand this in the sense of “for the memorial offering,” but it may carry the idea of bringing one’s plight to God’s attention (see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 303).

³ tn The words “continue to” are supplied in the translation of both lines. The following verses make it clear that the psalmist is already experiencing divine rebuke/punishment. He asks that it might cease.

sn Compare Ps 38:1 with Ps 6:1, which has similar wording.

NET Notes: Psa 38:2

¹ tn The verb Hebrew נָחַת (nakhat) apparently here means “penetrate, pierce” (note the use of the Qal in Prov 17:10). The psalmist pictures the Lord as a warrior who shoots arrows at him (see Ps 7:12-13).

² tn Heb “and your hand [?] upon me.” The meaning of the verb נָחַת (nakhat) is unclear in this context. It is preferable to emend the form to וַתָּנַח (vattanakh) from the verb נוּחַ (nuakh, “rest”). In this case the text would read literally, “and your hand rests upon me” (see Isa 25:10, though the phrase is used in a positive sense there, unlike Ps 38:2).

NET Notes: Psa 38:3

¹ tn Heb “there is no soundness in my flesh from before your anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger at the psalmist’s sin.

² tn Heb “there is no health in my bones from before my sin.”