Psalms 32:3-4

32:3 When I refused to confess my sin, ¹ 

my whole body wasted away, ² 

while I groaned in pain all day long.

32:4 For day and night you tormented me; ³ 

you tried to destroy me ⁴  in the intense heat ⁵  of summer. ⁶  (Selah)

Psalms 38:6

38:6 I am dazed ⁷  and completely humiliated; ⁸ 

all day long I walk around mourning.

Isaiah 53:3-4

53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, ⁹ 

one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;

people hid their faces from him; ¹⁰ 

he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. ¹¹ 

53:4 But he lifted up our illnesses,

he carried our pain; ¹² 

even though we thought he was being punished,

attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. ¹³ 

[32:3]  ¹ tn Heb “when I was silent.”

[32:3]  ² tn Heb “my bones became brittle.” The psalmist pictures himself as aging and growing physically weak. Trying to cover up his sin brought severe physical consequences.

[32:4]  ³ tn Heb “your hand was heavy upon me.”

[32:4]  ⁴ tc Heb “my [?] was turned.” The meaning of the Hebrew term לְשַׁד (lÿshad) is uncertain. A noun לָשָׁד (lashad, “cake”) is attested in Num 11:8, but it would make no sense to understand that word in this context. It is better to emend the form to לְשֻׁדִּי (lÿshuddiy, “to my destruction”) and understand “your hand” as the subject of the verb “was turned.” In this case the text reads, “[your hand] was turned to my destruction.” In Lam 3:3 the author laments that God’s “hand” was “turned” (הָפַךְ, hafakh) against him in a hostile sense.

[32:4]  ⁵ tn The translation assumes that the plural form indicates degree. If one understands the form as a true plural, then one might translate, “in the times of drought.”

[32:4]  ⁶ sn Summer. Perhaps the psalmist suffered during the hot season and perceived the very weather as being an instrument of divine judgment. Another option is that he compares his time of suffering to the uncomfortable and oppressive heat of summer.

[38:6]  ⁷ tn The verb’s precise shade of meaning in this context is not entirely clear. The verb, which literally means “to bend,” may refer to the psalmist’s posture. In Isa 21:3 it seems to mean “be confused, dazed.”

[38:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “I am bowed down to excess.”

[53:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

[53:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

[53:3]  ¹¹ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

[53:4]  ¹² sn Illness and pain stand by metonymy (or perhaps as metaphors) for sin and its effects, as vv. 11-12 make clear.

[53:4]  ¹³ tn The words “for something he had done” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The group now realizes he suffered because of his identification with them, not simply because he was a special target of divine anger.