Image from http://thefrontporch.org/2016/02/a-long-season-of-tears/

Psalm 38

<A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.>
¹ O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.
² For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me.
³ There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.
⁴ For my iniquities have gone over my head; they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.
⁵ My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness;
⁶ I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all day long I go around mourning.
⁷ For my loins are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.
⁸ I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
⁹ O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you.
¹⁰ My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes — it also has gone from me.
¹¹ My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbors stand far off.
¹² Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin, and meditate treachery all day long.
¹³ But I am like the deaf, I do not hear; like the mute, who cannot speak.
¹⁴ Truly, I am like one who does not hear, and in whose mouth is no retort.
¹⁵ But it is for you, O LORD, that I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
¹⁶ For I pray, “Only do not let them rejoice over me, those who boast against me when my foot slips.”
¹⁷ For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me.
¹⁸ I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.
¹⁹ Those who are my foes without cause are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
²⁰ Those who render me evil for good are my adversaries because I follow after good.
²¹ Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, do not be far from me;
²² make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.

This is a song for a broken heart, a broken body or a broken spirit. The psalm cries to the LORD for mercy, for reconciliation and for renewed presence. We never hear in this psalm the sin which the author believes they are suffering from but this sin which is mentioned but never named is the perceived cause of the psalmist’s suffering. Something has come between the singer of these words and the LORD whom they cry out to. Something has, in the poet’s mind, caused God to turn away in anger and indignation. Something they believe has caused God’s disposition to them to change dramatically. They are no longer at peace with God. Their relationship with their creator has been fractured and they stand in the position of helplessness and weakness. They feel the weight of God’s judgment and perhaps their own as well upon them.

 While there is no easy or direct correlation between sin and sickness in the bible, the psalmist’s cries do ponder a connection between their physical, emotional and spiritual health. Sin can cause suffering in body and mind and the feeling of abandonment or shame can manifest in physical and emotional ways. While the psalmist language is probably in some senses metaphorical it doesn’t mean that the language of the psalm doesn’t base itself upon the actual pain that the psalmist feels. As Beth Tanner can say, “The burden of sin burns inside, and the whole body feels the strain (v.7) The insides feel faint, and the spirit is crushed (v.8); even if quiet on the outside the mind roars over the torment in one’s heart (v.8)” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 358) The poet has something they feel intensely that has separated them from the protection and provision of their God, some unspoken sin that is seen by God and makes itself known in their body and spirit. They stand in need of forgiveness and reconciliation which will also begin the healing of their mind and flesh.

The poet’s plight is heightened by the distance and judgment they now feel from their community. Friends and neighbors who one relies upon now stand at a distance. Perhaps they feel like a leper who is cut off from the community for fear of contagion or perhaps, like the friends in Job’s narrative, the neighbors and friend have decided the sickness must be a judgment of God. Friends and neighbors stand aside while enemies perceive an opportunity. The weakness of the psalmist becomes a reason for their increased isolation from the community which they also rely upon. They have no words to answer the whispers they imagine being spoken of them as the lie (actually or metaphorically) prostrate and crushed unable to rise.

Though God may have turned away in indignation, at least in the psalmist’s perception, and they feel that God is just in God’s anger they plead for mercy and restoration. They trust that God will not ultimately forsake them. They have reached the point where they are ready to let go of the sin they conceal in their breast and the burden they have carried. They wait upon the LORD for their strength to be renewed. The psalm ends with the cry for the LORD’s steadfast love to overcome the indignation rightly felt. Where the poet feels distance from God and community they call for God’s return and healing. They call out in urgency for their case is dire. They end with the cry for their salvation and we, with the psalmist, enter their time of waiting for the LORD’s action.