to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular
mourning
קֹדֵ֥רko.Der
H6937
to be ashy · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
day
הַ֝יּ֗וֹםhai.Yom
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 30:28 I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
Psalms 35:14 I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.
Psalms 42:9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Psalms 31:10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
Psalms 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his count…
Psalms 43:2 For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Psalms 145:14 The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
Psalms 6:6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 38:1-11
The title of this psalm is very observable; it is a psalm to bring to remembrance; the 70th psalm, which was likewise penned in a day of affliction, is so entitled. It is designed, 1. To bring to his own remembrance. We will suppose it penned when he was sick and in pain, and then it teaches us that times of sickness are times to bring to remembrance, to bring the sin to remembrance, for which God contended with us, to awaken our consciences to deal faithfully and plainly with us, and set our sins in order before us, for our humiliation. In a day of adversity consider. Or we may suppose it penned after his recovery, but designed as a record of the convictions he was under and the workings of…
The loathsomeness, corruption, and wasting torture of severe physical disease set forth his mental anguish [Psa 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 [Psa 38:9].
John Gill on Psalms 38:6
I am troubled,.... Discomposed and perplexed in mind; his thoughts were disturbed and irregular, and in the utmost confusion and distress: this trouble was not only on account of the affliction that was upon him, but chiefly because of his sin; and which was increased by the view he had of the displeasure of God, concluding he was come forth against him in wrath and fury;
I am bowed down greatly; not in his body, at least not in that only, as if he was bowed together by his disorder, that he could not lift himself up; for he is said to walk in the next clause: or rather he bowed down his head as a bulrush voluntarily, and through sorrow and shame could not lift it up before the Lord; though…
Psalm 38:6-10
6. I am bent, I am, bowed down beyond measure: I go mourning [literally black] all the day long, 7. For my reins are filled with burning, [or, inflammation [51] ] and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8. I am very feeble and sore broken: I have roared because of the roaring of my heart. 9. O Lord! [52] thou knowest all my desire, and my groaning is not hid from thee. 10. My heart hath turned round, my strength hath failed me: and as for the light of my eyes, it also is gone from me.
6 I am bent This description clearly shows that this holy man was oppressed with extreme grief, so much so, that it is marvellous how, under such a vast accumulation of miseries, his faith was su…
The Church Fathers
The very best order of beginning every speech and action is to begin from God and to end in God.
Well is it said of this our crookedness, as a type of the human race, through the Psalmist: I am bowed down and humiliated utterly. For having contemplated that man was created for gazing upon the heavenly light, but having been cast out on account of his sins, he carries the darkness of his own mind, does not seek heavenly things, attends to the lowest things, by no means desires celestial things, always turns earthly things over in his mind, and what he grieved concerning his race, he cried out in himself, saying: I am bowed down and humiliated utterly. For losing the contemplation of heavenly things, if man thought only of the necessities of the flesh, he would be bowed down and humiliated, but nevertheless not utterly. Therefore he whom not only necessity casts down from higher thoughts, but also illicit pleasure prostrates, is not only bowed down but utterly bowed down.
"I am troubled, I am bowed down even unto the end" [Psalm 38:6]. Wherefore was he "bowed down"? Because he had been "lifted up." If thou art "humble, thou shalt be exalted;" if thou exaltest thyself, thou shalt be "bowed down;" for God will be at no loss to find a weight wherewith to bow thee down. ...Let him groan on these things; that he may receive the other; let him "call the Sabbath to remembrance," that he may deserve to arrive at it. For that which the Jews used to celebrate was but a sign. Of what thing was it the sign? Of that which he calls to remembrance, who saith, "I am troubled, and am bowed down even unto the end." What is meant by even "unto the end"? Even to death. "I go mourning all the day long." "All day long," that is, "without intermission." By "all the day long," he means, "all my life long." But from what time hath he known it? From the time that he began to "call the Sabbath to remembrance." For so long as he "calls to remembrance" what he no longer possesses, wouldest thou not have him "go mourning"? "All the day long have I gone mourning."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Conviction · OF SIN — OF SIN
Remorse · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 38:2-9) David begins, as in Psa 6:1-10, with the prayer that his punitive affliction may be changed into disciplinary. Bakius correctly paraphrases. Psa 38:2 : Corripe sane per legem, castiga per crucem, millies promerui, negare non possum, sed castiga, quaeso, me ex amore ut pater, non ex furore et fervore ut judex; ne punias justitiae rigore, sed misericordiae dulcore (cf. on Psa 6:2). The negative is to be repeated in Psa 38:2, as in Psa 1:5; Psa 9:19; Psa 75:6. In the description, which give the ground of the cry for pity, נחת, is not the Piel, as in Psa 18:35, but the Niphal of the Kal נחת immediately following (root נח). קצף is anger as a breaking forth, fragor (cf. Hos 10:7, lx…
The severity of God’s punishment brings anguish that affects every part of the psalmist’s being.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 38:6
I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.
I am troubled. I am wearied with distress, writhing with pain, in sore travail on account of sin revealed within me. I am bowed down greatly. I am brought very low, grievously weakened and frightfully depressed. Nothing so pulls a man down from all loftiness as a sense of sin and of divine wrath concerning it. I go mourning all the day long. The mourner's soul sorrow knew no intermission, even when he went about such business as he was able to attend, he went forth like a mourner who goes to the tomb, and his words and manners were like the lamentations of those who follow the corpse. The whole verse may be the more cle…
