Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.
10. grief ] R.V. sorrow, as in Psa 13:2; Jer 8:18.
sighing ] Or, groaning, as in Psa 6:6.
my strength &c.] My strength totters because of mine Iniquity, and my bones are wasted away. There was then some sin which called for chastisement, or required the discipline of suffering. But the LXX, Syr., and Symmachus read affliction instead of iniquity. With the last clause cp. Psa 6:2 ( note); Psa 32:3.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For my life is spent with grief – The word here rendered spent does not mean merely passed, as it is commonly now used, as when we say we spent our time at such a place, or in such a manner, but in the more proper meaning of the word, as denoting consumed, wasted away, or destroyed. See the word kalah as used in Jer 16:4; Lam 2:11; Psa 84:2 (Heb. 3); Psa 143:7; Psa 69:3 Heb. 4; Job 11:20.
And my years with sighing – That is, my years are wasted or consumed with sighing. Instead of being devoted to active toil and to useful effort, they are exhausted or wasted away with a grief which wholly occupies and preys upon me.
My strength faileth because of mine iniquity – Because of the trouble that has come upon me for my sin. He regarded all this trouble – from whatever quarter it came, whether directly from the hand of God, or from man – as the fruit of sin. Whether he refers to any particular sin as the cause of this trouble, or to the sin of his nature as the source of all evil, it is impossible now to determine. Since, however, no particular sin is specified, it seems most probable that the reference is to the sin of his heart – to his corrupt nature. It is common, and it is not improper, when we are afflicted, to regard all our trials as fruits of sin; as coming upon us as the result of the fall, and as an evidence that we are depraved. It is certain that there is no suffering in heaven, and that there never would be any in a perfectly holy world. It is equally certain that all the woes of earth are the consequence of mans apostasy; and it is proper, therefore, when we are afflicted, even though we cannot trace the affliction to any particular offence, to trace it all to the existence of evil, and to regard it as among the proofs of the divine displeasure against sin.
And my bones are consumed – That is, are decayed, worn out, or wasted away. Even the solid framework of my body gives way under excessive grief, and all my strength is gone. See Psa 32:3; Psa 102:3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 31:10
My strength faileth because of mine iniquity.
–(Neh 8:10).
Moral weakness and strength
These two passages tell of the source of both. The psalmist tells us that his iniquity was the cause of his strength failing. Nehemiah, that an excess even of penitential feeling will be injurious. One would have thought that there would have been no danger of such a feeling being in excess, yet, though their sorrow was the holy and healing sorrow of penitence, the prophet urges them to check it, and instead of looking at their transgressions, to look rather to the merciful and bountiful grace of God. It is morbid and conceited to magnify our sin against Gods mercy; to brood over it and refuse to be comforted; while it is a generous and pious thing to magnify Gods mercy against our sin; to say, Although my sin be great, yet Gods forgiving grace is greater still. We are all prone to think and say we have not repented enough. But we forget that sorrow for sin is not the end but only a means, leading us to forsake sin. As soon, therefore, as our sorrow produces this effect, it has accomplished its end, and should no longer be dwelt upon. There is manifestly a point beyond which sorrow, even for sin, is neither a practical nor a beneficial thing. That cannot be a godly sorrow which rises up as a thick black cloud before Gods pardoning mercy. That only is a godly sorrow which leads us to God. If a man So cherish sorrow for sin as to engender in his heart the feeling that his sin cannot be forgiven, then his very sorrow for sin itself becomes a sinful thing; for it misrepresents and mistrusts God. It might be a heathen mans sorrow, who had never heard of Christs salvation, but it should never be the sorrow of the Christian hearer, before whom that salvation is set every day. And then, in a parenthesis, and with a glimpse of profound spiritual philosophy, the prophet adds as a reason for this urgency–For the joy of the Lord is your strength. There is no strength save in a joyous heart. Sorrow may lead to strength, just as dislocation may lead to order. A wrong state of things may have painfully to be set right. Old things may have to be swept away, before new and better things can come; but dislocation itself is not strength, but weakness. So sorrow for sin is in itself weakness; it is the heart emptying itself, and bemoaning itself, it is a looseness of the joints, a melting of the marrow. It is not a building up, but a pulling down. Only a joyous, confident, satisfied heart can be a strong one–a heart assured of itself, and assured of Gods favour and helping. This is the essential means and condition of spiritual strength. God gives us strength, but not by doing things for us which we can do for ourselves. He helps us as a physician helps a patient–not by proffering us an arm to lean upon, but by infusing new life and strength into our souls–by making His strength perfect in our weakness. Iniquity makes a mans strength fail, he is strong just in proportion as he is holy. The strenuous urgencies of Scripture that we should rejoice in the Lord always; the solicitous provision for our rejoicing that God has made; nay, the very character of Christian salvation and privilege make it imperative upon every one of us to cultivate to the utmost that joy of the Lord which is our strength. Only sin and unspiritualness hinder joy, and so disparage religion, and keep the young and joyous from embracing it. The redemption of the world lingers, and the millennium is kept back because the church is too austere. Its energies are weak, because it has not a rejoicing impulse. Did we walk closely with God, and realize the blessedness of communion with Him, our joy would be full. (R. Allen.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. My life is spent with grief] My life is a life of suffering and distress, and by grief my days are shortened. Grief disturbs the functions of life, prevents the due concoction of food, injures the digestive organs, destroys appetite, impairs the nervous system, relaxes the muscles, induces morbid action in the animal economy, and hastens death. These effects are well expressed in the verse itself.
My years with sighing] anachah. This is a mere natural expression of grief; the very sounds which proceed from a distressed mind; an-ach-ah! common, with little variation, to all nations, and nearly the same in all languages. The och-och-on of the Irish is precisely the same sound, and the same sense. Thousands of beauties or this kind are to be found in the sacred language.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
My life, i.e. the time of my life, as the next clause explains it.
Because of mine iniquity; either through my deep and just sense of my sins, which have provoked God to afflict me in this manner; or for the punishment of mine iniquity, as this word is frequently used.
My bones, in which my chief strength lies.
Are consumed; the juice and marrow of them being almost dried up with excessive grief.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Though the effects ascribedto grief are not mere figures of speech
spent . . . consumedmustbe taken in the modified sense of wasted and decayed.
iniquityor, sufferingby it (see on Ps 40:12).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing,…. Which shows the continuance of his troubles, and that his whole life had been, as it were, an uninterrupted series of sorrows;
my strength faileth because of mine iniquity; this opens the source and spring of all his grief and trouble; his sin, and the sin of his nature, in which he was conceived and born; indwelling sin, which remained and worked in him; and it may be also the sin of unbelief, which beset him, and prevailed in him, notwithstanding the instances of divine goodness, the declarations of grace, the discoveries of love, and the exceeding great and precious promises he had made to him; as also his daily sins and infirmities, and very likely some great backslidings, which had brought grief of soul upon aim, and which grief affected the several parts of his body. Sin was the cause of the failure of natural strength in Adam and his posterity; of diseases and death, by which their strength is weakened in the way; and was the cause of impairing moral strength in men to do that which is good, and has a very great influence on the spiritual strength of the Lord’s people, in the exercise of grace;
and my bones are consumed; which are the firmest and strongest parts of the human body, and the support of it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(10) Iniquity.Gesenius and Ewald understand, the suffering that follows on sin rather than the iniquity itself, a meaning that certainly seems to suit the context better. The LXX. and Vulg. have poverty.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. Grief sighing See on Psa 31:9.
Because of mine iniquity This last word should here take its radical sense of to bend, to writhe, as in pain, ( ,) and be rendered trouble, calamity: “My strength has stumbled with my calamity.” See Isa 21:3: “I was bowed down.”
My bones are consumed The “bones” are mentioned as the seat of strength, the foundation of the physical system. Psa 38:3; Psa 102:3
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 31:10. My strength faileth, &c. My strength faulters by reason of my affliction. Mudge and Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 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.
Ver. 10. For my life is spent with grief, &c. ] Which threateneth the thread of life, and soon snappeth it in sunder, 2Co 7:10 . See Pro 17:22 ; Pro 17:25 . See Trapp on “ Pro 17:22 “ See Trapp on “ Pro 17:25 “
My strength faileth
Because of mine iniquity
And my bones are consumed
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
iniquity. Hebrew. ‘avah. App-44. But Septuagint and Syriac read “humiliation”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
my life: Psa 78:33, Psa 88:15, Psa 102:3-28, Job 3:24, Rom 9:2
strength: Psa 71:9
bones: Psa 32:3, Psa 32:4, Psa 102:3-5
Reciprocal: Job 17:7 – Mine eye Psa 6:3 – My Psa 6:7 – Mine Psa 38:6 – mourning Lam 1:13 – above Lam 3:4 – My flesh