Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 38:2

For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

2. God’s ‘arrows’ are His judgements in general (Psa 7:12: Deu 32:23); here in particular pain and sickness (Job 6:4; Job 16:12-13; Lam 3:12-13). Blow after blow from God’s ‘hand’ (Psa 32:4; Psa 39:10) has lighted upon him. Stick fast and presseth sore are renderings of different voices of the same verb, meaning literally to come down, to light upon.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For thine arrows stick fast in me – See the notes at Job 6:4. The word rendered stick fast – nachath – means properly to go or come down; to descend; and the literal idea here would be, thine arrows come down upon me. It is not so much the idea of their sticking fast when in the wound or flesh; it is that they come down upon one, and pierce him. The meaning is, that he was afflicted as if God had wounded him with arrows – arrows which pierced deep in his flesh. Compare the notes at Psa 45:5. The allusion is to the disease with which he was afflicted.

And thy hand presseth me sore – The same word is used here which in the former part of the verse is rendered stick fast. The idea is, that the hand of God had descended or come down upon him, prostrating his strength, and laying him on a bed of pain.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 38:2

For Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me sore.

Gods arrows

Those arrows commonly are either wicked men or devils, whom God sendeth forth to afflict His own children, sharp as arrows, light and swift as arrows, and ready to do harm to Gods saints; or else sickness, poverty, infamy, and such other afflictions, whereby our most gracious Father thinketh most fit to subdue our vile corruption: all which, albeit in their own nature they are evil, yet God can convert and turn them to the utility and profit of His own children. As a physician can use the most poisionable and venomous herbs to cure the most desperate diseases; yea, the flesh of the dead serpent, to cure the wound gotten by the living serpent: so God can convert and turn the mischievous machinations of our enemies to our salvation. (A. Symson.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 2. Thine arrows stick fast in me] This no doubt, refers to the acute pains which he endured; each appearing to his feeling as if an arrow were shot into his body.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Thine arrows, i.e. thy judgments inflicted upon my outward and inward man, oft compared to arrows, as Deu 32:23; Psa 7:13; 45:5; 91:5.

Presseth me sore; or, comes down upon me; as when a strong man lifts up his hand and weapon, that it may fall down with greater violence, and make the deeper wound.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. arrows . . . and thy handthesharp and heavy afflictions he suffered (De32:23).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For thine arrows stick fast in me,…. Meaning either words with which as a father the Lord rebuked him; and which were sharp and cutting, entered into him and abode with him, and gave him much pain and uneasiness; and by which he concluded that his rebukes were in wrath and hot displeasure; such as those in 2Sa 12:11; so the words of men are compared to arrows, Ps 57:4 or outward afflictions, attended with inward trouble of soul; for as judgments are the arrows of God, such as famine, pestilence, c. Eze 5:16

De 32:21 so the chastening dispensations of Providence, under which the people of God themselves are, are so called, because they oftentimes come swiftly, suddenly, and at unawares, and are very pungent and distressing; and sometimes stick fast and continue long, by reason of which they are inwardly wounded, and conceive of God as sorely displeased with them; see Job 6:4;

and thy hand presseth me sore; the afflicting hand of God, which lay heavy upon him; and is a mighty hand when laid on such worms as mortal sinful men are, who cannot bear up under it, unless they have divine supports; see Job 19:21. This is by some supposed to be some bodily disease inflicted on him; some have thought of the leprosy, which was a stroke from the hand of God; but this is not likely, since he must have been deposed and shut up; the Jews indeed say e that he was a leper six months, and that the divine Presence was taken from him; a late learned man f thinks it was the smallpox, from the unsoundness of his flesh, the soreness of the disease, the stench of it, temporary blindness, and his friends standing aloof from him; though perhaps no other than affliction of mired for sin, comparable to the disease described, is meant.

e In R. Obadiah in loc. f De Laney’s Life of King David, vol. 2. p. 146.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

2. For thy arrows go down in me. He shows that he was constrained by dire necessity to ask an alleviation of his misery; for he was crushed under the weight of the burden which he sustained. This rule is always to be observed in our prayers — to keep God’s promises present to our view. But God has promised that he will chastise his servants, not according to their deserts, but as they are able to bear. This is the reason why the saints so often speak of their own weakness, when they are severely oppressed with affliction. David very properly describes the malady under which he labored, by the terms, the arrows and the hand, or the chastisement of God. Had he not been persuaded that it was God who thus afflicted him, he could never have been brought to seek from him deliverance from his affliction. We know that the great majority of men are blinded under the judgments of God, and imagine that they are entirely the events of chance; and scarcely one in a hundred discerns in them the hand of God. But, in his sickness, as in all his other adversities, David views the hand of God lifted up to punish him for his sins. And certainly, the man who estimates his affliction only by the feeling of pain which it produces, and views it in no other light, differs nothing from the beasts of the field. As every chastisement of God should remind us of his judgment, the true wisdom of the saints, as the prophet declares,

“

to look to the hand of him who smiteth.”— (Isa 9:13)

The pronoun thy is therefore emphatic. David’s words are, as if he had said, I have not to do with a mortal man, who can shoot his arrows with a force only in proportion to his own strength, but I have to do with God, who can discharge the arrows that come from his hand with a force altogether overwhelming.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(2) For thine arrows . . .The same figure is used of the disease from which Job suffered (elephantiasis? Job. 6:4); of famine (Eze. 5:16); and generally of divine judgments (Deu. 32:23). By itself it therefore decides nothing as to the particular cause of the Psalmists grief.

Stick fast.Better, have sunk into, from a root meaning to descend. Presseth, in the next clause, is from the same verb. Translate, therefore,

For thine arrows have fallen deep into me,
And fallen upon me has thine hand.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. Arrows See Job 6:4. The arrows sticking fast, are a proof that they had entered deep into the flesh.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psa 38:2. For thine arrows, &c. For thine arrows are entered deep into me, and thy hand is come down upon me. Mudge.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Let any man read these verses, and then turn to the gospel, and his mind must be led out to remark the striking similarity between what is here said by the spirit of prophecy, and the history of the sorrows and sufferings of Jesus. Reader, turn to some few passages, and then pause over both, in comparing spiritual things with spiritual, and say whether David spake these things of himself, or of some other man? Luk 22:41-44 ; Mar 14:32-34 : then read the Holy Ghost’s own comment of one servant’s writings by another servant’s expounding, and all with an express reference to Jesus, Act 8:32-35 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 38:2 For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

Ver. 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me ] i.e. Sicknesses of body and troubles of mind, Job 6:4 Psa 18:14 . The Jewish doctors say, that he had a leprosy for six months; and that the Divine presence was taken away from him; so that he complained not without uause (R. Obadiah). But these were sagittae salutis, saith Chrysostom; arrows of salvation, love tokens from the Lord, Dens amat quos sagittat (Aug.), not unlike Jonathan’s arrows, 1Sa 20:36 , and he had been forewarned of them by Nathan the prophet, 2Sa 12:9-12 , and so bore them the better. Praevisa iacula minus feriunt, Darts foreseen are in a manner dintless.

And thy hand presseth me sore ] Heb. Thou lettest down thy hand upon me. Now, God’s hand is a mighty hand, 1Pe 5:6 , and the weight of it is importable, but that una eademque manus, &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)