Psalms 38:17

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹²Those who seek my life lay snares; those who wish me harm speak destruction, plotting deceit all day long. ¹³But like a deaf man, I do not hear; and like a mute man, I do not open my mouth. ¹⁴I am like a man who cannot hear, whose mouth offers no reply. ¹⁵I wait for You, O LORD; You will answer, O Lord my God. ¹⁶For I said, "Let them not gloat over me-those who taunt me when my foot slips." ¹⁷For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me.¹⁸Yes, I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin. ¹⁹Many are my enemies without cause, and many hate me without reason. ²⁰Those who repay my good with evil attack me for pursuing the good. ²¹Do not forsake me, O LORD; be not far from me, O my God.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

to halt: Heb. for halting, Psalms 35:15, *marg. Micah 4:6, Micah 4:7

sorrow: Psalms 38:6, Psalms 6:6, Psalms 77:2, Psalms 77:3, Isaiah 53:3-5

Reciprocal: Genesis 32:31 - he halted Psalms 13:2 - sorrow

Cross-References

Genesis 38:20
Now when Judah sent his friend Hirah the Adullamite with the young goat to collect the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her.

Genesis 38:24
About three months later, Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, and now she is pregnant." "Bring her out!" Judah replied. "Let her be burned to death!"

Genesis 38:25
As she was being brought out, Tamar sent a message to her father-in-law: "I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong." And she added, "Please examine them. Whose seal and cord and staff are these?"

Proverbs 20:16
Take the garment of the one who posts security for a stranger; get collateral if it is for a wayward woman.

Ezekiel 16:33
Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.

Luke 16:8
The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For I [am] ready to halt,.... Meaning either that there was a proneness in him to sin; see Jeremiah 20:10; or that he was subject to affliction and adversity, as the same word is rendered in Psalms 35:15; and the words are either a reason and argument used with the Lord, to hear and keep his foot from slipping, that so his enemies might not rejoice over him, and magnify themselves against him; as they would do should he fall into sin or into any calamity, both which he was liable to: or they are a reason why he was so calm and quiet under the ill usage he met with from friends and enemies, because he was "ready for halting", or "prepared" o for it; he considered that he was born for trouble and adversity; that God had appointed him to it, and it was appointed for him, and therefore he was quiet under it; see Job 5:6; he was prepared to meet it; he expected it, it being the common lot of God's people; and therefore when it came upon him it was no strange thing to him. The Septuagint version, and those that follow that, render the words, "I am ready for scourges"; and Jerom applies them to Christ, who was ready to undergo scourges, sufferings, and death itself, for his people;

and my sorrow [is] continually before me; that is, for his sin, which was ever before him, stared him in the face, lay heavy on his conscience, and appeared very terrible and loathsome to him; his sorrow for it was without intermission, and was a godly sorrow, a sorrow for sin, as committed against a God of love, grace, and mercy: or he may mean, that his affliction, which was grievous to him, was continually upon him night and day: our Lord himself, David's antitype, was a man of sorrows all his days.

o נכון V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For I am ready to halt - Margin, as in Hebrew, “for halting.” The word from which the word used here is derived means properly to lean on one side, and then to halt or limp. The meaning here is, that he was like one who was limping along, and who was ready to fall; that is, in the case here referred to, he felt that his strength was almost gone, and that he was in continual danger of falling into sin, or sinking under his accumulated burdens, and of thus giving occasion for all that his enemies said of him, or occasion for their triumphing over him. Men often have this feeling - that their sorrows are so great that they cannot hope to hold out much longer, and that if God does not interpose they must fall.

And my sorrow is continually before me - That is, my grief or suffering is unintermitted. Probably the reference here is particularly to that which “caused” his grief, or which was the source of his trouble - his sin. The fact that he was a sinner was never absent from his mind; that was the source of all his trouble; that was what so pressed upon him that it was likely to crush him to the dust.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 38:17. For I am ready to halt — Literally, I am prepared to halt. So completely infirm is my soul, that it is impossible for me to take one right step in the way of righteousness, unless strengthened by thee.