Psalm 38:1-3

New Catholic Bible

Footnotes

1. Psalm 38:1 The psalmist of this third Penitential Psalm (seven in all: Pss 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143) is a man prostrated beneath the weight of his sickness and the vilification heaped on him by others, a man marked by the chastisement of God. He utters a suppliant and monotone plaint that seems as interminable as his suffering. Before God, he is pitiable, abandoned, and betrayed. This new Job (Job 6:4; 19:13-21) does not rebel. He thinks of himself as a sinner who deserves his lot and he suffers in silence, leveling neither recriminations nor imprecations against his adversaries. Indeed, hope stirs secretly in him.
   The complete abandonment to God that is expressed here is also found in the third Lamentation (Lam 3:26-29) and in the Songs of the Servant of the Lord (see Isa 53:7). The Christian Liturgy sees in this man of sorrows an image of the Christ who was silent during his Passion.
   In praying this psalm, we should look to ourselves, scrutinizing our lives and our consciences with a penetrating and impartial honesty, the better to discern the place of sin therein and the better to realize that we are and remain sinners (see Rom 7:14-20; 1 Jn 1:8f). This will in no way prevent us from begging God not to chastise us in his wrath but to save us as soon as possible from our afflictions and our foes.
2. Psalm 38:1 For remembrance: the meaning is “For the memorial sacrifice” or “portion” (see Lev 2:2, 9, 16; 5:12; Isa 66:3); it occurs elsewhere only in Ps 70; an alternative translation is: “A petition.”
3. Psalm 38:3 Arrows: i.e., the trials God has sent him (see Deut 32:23; Job 6:4; 34:6; Lam 3:12; Ezek 5:16).