Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath] He beginneth and endeth the psalm with petitions, filleth it up with sad complaints; wherein we shall find him groaning, but not grumbling; mourning, but not murmuring, for that is not the guise of God’s people. He beginneth with Eheu Iehova non recuso coargui et castigari. “Correct me, O Lord, but with judgment; not in anger, lest thou bring me to nothing,” Jeremiah 10:24. See Psalms 6:1. [See Trapp on “Ps 6:1”]
Ver. 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me] i.e. Sicknesses of body and troubles of mind, Job 6:4 Ps 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, 1 Samuel 20:36, and he had been forewarned of them by Nathan the prophet, 2 Samuel 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, 1 Peter 5:6, and the weight of it is importable, but that una eademque manus, &c.
Ver. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger] This was the immediate cause of David’s misery, it came from love displeased; and scandalous sins seldom scape better. But, blessed be our Almighty physician, who bringeth health out of sickness, by bringing thereby the body of death into a consumption. Neither is there any rest in my bones] Bis repetit, more lugentium. He saith the same thing twice, as mourners use to do; but with an aggravation of his pain, reaching to his very bones. Because of my sin] This was the remote cause of his present sufferings; and is the true mother of all man’s misery. Now when these two (God’s wrath and man’s sin) meet in the soul, as medicine and sickness in the stomach, there must needs be much unrest till they be vomited up by confession. It is as natural for guilt to breed disquiet as for putrid matter to breed vermin. Let God therefore be justified, and every mouth stopped.
Ver. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head] So that I am even overwhelmed by them, and almost drowned in perdition and destruction. Sicut aquae praevalentes in quibus erat absorptus (Kimchi). The gospel is post naufragium tabula; and assureth us that God hath cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea; and this keepeth the head of a sinking soul above-water. As an heavy burden] How light soever sin seemeth in the committing, it will lie full heavy, even as a talent of lead, Zechariah 5:7, or as a huge mountain, Hebrews 12:1, when once we come to a sight and sense of it, when God’s wrath and man’s sin shall face one another, as the former verse hath it, according to the original. A facie irae tuae. A facie peccati mei. A facie stultitiae meae. From the face of your wrath, from the face of my sin, from the face of my foolishness.
Ver. 5. My wounds stink and are corrupt] What his grief or disease was we read not; some say the leprosy; some take all this allegorically. The word rendered wounds, signifieth stripes, scars, wales, Livores vibices tumices, mattery sores, running ulcers, the effects of the envenomed arrows of the Almighty. Could we but foresee what sin will cost us we durst not but be innocent. That we do not is extreme foolishness, as David here acknowledgeth. Because of my foolishness] In not considering beforehand the heinousness of my sin nor the heaviness of the divine displeasure. The word signifieth unadvised rashness, Proverbs 14:17, and it is probable he meaneth his great sin with Bathsheba, wherein he was miscarried by his lusts to his costs. See Psalms 107:17,18. Because of my foolishness, i.e. Quia non praeveni Nathanem confessione, saith R. Obadiah, because I anticipated not Nathan’s coming, by a voluntary confession of my sin unto the Lord.
Ver. 6. I am troubled (Heb. wryed;) I am bowed down, &c.] Incurvus et prorsus obstipus, atroque vultu squallidus, vix corpus traho, I am a pitiful poor creature, and in a most heavy condition, as appeareth by my gait, my gesture, my looks, and habit. See Psalms 35:14.
Ver. 7. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease] The loins, those scats of lust, are now grievously inflamed and pained with some imposthumated matter or pestilential carbuncle: Morbo vilissimo quem nominare dedecet, saith Aben Ezra. Femora mea prorsus occupat ardens uleus (Vat.). In quibus est concupiscentia (Theodoret). God oft punisheth sin in kind, and speaketh to the conscience in its own language, that such a sickness was the fruit of such a sin. And there is no soundness in my flesh] Principium dulce est, sed finis Amoris amarus, Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet. Sin is as the poison of asps, which first tickles him that is stung, and maketh him laugh; till, by little and little, it gets to the heart and then puts him to intolerable torture.