1O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger … 21Do not forsake me, O Lord; O my God, do not be far from me! 22Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
When bad stuff happens, one reaction that people of faith fall into is assuming God is judging them. We humans demand a reason for our suffering or misfortune. We blame others, God, or ourselves. “Why, O God, why is this happening to me?” In this psalm, David seems obsessed with the last of these reactions, leaving him feeling insecure before God.
The question arises whether David is reflecting on sin that he feels God has not forgiven and the resulting consequences, or simply struggling like Job with the unexplained contrary events in his life. David was undoubtedly sensitive to God’s holiness and His law when he had sinned, as we read in Psalm 51 and then Psalm 32. When confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba and against her husband Uriah, God laid on him this terrible judgment:
“Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’ ” Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.” (2 Sam. 12:10–14)
This would certainly fit the tenor of Psalm 38! However, the psalm does not give this specific incident as its historical background. There were other times David sinned and felt the guilty consequences deeply, for example, when he numbered his army (2 Sam 24:1-17). Lest we assign to David a morbidity of self-flagellation due to an oversensitive conscience, we notice that his sensitivity to his failure to live a holy life is centered on his internal, driving motivation: “For I hope in You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God” (Ps. 38:15) and “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” (vs. 22).
Read through this psalm to hear how this godly man digs deep into his soul to confess his remorse. He acknowledges that the Lord, in whom he hopes, is disappointed in him. While he could probably, like us, focus on the injustice of his enemies or the unfairness of his circumstances, David feels deeply in his soul God’s heavy hand of indignation (vs. 3). If we want to understand true confession that God seeks, we look no further than the writings of David—indeed, God has inspired this psalm by including it in holy Scripture! We do no better than reading and meditating on his reflections and considering the depth of our confessions before the Lord.
Lord, thank You for giving me an example of the depth of confession You desire. Help me not to obsess where there is no judgment on me from You, but help me not to treat casually any sin that You find deeply offensive to Your holiness.
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