Psalms 38:2
For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.
BSB
ASV
For thine arrows stick fast in me, And thy hand presseth me sore.
KJV
For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
(Verse 2.) And he added: Because your arrows have pierced me. He seems to be saying the same thing as the holy Job; but they are different. For he also says: The arrows of the Lord are in my body, the fury of which drinks my blood: when I begin to speak, they pierce me (Job 6:4). He complains about the wound of his body; here he deplores the wounds of his soul.
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.
For thine arrows stick fast in me. By this he means both bodily and spiritual griefs, but we may suppose, especially the latter, for these are most piercing and stick the fastest. God's law applied by the Spirit to the conviction of the soul of sin, wounds deeply and rankles long; it is an arrow not lightly to be brushed out by careless mirthfulness, or to be extracted by the flattering hand of self righteousness. The Lord knows how to shoot so that his bolts not only strike but stick.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
1 Samuel 5:6Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors.
leads to
Then the Ekronites assembled all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel. It must return to its place, so that it will not kill us…
Reached by 3 independent paths from here.
The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.
then the hand of the LORD will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.
Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and for a time you will be blind and unable to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him,…
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah
Through
Psalms 32:4For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah
leads to
For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.
Through
Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks in their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
leads to
Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.
From my youth I was afflicted and near death. I have borne Your terrors; I am in despair.