Big Idea: When our sins and their consequences are misconstrued by our adversaries, God will dispense his discipline without malice.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 38 is an individual lament (esp. 38:2–14) about the psalmist’s sickness that, in his view, has been caused by his sin, which he confesses (38:3–4, 18). Generally this genre includes, according to Westermann, complaints against God, against an enemy, and against the psalmist himself.[1] While a lament need not contain all three, Psalm 38 does: against God (38:2–3), against his enemies (38:11, 12, 19–20), and against himself (38:4–5).

Though not an acrostic, the poem conforms to a twenty-two-verse structure (excluding the title). The influence of the acrostic form of Psalm 37 on the length and structure of this poem is a possibil…