Psalms 38:5

“My wounds stink, [and] are corrupt, etc.] Meaning his sins, which had wounded him, and for which there is no healing but in a wounded Saviour, and by his stripes we are healed, (<235305>Isaiah 53:5); where the same word is used as here; Christ’s black and blue stripes and wounds, as the word signifies, are the healing of ours, both of sins, and of the effects of them; which, to a sensible sinner, are as nauseous and loathsome as an old wound that is festered and corrupt; because of my foolishness: as all sin arises from foolishness, which is bound in the hearts of men, and from whence it arises, (<410722>Mark 7:22); perhaps the psalmist may have respect to his folly with Bathsheba, which had…”

“The loathsomeness, corruption, and wasting torture of severe physical disease set forth his mental anguish [Psa 38:6]. It is possible some bodily disease was connected. The loins are the seat of strength. His exhaustion left him only the power to groan [Psa 38:9].”

“My wounds stink - The word rendered “wounds” here means properly the swelling or wales produced by stripes. See the notes at Isaiah 1:6; notes at Isaiah 53:5. The meaning here is, that he was under chastisement for his sin; that the stripes or blows on account of it had not only left a mark and produced a swelling, but that the skin itself had been broken, and that the flesh had become corrupt, and the sore offensive. Many expositors regard this as a mere figurative representation of the sorrow produced by the consciousness of sin; and of the loathsome nature of sin, but it seems to me that the whole connection rather requires us to understand it of bodily suffering, or of disease. And are…”

“Foolishness - Sin. Psalms 38:7”

“38:5-8 The severity of God’s punishment brings anguish that affects every part of the psalmist’s being.”

“My wounds: The soul being invisible, its distempers are also so; therefore the sacred writers describe them by the distempers of the body. (See the parallel texts on these verses.) On reading these and similar passages, say Bp. Lowth, some, who were but little acquainted with the genius of Hebrew poetry, have pretended to enquire into the nature of the disease with which the poet was afflicted; not less absurdly, in my opinion, than if they had perplexed themselves to discover in what river he was plunged, when he complains that "the deep waters had gone over his soul." Psa 38:7, Psa 32:3; Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6; Jer 8:22 Psalms 38:6”