Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Psalms 38:7
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
For my loins are filled with a loathsome [disease], etc.] The word here used has the signification of burning f540; and the Targum renders it, “my loins are filled with burning”; a burning fever was upon him, or there was an inflammation in those parts; a hot burning ulcer, which might be nauseous; and so was true in both senses. Aben Ezra interprets it abominable and vile; something not fit to be mentioned; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech. The word is rendered sometimes “lightly esteemed”; as in (<091823>1 Samuel 18:23); and Jarchi thinks it has this sense here; and the meaning is, that he was vile in his own eyes, and mean in his own esteem. Doubtless the psalmist has reference to something more than a bodily disease; at least not to that only, but to the disease of his soul also, sin, which has the nature of a disease; it is an hereditary one, which is derived from one to another by propagation; it is universal, and reaches to all men, and to all the parts of the body and powers of the soul; it is a complication of disorders: it is in its own nature mortal, and ever incurable but by Christ; and, as here, it is a loathsome one; it is loathsome to God, and to all sensible sinners: and when the psalmist says his loins were filled with it, it may signify that it was an internal disorder that was in him; sin that dwelt in him, a law in his members; and may denote the aboundings of sin in him, the swarms of corruptions that were in him; as also the pain it gave him, and the quick sense he had of it; and [there is] no soundness in my flesh: which is repeated, (see <193803>Psalm 38:3); partly for confirmation’s sake, and partly to show the continued sense of it, as persons under a disorder are continually making mention of it.
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