Psalm 32:4

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) Thy hand was heavy.—The verb, as in “kept silence” in Psalm 32:3, is properly present—the agony is still vividly present.

My moisture.—The Hebrew word is found only once besides (Numbers 11:8), where the Authorised Version has “fresh oil;” the LXX. and Vulg., “an oily cake.” Aquila has “of the breast of oil,” reading the word erroneously. Here both LXX. and Vulg. seem to have had a different reading, “I was turned to sorrow while the thorn was fixed in.” Symmachus translates somewhat similarly, but by “to destruction” instead of “to sorrow.” Aquila, “to my spoiling in summer desolation.” These readings, however, mistake the lamed, which is part of the word, for a preposition. Gesenius connects with an Arabic root, to suck, and so gets the meaning juice or moisture.

Into the drought of summer.—This is the best rendering of the Hebrew, though it might be either “as in summer dryness” or “with summer heat.” Some understand literally a fever, but it is better to take it figuratively of the soul-fever which the whole passage describes.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:3-7 It is very difficult to bring sinful man humbly to accept free mercy, with a full confession of his sins and self-condemnation. But the true and only way to peace of conscience, is, to confess our sins, that they may be forgiven; to declare them that we may be justified. Although repentance and confession do not merit the pardon of transgression, they are needful to the real enjoyment of forgiving mercy. And what tongue can tell the happiness of that hour, when the soul, oppressed by sin, is enabled freely to pour forth its sorrows before God, and to take hold of his covenanted mercy in Christ Jesus! Those that would speed in prayer, must seek the Lord, when, by his providence, he calls them to seek him, and, by his Spirit, stirs them up to seek him. In a time of finding, when the heart is softened with grief, and burdened with guilt; when all human refuge fails; when no rest can be found to the troubled mind, then it is that God applies the healing balm by his Spirit.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For day and night - I found no relief even at night. The burden was constant, and was insupportable.

Thy hand was heavy upon me - Thy hand seemed to press me down. It weighed upon me. See Job 13:21; Psalm 39:10. It was the remembrance of guilt that troubled him, but that seemed to him to be the hand of God. It was God who brought that guilt to his recollection; and God "kept" the recollection of it before his mind, and on his heart and conscience, so that he could not throw it off.

My moisture - The word used here - לשׁד leshad - means properly "juice" or "sap," as in a tree; and then, "vital-moisture," or, as we should say, "life-blood." Then it comes to denote vigour or strength.

Is turned into the drought of summer - Is, as it were, all dried up. I am - that is, I was at the time referred to - like plants in the heat of summer, in a time of drought, when all moisture of rain or dew is withheld, and when they dry up and wither. Nothing could more strikingly represent the distress of mind under long-continued conviction of sin, when all strength and vigour seem to waste away.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. thy hand—of God, or power in distressing him (Ps 38:2).

moisture—vital juices of the body, the parching heat of which expresses the anguish of the soul. On the other figures, compare Ps 6:2, 7; 31:9-11. If composed on the occasion of the [582]fifty-first Psalm, this distress may have been protracted for several months.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thy hand; thy afflicting hand bringing my sins to remembrance, and filling me with thy terrors for them. My very radical moisture was in a manner dried up, and wasted through excessive fears and sorrows.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me,.... Meaning the afflicting hand of God, which is not joyous, but grievous, and heavy to be borne; especially without his gracious presence, and the discoveries of his love: this continued night and day, without any intermission; and may design some violent distemper; perhaps a fever; since it follows,

my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. That is, the radical moisture in him was almost dried up, as brooks in the summer season; his body was parched, as it were, with the burning heat of the disease; or with an apprehension of the wrath of God under it, or both: and so he continued until be was brought to a true sense of sin, and an acknowledgment of it, when he had the discoveries of pardoning love, as is expressed in Psalm 32:5. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, "I am turned into distress, through a thorn being fixed"; and so Apollinarius paraphrases the words,

"I am become miserable, because thorns are fixed in my skin;''

reading for and which Suidas (o) interprets "sin", that being like the thorn, unfruitful and pricking; see 2 Corinthians 12:7.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psalm 3:2.

(o) In voce

Geneva Study Bible

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. David sees now that his sufferings at this time came from God, and were a part of the punishment of his sin. They continued without intermission both by day and by night. His conscience was never wholly at rest. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer; literally, my sap was changed through summer drought; i.e. the vital principle, which had been strong in him, was changed - burnt up and exhausted - by the heat of God's wrath. Psalm 32:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

For, as his own experience has taught the poet, he who does not in confession pour out all his corruption before God, only tortures himself until he unburdens himself of his secret curse. Since Psalm 32:3 by itself cannot be regarded as the reason for the proposition just laid down, כּי signifies either "because, quod" (e.g., Proverbs 22:22) or "when, quum" (Judges 16:16; Hosea 11:10. The שׁאגה was an outburst of the tortures which his accusing conscience prepared for him. The more he strove against confessing, the louder did conscience speak; and while it was not in his power to silence this inward voice, in which the wrath of God found utterance, he cried the whole day, viz., for help; but while his heart was still unbroken, he cried yet received no answer. He cried all day long, for God's punishing right hand (Psalm 38:3; Psalm 39:11) lay heavey upon him day and night; the feeling of divine wrath left him no rest, cf. Job 33:14. A fire burned within him which threatened completely to devour him. The expression is בּחרבני (like בעשׂן in Psalm 37:20; Psalm 102:4), without כ, inasmuch as the fears which burn fiercely within him even to his heart and, as it were, scorch him up, he directly calls the droughts of summer. The בּ is the Beth of the state or condition, in connection with which the change, i.e., degeneration (Job 20:14), took place; for mutare in aliquid is expressed by הפך ל. The ל (which Saadia and others have mistaken) in לשׁדּי is part of the root; לשׁד (from לשׁד, Arab. lsd, to suck), inflected after the analogy of גּמל and the like, signifies succus. In the summer-heat of anxiety his vital moisture underwent a change: it burned and dried up. Here the music becomes louder and does its part in depicting these torments of the awakened conscience in connection with a heart that still remains unbroken. In spite of this διάψαλμα, however, the historical connection still retains sufficient influence to give אודיעך the force of the imperfect (cf. Psalm 30:9): "I made known my sin and my guilt did I not cover up (כּסּה used here as in Proverbs 27:13; Job 31:33); I made the resolve: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord (הודה equals חתודּה, Nehemiah 1:6; Nehemiah 9:2; elsewhere construed with the accusative, vid., Proverbs 28:13) - then Thou forgavest," etc. Hupfeld is inclined to place אמרתי before חטאתי אודיעך, by which אודיעך and אודה would become futures; but ועוני לא כסיתי sounds like an assertion of a fact, not the statement of an intention, and ואתה נשׂאת is the natural continuation of the אמרתי which immediately precedes. The form ואתה נשׂאת is designedly used instead of ותּשּׂא. Simultaneously with his confession of sin, made fide supplice, came also the absolution: then Thou forgavest the guilt (עון, misdeed, as a deed and also as a matter of fact, i.e., guilt contracted, and penance or punishment, cf. Lamentations 4:6; Zechariah 14:19) of my sin. Vox nondum est in ore, says Augustine, et vulnus sanatur in corde. The סלה here is the antithesis of the former one. There we have a shrill lament over the sinner who tortures himself in vain, here the clear tones of joy at the blessed experience of one who pours forth his soul to God - a musical Yea and Amen to the great truth of justifying grace.