Psalm 38
This psalm appears to have been penned by David, under some remarkable distress, attended with a deep sense of sin as the procuring cause of it. Here are, (1.) David's sorrowful complaints of God's sore displeasure, and of the weight of his own sins, ver. 1-5; of the sickness of his body, and distress of his mind, ver. 6-10; of the unkindness of his friends, ver. 11; and of the unprovoked injuries he received from his enemies, who were spiteful, cruel, subtile, unjust, ungrateful, impious, devilish, numerous and powerful, ver. 12, 20. (2.) His remarkable patience and resignation under his troubles, ver. 13-15. (3.) His fervent supplications to God for the mitigation of his troubles, ver. 1; and for comfort and support under, and speedy deliverance from them, ver. 16, 21-22; attended with candid and ingenuous acknowledgment of the sinful causes thereof, ver. 3-5, 18.
In all my troubles, let me search out, and by faith confess and mourn over the sinful causes of them. Let me take every distress as out of God's hand; and call on him in the time thereof, that he may deliver me.
Read or sing this psalm in the Scottish Psalter or the Bay Psalm Book.