For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
Parallel translations
- WEB For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
- BSB For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah
- NKJV For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
- NASB For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality failed as with the dry heat of summer. Selah
- NLT Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Interlude
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Day and night God's hand was heavy on David, draining his strength like summer heat. It portrays God's convicting discipline on the unrepentant.
Overview
God's heavy hand represents the conviction and chastening that pressed on David while he refused to confess. This pressure was God's grace, designed to drive him to repentance. The 'Selah' invites pause to consider how God lovingly disturbs our peace to lead us to forgiveness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- 1 Sam 5:11So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.
- Ps 38:2–8For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
- Ps 39:10–11Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
- Job 33:7Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee.
- Ps 22:15My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
- Ps 102:3–4For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
- Ps 90:6–7In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
- Job 16:21O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
- 1 Sam 5:6–7But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.
- Lam 4:8Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
- Lam 5:10Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
- Job 30:30My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
- 1 Sam 6:9And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us.
- 1 Sam 5:9And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 32:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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