My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague; And my kinsmen stand far away.
Parallel translations
- WEB My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away.
- KJV My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.
- BSB My beloved and friends shun my disease, and my kinsmen stand at a distance.
- NKJV My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, And my relatives stand afar off.
- NLT My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance.
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
David's friends and relatives keep their distance in his affliction, leaving him isolated. Suffering can compound loneliness when those nearest withdraw.
Overview
In this penitential psalm, David's sickness and sin have made him an outcast even to those who should support him. The abandonment deepens his sense of being under God's hand. It foreshadows the greater Sufferer, Christ, whom His friends forsook in His hour of trial (Matthew 26:56).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 31:11Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, A fear to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
- Luke 23:49All his acquaintances, and the women who followed with him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
- Job 19:13–17“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
- Luke 10:31–32By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
- Luke 22:54They seized him, and led him away, and brought him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed from a distance.
- Ps 88:18You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.
- John 16:32Behold, the time is coming, yes, and has now come, that you will be scattered, everyone to his own place, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
- Job 6:21–23For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.
- Matt 26:56But all this has happened, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him, and fled.
- Isa 53:4Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
- Isa 53:8He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 38:11 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.