For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.
Parallel translations
- KJV For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.
- BSB For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me.
- NKJV For I am ready to fall, And my sorrow is continually before me.
- NASB For I am ready to fall, And my sorrow is continually before me.
- NLT I am on the verge of collapse, facing constant pain.
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 confesses he is on the verge of collapse, his pain never leaving him. He is utterly spent and honest about it.
Overview
The constancy of his suffering presses him to the edge of ruin. He hides nothing of his frailty from God. Such candid lament models how believers may bring unrelenting pain before the Lord rather than concealing it.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Ps 6:6I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.
- Ps 35:15But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.
- Ps 38:6I am pained and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.
- Isa 53:3–5He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
- Mic 4:6–7“In that day,” says Yahweh, “I will assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted;
- Ps 77:2–3In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and didn’t get tired. My soul refused to be comforted.
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 38:17 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.