For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.
Parallel translations
- WEB For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me.
- KJV For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
- NKJV For Your arrows pierce me deeply, And Your hand presses me down.
- NASB For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me.
- NLT Your arrows have struck deep, and your blows are crushing me.
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 feels God's arrows piercing him and His hand pressing hard. He experiences his suffering as a heavy weight of divine displeasure.
Overview
Using vivid imagery, David describes his affliction as God's arrows sunk into him and God's hand bearing down. He connects his physical and spiritual distress to his sin and God's chastening. This honest acknowledgment of God's heavy hand drives him to repentance and mercy, the very path the gospel opens, for the crushing weight of sin was ultimately laid on Christ (Isaiah 53:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks in their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
- Ps 32:4For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah
- Deut 2:15Indeed, the LORD’s hand was against them, to eliminate them from the camp, until they had all perished.
- Lam 3:12He bent His bow and set me as the target for His arrow.
- 1 Sam 5:6Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors.
- Ps 64:7But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be wounded.
- Ps 39:10–11Remove Your scourge from me; I am perishing by the force of Your hand.
- Ruth 1:13would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”
- 1 Sam 6:9but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
- 1 Sam 5:11Then the Ekronites assembled all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel. It must return to its place, so that it will not kill us and our people!” For a deadly confusion had pervaded the city; the hand of God was heavy upon it.
- Ps 21:12For You will put them to flight when Your bow is trained upon them.
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 38:2 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.