For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me.
Parallel translations
- KJV For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
- BSB For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.
- 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 are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
- Ps 32:4For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
- Deut 2:15Moreover Yahweh’s hand was against them, to destroy them from the middle of the camp, until they were consumed.
- Lam 3:12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
- 1 Sam 5:6But Yahweh’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and struck them with tumors, even Ashdod and its borders.
- Ps 64:7But God will shoot at them. They will be suddenly struck down with an arrow.
- Ps 39:10–11Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
- Ruth 1:13would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for Yahweh’s hand has gone out against me.”
- 1 Sam 6:9Behold; if it goes up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has done us this great evil; but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us. It was a chance that happened to us.”
- 1 Sam 5:11They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, “Send the ark of the God of Israel away, and let it go again to its own place, that it not kill us and our people.” For there was a deadly confusion throughout all the city. The hand of God was very heavy there.
- Ps 21:12For you will make them turn their back, when you aim drawn bows at their face.
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.