I am bent and brought low; all day long I go about mourning.
Parallel translations
- WEB I am pained and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.
- KJV I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.
- NKJV I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.
- NASB I am bent over and greatly bowed down; I go in mourning all day long.
- NLT I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief.
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 is bowed down and pained, mourning all day long. His guilt and affliction leave him in constant grief.
Overview
David portrays himself as physically stooped and emotionally crushed, going about in perpetual mourning. The weight of sin and suffering bends him low. This godly sorrow is not despair but the grief that leads to repentance and life (2 Corinthians 7:10), and it finds its comfort only in the God who lifts up the bowed down and forgives in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Job 30:28I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
- Ps 35:14I paced about as for my friend or brother; I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother.
- Ps 42:9I say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I walk in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?”
- Ps 31:10For my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my iniquity has drained my strength, and my bones are wasting away.
- Ps 145:14The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.
- Ps 42:5Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.
- Ps 43:2For You are the God of my refuge. Why have You rejected me? Why must I walk in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?
- Ps 57:6They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it! Selah
- Ps 88:9My eyes grow dim with grief. I call to You daily, O LORD; I spread out my hands to You.
- Ps 6:6I am weary from groaning; all night I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.
- Isa 38:14I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”
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 38:6 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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