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¶Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You.
Psalms 38:9 · New American Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you.
  • KJV Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.
  • BSB O Lord, my every desire is before You; my groaning is not hidden from You.
  • NKJV Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You.
  • NLT You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh.

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 affirms that all his longing is open before the Lord and his groaning is not hidden from Him. God fully sees his distress.

Overview

In the midst of misery David finds hope: God knows his every desire and hears every groan. Nothing of his suffering is concealed from the Lord. This confidence that God sees and hears is the believer's comfort in affliction, grounded in the God who is intimately near, fully revealed in Christ who sympathizes with our weakness (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 8

  • Ps 10:17Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear,
  • Ps 6:6I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.
  • 2 Cor 5:2For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven;
  • Rom 8:26–27In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.
  • Ps 102:5By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.
  • John 1:48Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
  • Rom 8:22–23For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.
  • Ps 102:20to hear the groans of the prisoner; to free those who are condemned to death;

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Psalms videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Psalms 38:9YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on PsalmsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 38:9 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.