Mazmur 38:3

38:3 My whole body is sick because of your judgment; ¹ 

I am deprived of health because of my sin. ² 

Mazmur 139:15

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ³  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ⁴ 

[38:3]  ¹ tn Heb “there is no soundness in my flesh from before your anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger at the psalmist’s sin.

[38:3]  ² tn Heb “there is no health in my bones from before my sin.”

[139:15]  ³ tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).

[139:15]  ⁴ sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.