Psalms 32:4

Psa 32:4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

Ver. 4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me] See what God can do when once he taketh a man to do. Day and night he had sinned against God; therefore day and night he suffereth; and glad he may be that he so escapeth, and is not forced to undergo an eternity of extremity. Some think that this psalm and the sixth were made much about a time, when David was recently recovered of some grievous fit of sickness. It may be meant only of his inward terrors, or chiefly, at least; his body suffering by sympathy, as having shared in his sin.

My moisture is turned into the drought of summer] My natural radical moisture, the oil that maintaineth the lamp of life, is dried up and become like a lump of clay; the vigour also and verdure of my soul is quelled and consumed with the fire of thy fierce wrath. God will bring his best people to this if they put him to it; that they shall find it to be the greatest folly in the world to buy the sweetest sin at so dear a rate.

Selah] I speak it feelingly. O quantum tormentum, &c. O aridum et exhaustum me prae maestitia, &c., O my pitiful condition! (Vatablus).

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_32:4

Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.

Premens gravissima

Premes gravissima. Sublevans suavissima et potentissima. So wrote one of our shrewdest commentators about the hand of which the psalmist speaks, in words which may be freely translated, The hand of God, whilst pressing very hard, supports with utmost tenderness and almighty power.

I. creation. How beautifully are the two sides illustrated here. Tim schoolboy can tell us how the atmosphere is weighing upon the slenderest object on the earths surface with a constant pressure of many pounds to each square inch. The hand seen as premeds gravissima. Yet the dewdrop is not shattered, nor the harebell bruised, since the same hand is also sublevans suavissima et potentissima. Again, whilst with irresistible force all things are being dragged towards the earths centre, the insect with its gauzy wings poises itself in the liquid air, and the tiny child is unhindered in his play.

II. providence. Whatever page of history we study the same facts meet us,--on the one hand discipline and chastisement, disappointment, sorrow, pain, loss--the hand in ten thousand ways premens gravissima; on the other, the reaping of a compensating harvest of happy results, the hand sublevans susvissima et potentissima. Hers tribulation and anguish, there prosperity and peace; nations and individuals groaning beneath the weight of calamity, then led out into a wealthy place.

III. redemption. By redemption we mean the great process in all its parts by which the Father of Spirits is recovering man from spiritual ruin. Go back to the Fall. In the stern sentence passed on the first sinners, what do we see but the hand premens? in the primal promise what but the same hand sublevans? And in all that wonderful training, covering so many centuries and conducted in ways so surprising, by which the conscience of man was made alive to the guilt of sin--in all the work done by law--are we not looking at the hand of God as it descends upon the sinner, and makes him groan beneath the intolerable burden, as the psalmist did when his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long, and his moisture was turned into the drought of summer? And does not that hand become more and more visible as sublevans suavissima et poten-tissima, as mercy streams across the midnight sky in an ever-brightening track of blessed light, prophetic of the full glory of the dawn? (T. G. Rose.)

Gods hand

I. all afflictions are Gods hand.

1. They are from Gods hand purposing and ordaining them (Rom_8:29; 1Th_3:3).

2. They are from Gods hand executing them (Isa_45:7; Gen_45:8; Job_1:21; 2Sa_16:11; Hos_6:1).

3. They are from Gods hand ordering and disposing them.

(1) In their causes, circumstances, kinds, manner, measure, and time of their beginning and ending.

(2) In their ends and issues, His own glory, in manifesting His mercy, justice, wisdom, power, etc. The everlasting salvation of His children. He stops them in their course of sin, as with a hedge of thorns (Hos_2:6), that they should not break over into the pleasant pastures of sin, therein to be fatted to the slaughter. He brings them to a true hatred of sin, when they taste the bitter fruit of it. To the exercise of mortification, and desire of heaven and heavenly things: and thus they are judged of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world.

II. God lays his hand heavily often upon his own dear children.

1. There is deep corruption lurking in the best, who not seldom are cast upon so deep a sleep of security that they cannot be wakened with a little shaking, till by most grievous afflictions the Lord break their bones, consume their strength, and bring them into such grief and pain as sets them roaring.

2. Smaller troubles have often a smaller work. Small things cannot make great hearts stoop; a small fire will not purge away dross from gold, but it must be quick and piercing; a small wind doth not fan away the chaff of vanity, a small correction or smart makes the child more froward, till sounder correction subdue him; small trials do not so exercise faith, nor send men out of themselves to God: for as none for the scratch of a pin, or a little headache, will seek to the physician or surgeon; so a sinner in smaller grievances of the soul will scarce think he needs go to God (Job_33:14).

3. The greater the affliction is, the more odious doth sin appear to be unto God; a strong poison must have a strong antidote: the more the godly are stricken down for sin, the more are they stirred up to godly sorrow, to hatred of it, to zeal against it, the better and more watchful do they prevent sin to come, and look better to themselves: as a good physician oftentimes letteth blood, not to make a man sick, but to prevent sickness.

4. The greater the trial is, the better experience have they of themselves.

5. Gods children have great afflictions, and are pressed with an heavy hand, that God Himself may be clearly seen to be their deliverer, when in the eyes of all flesh they are lost.

6. As great afflictions make way for abundant mercy from God to us, so also for abundant thanks from us to God. If one cure a trifling matter, it neither so binds the patient, nor yet commends the physician: but if any be cured of some deadly, and almost incurable disease, then we profess we could never have met with such a physician in all the world again, and we are accordingly thankful.

7. Were it not for great afflictions, we could never know the power of Gods Word in quickening us, cheering and comforting us in them, that it is the Word of Life, is most evidently seen in Death itself.

III. God lays his heavy hand upon his children a long time, and with much continuance.

1. Sometimes Gods children in their falls harden their hearts, and grow stiff in their sin, which was Davids case here, and then the Lord hardeneth Himself to grow stiff in displeasure. Oftentimes Gods children would sit silent, if the Lord would be as silent as they: but whom He loves, He will bring back the way that they are gone, and great hearts will not stoop for a little.

2. Christ hath not taken away the lingering of trials, but the malignity and poison of them; yea, Himself through all His life was a man full of sorrows; and we must not look to be better; He deserved them not, we have.

3. God would have us in the continuance of our trouble, to see the continuance of our sin; were our correction always short, we would not be persuaded of the greatness of our sins: plasters use to continue, and not fall off till the wound be cured.; and if a right use of afflictions were attained once, a joyful issue would soon follow: but some lust is not denied, and that adds a sting unto them.

4. God by the continuance of His hand would hold us in a continual exercise of grace, as of humility, faith, patience, prayer, repentance, etc., it being with a godly man, as one that hath a precious jewel, which he is careful to keep in his hand, so long as he watcheth, none can get it from him; but when he sleeps or slumbers, his hand opens, and it falls out, any man may have it. By continual blowing, the fire is kept in, but it dies by discontinuance. (T. Taylor, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ver. 4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. God's finger can crush uswhat must his hand be, and that pressing heavily and continuously! Under terrors of conscience, men have little rest by night, for the grim thoughts of the day dog them to their chambers and haunt their dreams, or else they lie awake in a cold sweat of dread. God's hand is very helpful when it uplifts, but it is awful when it presses down: better a world on the shoulder, like Atlas, than God's hand on the heart, like David. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. The sap of his soul was dried, and the body through sympathy appeared to be bereft of its needful fluids. The oil was almost gone from the lamp of life, and the flame flickered as though it would soon expire. Unconfessed transgression, like a fierce poison, dried up the fountain of the man's strength and made him like a tree blasted by the lightning, or a plant withered by the scorching heat of a tropical sun. Alas! for a poor soul when it has learned its sin but forgets its Saviour, it goes hard with it indeed. Selah. It was time to change the tune, for the notes are very low in the scale, and with such hard usage, the strings of the harp are out of order: the next verse will surely be set to another key, or will rehearse a more joyful subject.

Ver. 4. Thy hand. A correcting hand, whereby God scourges and buffets his own children. Now the sense of God's power punishing or correcting, is called God's hand, as 1Sa 5:11. The hand of God was sore at Ekron, because of the ark; and a heavy hand in resemblance, because when men smite they lay their hand heavier than ordinary. Hence, we may note three points of doctrine: first, that all afflictions are God's hand; secondly, that God lays his hand heavily often upon his dear children; thirdly, that God often continues his heavy hand night and day on them. Thomas Taylor.

Ver. 4. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Another meaning may be attributed to these words. We may suppose the psalmist to be referring to spiritual drought. Charles H. Bingham, B.A., in "Lectures on the Thirty-second Psalm, "1836.

Ver. 4. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. The summer is from the middle of August to the middle of November. The intensity of the heat is great, and almost intolerable...Up to the beginning or middle of September there are no showers, rain being as scarce in summer as snow...The dry grass of the fields sometimes takes fire, and produces desolating conflagrations, and the parched earth is cleft and broken into chasms. John Eadie, D.D., LL.D., in Biblical Cyclopaedia, 1868.

Ver. 4. The drought of summer. Dr. Russell, in his account of the weather at Aleppo, which very much resembles that of Judea, says that the verdure of the spring fades before the middle of May, and before the end of that month the whole country puts on so parched and barren an aspect that one would scarce think it capable of producing anything, there being but very few plants that have vigour enough to resist the extreme heat. Thomas Harmer's "Observations, "1775.

Ver. 4. The drought of summer. During the twelve years from 1846 to 1859 only two slight showers fell in Jerusalem between the months of May and October. One fell in July, 1858, another in June 1859. Dr. Whitty's "Water Supply of Jerusalem, "quoted in Kitto's Cyclopaedia.

Ver. 4. If God striketh those so sore whom he favoureth, how sharply and sore will he strike them whom he favoureth not. Gregory.

Ver. 4-5. If our offences have been not gnats, but camels, our sorrow must be not a drop, but an ocean. Scarlet sins call for bloody tears; and if Peter sin heinously he must weep bitterly. If, then, thy former life hath been a cord of iniquity, twisted with many threads, a writing full of great blots, a course spotted with various and grievous sins, multiply thy confessions and enlarge thy humiliation; double thy fastings and treble thy prayers; pour out thy tears, and fetch deep sighs; in a word, iterate and aggravate thy acknowledgments, though yet, as the apostle saith in another case, I say in this, "Grieve not as without hope, "that upon thy sincere and suitable repentance divine goodness will forgive thee thy sins. Nathanael Hardy.

Ver. 4. The sorrows of a convinced soul. Daily, nightly, from God, heavy, weakening, destroying.

Ver. 4. (last clause) Spiritual drought.

Psalms 32:5*

Ver. 4-5. See Psalms on "Ps 32:4" for further information.

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. (Psa 32:4) For day and night thy hand weighs upon me; changed is my moisture in (or into) droughts of summer. Selah. The for at the beginning shows the connection of this verse with that before it, as assigning the cause of the decay there mentioned. "My bones waxed old because thy hand," etc.—The future in the first clause cannot, without arbitrary violence, be taken as a preterite. It seems to have been used for the purpose of describ- ing his condition as it seemed to him at the time, when the hand of God not only weighed upon him but seemed likely still to do so. See above, on Ps. xviii. 17 (16). The word translated moisture, i. e. vital juice, analogous to the sap of plants, is so explained from an Arabic analogy; but some think this sense inappropriate in the only other case where the Hebrew word occurs (Num. xi. 8), and infer from Ps. cii. 5 (4), that it is an un- usual expression for the heart. His inward agonies are represented as intense and parching heats.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

32:4 The psalmist attributes his suffering directly to the Lord’s hand of discipline (cp. 38:2; 39:10).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

thy hand--of God, or power in distressing him (Psa 38:2).

moisture--vital juices of the body, the parching heat of which expresses the anguish of the soul. On the other figures, compare Psa 6:2, Psa 6:7; Psa 31:9-11. If composed on the occasion of the fifty-first Psalm, this distress may have been protracted for several months.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. In this verse he explains more fully whence such heavy grief arose; namely, because he felt the hand of God to be sore against him. The greatest of all afflictions is to be so heavily pressed with the hand of God, that the sinner feels he has to do with a Judge whose indignation and severity involve in them many deaths, besides eternal death. David, accordingly, complains that his moisture was dried up, not merely from simply meditating on his sore afflictions, but because he had discovered their cause and spring. The whole strength of men fails when God appears as a Judge and humbles and lays them prostrate by exhibiting the signs of his displeasure. Then is fulfilled the saying of Isaiah,

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.” (Isaiah 40:7)

The Psalmist, moreover, tells us, that it was no common chastisement by which he had been taught truly to fear the divine wrath; for the hand of the Lord ceased not to be heavy upon him both day and night. From a child, indeed, he had been inspired with the fear of God, by the secret influence of the Holy Spirit, and had been taught in true religion and godliness by sound doctrine and instruction. And yet so insufficient was this instruction for his attainment of this wisdom, that he had to be taught again like a new beginner in the very midst of his course. Yea, although he had now been long accustomed to mourn over his sins, he was every day anew reduced to this exercise, which teaches us, how long it is ere men recover themselves when once they have fallen; and also how slow they are to obey until God, from time to time, redouble their stripes, and increase them from day to day. Should any one ask concerning David, whether he had become callous under the stripes which he well knew were inflicted on him by the hand of God, the context furnishes the answer; namely, that he was kept down and fettered by perplexing griefs, and distracted with lingering torments, until he was well subdued and made meek, which is the first sign of seeking a remedy. And this again teaches us, that it is not without cause that the chastisements by which God seems to deal cruelly with us are repeated, and his hand made heavy against us, until our fierce pride, which we know to be un-tameable, unless subdued with the heaviest stripes, is humbled.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(4) Thy hand was heavy.—The verb, as in “kept silence” in Psa_32:3, is properly present—the agony is still vividly present.

My moisture.—The Hebrew word is found only once besides (Num_11:8), where the Authorised Version has “fresh oil;” the LXX. and Vulg., “an oily cake.” Aquila has “of the breast of oil,” reading the word erroneously. Here both LXX. and Vulg. seem to have had a different reading, “I was turned to sorrow while the thorn was fixed in.” Symmachus translates somewhat similarly, but by “to destruction” instead of “to sorrow.” Aquila, “to my spoiling in summer desolation.” These readings, however, mistake the lamed, which is part of the word, for a preposition. Gesenius connects with an Arabic root, to suck, and so gets the meaning juice or moisture.

Into the drought of summer.—This is the best rendering of the Hebrew, though it might be either “as in summer dryness” or “with summer heat.” Some understand literally a fever, but it is better to take it figuratively of the soul-fever which the whole passage describes.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me,.... Meaning the afflicting hand of God, which is not joyous, but grievous, and heavy to be borne; especially without his gracious presence, and the discoveries of his love: this continued night and day, without any intermission; and may design some violent distemper; perhaps a fever; since it follows,

my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. That is, the radical moisture in him was almost dried up, as brooks in the summer season; his body was parched, as it were, with the burning heat of the disease; or with an apprehension of the wrath of God under it, or both: and so he continued until be was brought to a true sense of sin, and an acknowledgment of it, when he had the discoveries of pardoning love, as is expressed in Psa 32:5. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, "I am turned into distress, through a thorn being fixed"; and so Apollinarius paraphrases the words,

"I am become miserable, because thorns are fixed in my skin;''

reading for and which Suidas (o) interprets "sin", that being like the thorn, unfruitful and pricking; see Co2 12:7.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psa 3:2.

(o) In voce

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For day and night - I found no relief even at night. The burden was constant, and was insupportable.

Thy hand was heavy upon me - Thy hand seemed to press me down. It weighed upon me. See Job 13:21; Psa 39:10. It was the remembrance of guilt that troubled him, but that seemed to him to be the hand of God. It was God who brought that guilt to his recollection; and God “kept” the recollection of it before his mind, and on his heart and conscience, so that he could not throw it off.

My moisture - The word used here - לשׁד leshad - means properly “juice” or “sap,” as in a tree; and then, “vital-moisture,” or, as we should say, “life-blood.” Then it comes to denote vigour or strength.

Is turned into the drought of summer - Is, as it were, all dried up. I am - that is, I was at the time referred to - like plants in the heat of summer, in a time of drought, when all moisture of rain or dew is withheld, and when they dry up and wither. Nothing could more strikingly represent the distress of mind under long-continued conviction of sin, when all strength and vigour seem to waste away.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thy hand; thy afflicting hand bringing my sins to remembrance, and filling me with thy terrors for them. My very radical moisture was in a manner dried up, and wasted through excessive fears and sorrows.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. For day and night—Here is the reason of what is stated in Psa_32:3. “Day and night” indicates a long continuance of these sufferings, as also that they were unintermitted.

Drought of summer—In summer the grass upon the hills and fields of Palestine, except in well watered places, becomes sear and dry by the heat, giving an aspect of barrenness, wholly different from the freshness and verdure of March and April.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. David sees now that his sufferings at this time came from God, and were a part of the punishment of his sin. They continued without intermission both by day and by night. His conscience was never wholly at rest. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer; literally, my sap was changed through summer drought; i.e. the vital principle, which had been strong in him, was changed burnt up and exhausted by the heat of God"s wrath.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hand - Thy afflicting hand. My moisture - Was dried up.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

For [both] day and night the fear of Your hand and Your decrees was heavy upon me.

my freshness was transformed Heb. לשדי, my moisture, and so (in Num. 11:8): “the moisture (לשד) of oil,” the moisture of oil. This is how Dunash explained it (p. 14). Menachem (p. 171) associates [it with] an expression of plunder as (above 12:6): “from the plunder (משד) of the poor”; (above 17: 9) “Because of the wicked who have robbed me (שדוני).”

as in the droughts of summer Until it dries up as the drought of summer out of my worry of the heaviness of Your hand, that I was worrying about my sins; therefore...

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.