Psalms 73:14

Psa 73:14 For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.

Ver. 14. For all the day long have I been plagued] God’s best-beloved are most afflicted, neither have any out of hell ever suffered more than the heirs of heaven. See my treatise called God’s Love tokens.

And chastened every morning] Singulis matufinis, I am no sooner awake than some new misery seizeth me, quasi egisset excubias, as if it had laid wait for me.

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 73:14. And I hare been smitten all the day, and my chastisement (has been inflicted) every morning, literally at (or in) the mornings. A similar form of expression occurs twice in Job 7:18. Smitten, literally touched, i.e. by the hand of God, a common expression for affliction, and especially for bodily disease considered as a divine judgment. The same idea was meant to be conveyed by the common version (plagued.) The psalmist here contrasts his own afflictions with the undisturbed enjoyments of his wicked neighbours. "While they, though wicked, still increase in wealth and seem secure for ever, I, who have faithfully endeavoured to avoid sin and to do the will of God, am subjected every day, and all day, to privation and distress."

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

Verse 14. For all the day long have I been plagued] Far from enjoying worldly prosperity, we are not only poor, but we are afflicted also; and every succeeding day brings with it some new trouble.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. For &c.] Apparently the recompence of his piety has been continual chastisement. The wicked are not plagued (Psa_73:5), but for him there has been constant renewal of divinely inflicted sufferings. Cp. Psa_39:10-11; Job_7:18.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For all the day long have I been plagued,.... "Smitten or scourged" (p), as in Psa 73:5, that is, afflicted of God; which is no ways inconsistent with his love, nor with his covenant, nor with an interest in him, as a covenant God and Father; see Psa 89:29,

and chastened every morning; not in wrath, but in love, and for good; not with the chastisement of a cruel one, but of a loving and tender father; and therefore not to be improved in such a manner, as if on this account there was nothing in religion; whereas the daily notices the Lord takes of his people this way show his regard unto them, and care of them.

(p) "flagellatus", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "percussus", Gejerus.

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

For all the day long - Continually. All my life.

Have I been plagued - Smitten; afflicted; troubled. My life has been a life of trial. I have not known prosperity.

And chastened every morning - Margin, as in Hebrew, “My chastisement was.” That is, my sufferings - my trials - have been repeated with every returning morning. Each new day has brought some new form of affliction, designed to rebuke and punish me. I never have found exemption from trial even for a single day. So different is my lot from the lot of wicked people, who know nothing of this, and who are always prospered and happy. See the notes at Job 7:18.

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

Whilst their ungodliness hath been attended with constant prosperity, my piety hath been exercised with continual afflictions.

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

Ver. 14. For all the day long have I been plagued. He was smitten from the moment he woke to the time he went to bed. His griefs were not only continued, but renewed with every opening day. And chastened every morning. This was a vivid contrast to the lot of the ungodly. There were crowns for the reprobates and crosses for the elect. Strange that the saints should sigh and the sinners sing. Rest was given to the disturbers, and yet peace was denied to the peace makers. The downcast seer was in a muse and a maze. The affairs of mankind appeared to him to be in a fearful tangle; how could it be permitted by a just ruler that things should be so turned upside down, and the whole course of justice dislocated.

Ver. 14. All the day long have I been plagued, etc. Sickly tempers must have a medicinal diet: to be purged both at spring and fall will scarce secure some from the malignity of their distempers. The Lord knows our frame, and sees what is usually needful for every temper; and when he afflicts most frequently, he does no more than he sees requisite. David Clarkson.

Ver. 14. If a man be watchful over his own ways, and the dealings of God with him, there is seldom a day but he may find some rod of affliction upon him; but, as through want of care and watchfulness, we lose the sight of many mercies, so we do of many afflictions. Though God doth not every day bring a man to his bed, and break his bones, yet we seldom, if at all, pass a day without some rebuke and chastening. I have been chastened every morning, saith the psalmist... As sure, or as soon, as I rise I have a whipping, and my breakfast is bread of sorrow and the water of adversity... Our lives are full of afflictions; and it is as great as part of a Christian's skill to know afflictions as to know mercies; to know when God smites, as to know when he girds us; and it is our sin to overlook afflictions as well as to overlook mercies. Joseph Caryl.

Ver. 14. The way to heaven is an afflicted way, a perplexed, persecuted way, crushed close together with crosses, as was the Israelites way in the wilderness, or that of Jonathan and his armour bearer, that had a sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on the other. And, whilst they crept upon all four, flinty stones were under them, briars and thorns on either hand of them; mountains, crags, and promontories over them; sic potitur caelum, so heaven is caught by pains, by patience, by violence, affliction being our inseparable companion. "The cross way is the highway to heaven, "said that martyr (Bradford); and another, "If there be any way to heaven on horseback, it is by the cross." Queen Elizabeth is said to have swum to the crown through a sea of sorrows. They that will to heaven, must sail by hell gates; they that will have knighthood, must kneel for it; and they that will get in at the strait gate, must crowd for it. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, "saith our Saviour; strive and strain, even to an agony, as the word signifieth. Heaven is compared to a hill; hell to a hole. To hell a man may go without a staff, as we say; the way thereto is easy, steep, strawed with roses; it is but a yielding to Satan, a passing from sin to sin, from evil purposes to evil practices, from practice to custom, etc. Sed revocure gradum, but to turn short again, and make straight steps to our feet, that we may force through the strait gate, hic labor, hoc opus est, opus non pulvinaris sed pulveris; this is a work of great pains, a duty of no small difficulty. John Trapp.

Ver. 14. The frequent and even constant chastisement of the righteous; the necessity and design thereof; and the consolations connected therewith.

Psalms 73:15*

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

14. Have I been plagued—I who have endeavoured after innocency and righteousness, (Psa_73:13,) while the wicked “are not plagued like other men,” Psa_73:5, which see on the word “plagued.”

And chastened every morning— “Chastened” must be taken in the sense of rebuked, censured, for so it appeared to him, as Psa_39:11; Pro_3:11. “Every morning” is put for every day, daily. This apparent smiting and rebuking the righteous every day, while the wicked live in affluence and ease, is the complaint of the Church only in times of special and prolonged persecution and oppression, such as the nation was now suffering. See introduction.

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

For all the day long have been plagued. While the ungodly have prospered, and net been plagued at all (ver. 5), I, the representative of the righteous, have been "plagued," or afflicted, continually. What, then, does goodness advantage me? And chastened every morning; literally, and my chastisement has been every morning. (comp. Job_7:18)

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

and my chastisement appears all day; constantly, from morning to morning, new troubles are renewed.

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.