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41. Psalm 41

¹ Blessed are those who have regard for the weak;
   the LORD delivers them in times of trouble.
² The LORD protects and preserves them—
   they are counted among the blessed in the land—
   he does not give them over to the desire of their foes.
³ The LORD sustains them on their sickbed
   and restores them from their bed of illness.

    ⁴ I said, “Have mercy on me, LORD;
   heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
⁵ My enemies say of me in malice,
   “When will he die and his name perish?”
⁶ When one of them comes to see me,
   he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander;
   then he goes out and spreads it around.

    ⁷ All my enemies whisper together against me;
   they imagine the worst for me, saying,
⁸ “A vile disease has afflicted him;
   he will never get up from the place where he lies.”
⁹ Even my close friend,
   someone I trusted,
one who shared my bread,
   has turned Hebrew has lifted up his heel against me.

    ¹⁰ But may you have mercy on me, LORD;
   raise me up, that I may repay them.
¹¹ I know that you are pleased with me,
   for my enemy does not triumph over me.
¹² Because of my integrity you uphold me
   and set me in your presence forever.

¹³ Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

4. I have said, O Jehovah! have mercy upon me. By this verse he shows that in his adversity he did not seek to soothe his mind by flattery, as the greater part of men do, who endeavor to assuage their sorrows by some vain consolation. And, certainly, the man who is guided by the Spirit of God will, when warned of God by the afflictions with which he is visited, frankly acknowledge his sins, and quietly submit to the admonitions of his brethren, nay, he will even anticipate them by a voluntary confession. David here lays down a mark by which he distinguishes himself from the reprobate and wicked, when he tells us that he earnestly entreated that his sin might not be laid to his charge, and that he had sought refuge in the mercy of God. He indeed requests that some alleviation might be granted to him under the affliction which he endured: but he rises to a higher source of relief, when he asks that through the forgiveness of his sins he might obtain reconciliation to God. Those, as we have said elsewhere, invert the natural order of things, who seek a remedy only for the outward miseries under which they labor, but all the while neglect the cause of them; acting as a sick man would do who sought only to quench his thirst, but never thought of the fever under which he labors, and which is the chief cause of his trouble. Before David, therefore, speaks at all of the healing of his soul, that is to say, of his life ¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴ “C’est a dire, de sa vie.” — Fr. he first says, Have mercy upon me: and with this we must connect the reason which immediately follows — for I have sinned against thee. In saying so, he confesses that God is justly displeased with him, and that he can only be restored again to his favor by his sins being blotted out. I take the particle כי, ki, in its proper and natural signification, and not adversatively, as some would understand it. He asks then that God would have mercy upon him because he had sinned. From that proceeds the healing of the soul, which he interposes between his prayer and confession, as being the effect of the compassion and mercy of God; for David expects that as soon as he had obtained forgiveness, he would also obtain relief from his affliction.