Ps. 38 (sickness: cause and purpose)

‘My flesh / has no soundness / because of your indignation – and my bones / have no health / because of my sin.’ In light of previous observations regarding whether Yhwh is ‘causing’ this sickness, this verse is a perfect encapsulation of how difficult it is to isolate such a ‘cause’. Here, we find the familiar use of parallelism we have seen so much of before. The first line describes an event or situation; the second line states the same thing but in a slightly different way thereby adding depth (either emotionally or developmentally). With that in mind, though, what we find here is something very interesting: the first line attributes the lack of ‘soundness’ in his flesh to Yhwh’s indignation; the second line parallels the first but now it is because “of my sin”. I don’t think there is an ‘answer’ by the fact that the first line concerns the ‘flesh’ whereas the second concerns the ‘bones’. Rather, what we find here is that for the psalmist, these two lines are saying the same thing. Furthermore, it is precisely in this verse that the transition is made from ‘your’ (wrath/anger/arrows/hand/indignation) to ‘my’ (sin/wicked deeds/weighty/wounds/folly). There is, I think, a temptation to rationalize this combination and to attempt to dissect it in its separate parts. The problem with that approach is that, for the psalmist, this line is not talking about two discreet realities (one, Yhwh; the other, sin). Rather, for him, it is just as accurate to say his ‘sin’ is causing his sickness as it is to say Yhwh is. An inherent difficulty in this is that, almost by necessity, Yhwh comes to be seen as the only ‘agent’ and everything is subsumed under him (meaning, one either says that Yhwh ‘caused’ the sickness or, he did nothing to prevent it). Stating it thus looses what the psalmist is attempting to show: that one must be able to attribute this sickness to the power of sin just as equally as to the power of Yhwh. Of course, these are not competing forces: they are both agents of working to a common aim. With all of this said, however, there are important ways in which we can come to see differences in the two. The psalm opens with describing Yhwh’s action as “rebuke” and “discipline”. All of the following actions by Yhwh are then mirrored in the ‘my’ section of the psalm. However, this opening portion is not. No where does it speak of ‘my folly/sin’ acting as “rebuke” or “discipline”. If we are to say that sin is as much as cause of the sickness as Yhwh we must be careful to note that sin is not, itself, a ‘rebuke’ or ‘discipline’. Rather, its only effect is destruction. It would seem, then, that while sin causes sickness in much the same way as Yhwh, Yhwh purpose is to bring back to health (in other words, to cause repentance). Sin is apparently more ‘blind’ than this and only operates in one manner: destruction; sin is not ‘personal’ in this way. It is because of this distinction that we can find the psalmist praying to Yhwh to lift him out of, or heal him, of his sickness and sin. In short: it is crucial to understand that the cause of sickness is understood to be sin and Yhwh; however, when we speak of the ‘purpose’ of sickness, there is an important difference: for Yhwh, it is for healing; for sin, it is destruction. In this way we see how Yhwh remains the lord over one’s physical health while at the same time not attributing to him, in isolation, the ‘cause’ of sickness.