The Sinner’s Terror Before God, Feeling Himself Under Wrath (Vv. 2–4)

Ps. 37:2. O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your anger.

Having heard from the mouth of the prophet Nathan the determination of God concerning himself, St. David felt the terror of divine judgment. The displeasure of God struck him; the burden of wrath weighed upon him. And so he cries out: rebuke and chasten, but not in wrath and anger. «He beseeches to admonish, as is fitting for a physician rather than a judge, and to heal not powerfully, but with gentle remedies.» (Theodoret). That I have lost Your goodwill and stand under Your wrath is more unbearable to me than any chastisement. Restore to me that sense of Your unfailing presence and my not being rejected. What is spoken of here concerning the averting of inner punishments, falling directly upon conscience and heart, is evident from the fact that the prophet desired external punishments as penance for sins and showed complete readiness for them (v. 18). Here is expressed the customary course of the sinner’s awakening from sinful slumber. And every sinner who has come to awareness of his sinfulness first feels the wrath of God—it seems to him that the righteousness of God is ready to strike him at any moment. And so he cries out: O Lord, strike me not! The same with eternal torment—he feels himself as though already condemned. Therefore, turning in repentance to God, he prays too that God not consign him to that dreadful judgment and punishment beyond, but here chasten and have mercy on him. «It will be said to those standing on the left: «Depart from Me into eternal fire»« (Mt. 25:41). Fearing this terrible punishment, he begs and beseeches: O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath… May I not be among those to whom You shall say: «Depart from Me into eternal fire.» In this life chasten and correct me.» (Augustine).

«Wrath and anger» are synonymous words. «Wrath» means vehement irritation, when the heart boils as water boils and froths. This expression is used when

God, depicted in human form, is shown as extremely enraged (see 2 Chron. 29). And «anger» means the same. The difference is that in the former the irritation remains within itself, while in the latter it manifests and appears in action.

«To rebuke» and «to chasten» are different in meaning. To rebuke is to expose the unrighteousness and sinfulness of a deed; to chasten is to admonish, showing how one ought to have acted and how one must amend. If the matter concerns culpability and punishment, the first denotes the revelation of guilt and judgment, while the second denotes the execution of the judgment in deed, or actual chastisement.

Rebuke comes by word (Ps. 140:5) or by deed (Ps. 104:14), when circumstances are so arranged that sin becomes visible to all and the sinner is put to shame. The constant reprover of the sinner is conscience, especially when enlightened by revealed law; on the

other hand, sin is not always hidden but reveals itself in the state of soul and body and in outward circumstances. The latter comes about of itself, and sometimes God purposely arranges outward rebuke to awaken the sinner to understanding and move him to repentance.

This verse is not the theme of the whole psalm, but the beginning of the sinner’s movement along the path of turning to God. From here thoughts follow one after another until they rest on the decision: I repent; I will not again; only help me.

Ps. 37:3. For Your arrows have sunk into me, and Your hand has pressed down upon me.

«Your arrows have sunk,» they have pierced. As arrows pierced into the body and remaining in it cause constant, unbearable pain, increasing with any movement, so the blows of Your wrath pierce my heart moment by moment and torment it. They, like lightning, strike and burn, moment after moment. I am like a man subjected to the terrors of a dreadful, thunder-bringing and lightning-flashing storm. (Lightning is called arrows in Ps. 76:18, 143:6).

«Your hand is pressed down…» You have laid heavily and holdest upon me. This is the same as elsewhere: «Your hand has become heavy upon me» (Ps. 31:4). «Hand» here is the punitive power of God’s righteousness, received by conscience. Conscience weighs upon us as punishment.

The holy Prophet depicts not what is without, but what occurs within him. The fear of God through conscience pierces the heart with rebukes like arrows. These heart pains, from the sense of God’s wrath, have nothing consoling about them; they torment as arrows embedded in living flesh. These arrows are various terrifying thoughts. Whatever the sinner remembers about God, all of it becomes an arrow to him. Whether goodness, or righteousness, or omnipresence, or promises, or threats come to his mind—all of it, received by conscience, strikes and burns. Since there is no excuse, the expectation is established: any moment lightning will fall and strike. And then judgment and eternal torment. (Zigabenus, Antiphanes of Jerusalem). As soon as the sinner comes to awareness, all these thoughts press upon him and produce tormenting pain in the soul, increased by despair—from the fact that the heavens have become dark and not a single ray of hope shines from them. This state is agonizing and oppresses like a heavy hand. All from the sense of God’s wrath, which so far has not been weakened by hope of mercy.

Thus the sinner stands before the Lord—terrified but not fleeing from Him, offering no justification, but only revealing how deeply distressed and heavy he is. This kind of state is necessary in producing repentance. It is the door to what follows. Burned here, he will be softer afterward, as unburned wire is soft and flexible. Here infernal torments are tested in the heart. God permits this so that afterward the resolve not to yield to sin will be stronger, so that having suffered thus for sins, man will not afterward be inclined toward them.

Ps. 37:4. There is no healing in my flesh because of Your wrath.

«There is no healing,» there is no health, and moreover such that no remedy can be devised. Similar is the word of the prophet Isaiah: from head to foot there is no wholeness (Is. 1:6). He means to say that the powers, organs, and humors have all been damaged, are not in their proper state—in correspondence with what preceded:

the arrows have passed through and disordered everything; Your hand has pressed down and crushed. «In my flesh,» or in the body alone, which suffers together with the soul, or more truly, in my whole being: both soul and body ache. The cause is God’s wrath, God’s displeasure at the offense against Him, and His turning away and rejection. «Because of Your wrath,» he feels that wrath is present as a force acting destructively. Zigabenus interprets—«because of Your wrath,»—because of the threats and the calamities pronounced by the prophet Nathan. «The imagination of Your wrath, adds Mgr. Irenaeus, which always revolves before my mental eyes, strikes me and sensibly consumes me.» The same thoughts hold for Antiphanes, Patriarch of Jerusalem: «Bringing to mind Your wrath upon sinners, I tremble, and

from this very remembrance all my being grows weak.»

Sickness, exhaustion, and languishing must be the direct consequence of God’s displeasure and turning away. As in God’s goodwill and blessing there is life, so in His displeasure and turning away there is death. «Life is in His good will,» says St. David elsewhere (Ps. 29:6); so that as soon as He turns away His face, everything falls into confusion and vanishes (Ps. 103:29).