Sin Troubles Our Bones

Psalm 6:1–2 (ESV) … “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.”

In his introductory cry David pleaded that God would stop chastening him in His anger. In Hebrew the words not … in Your anger precede the words rebuke me, and “not” in Your wrath comes first in the second line. The forward position of these words emphasizes the manner of the chastening. If God’s wrath against David were to continue, he could not survive.

In verse 2, David’s prayer is expressed positively. He wanted the Lord to relieve him of his sufferings (be merciful … heal me) because he was in extreme pain. Bones denotes one’s whole physical structure, the person himself. To say that one’s bones are in agony is to say emphatically that his body is wracked with pain.[1]

In David, we see him speaking of the deplorable condition in which he is living. David had been a man who, for most of his life, had one of the sweetest and most noble saints of God. David, “a man after God’s own heart,” is now outside that fellowship because of sin. David had fallen, and worse still, he persisted in pretending. The pretense was mockery in the face of God’s holiness. David is perhaps the best bible picture of believers out of step with God due to sin.

However, when a spiritual man or woman knows when that they are out of touch with God and that the flames of the Holy Spirit have died out, they commit themselves to prayer in hopes of remedying this situation. If we are honest with ourselves, we all know when we have unconfessed sin and just how quickly it blights spiritual life walk with God. Confess today what sin may be there and find renewed life with God.

[1] Ross, A. P. (1985). Psalms. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 795). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.