Psalms 38:11-13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

My lovers and friends stand aloof Either through neglect and contempt, or disdain of me. They that seek my life lay snares for me That if my affliction or trouble do not kill me, they may destroy me some other way; and imagine deceits all the day long They design mischief, but cover it with fair pretences. But I, as a deaf man, heard it not I carried myself toward them as if I had no ears to hear what they said, either to me or of me, nor a tongue to answer or reprove them for their reproaches and calumnies. And he was thus silent, not for want of just answers to them, but to testify his humiliation for his sins, and his acceptation of the punishment which he had brought upon himself.