He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong [pain]:
Ver. 19. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed] He is chastened or chidden, Coarguitur dolore; for all diseases are vocal; they are real reprehensions. As God is said to hold his peace when he punisheth not, Psa 50:21 Isaiah 42:14, so to preach and reprove when he doth, Isaiah 26:9; Isaiah 28:19. Thus God, by chastening David, instructed him every morning, Psalms 73:14. His reins also taught him in the night season. Sickness, saith one, is the shop of virtue. It is morum disciplina, felicitatis meditatorium, voluntatis Dei schola, saith another. King Alfred found it so, and therefore besought God to send him ever and anon some fit of sickness; for that, saith he, I ever find myself best when worst, best in soul when worst in body, the sickness of this is a medicine to that.
And the multitude of his bones with strong pain] Some read it, Et lis est ossium eius vehemens, his bones rattle in his skin, as we say. Confer Psalms 38:4. He is all over so ill at ease, that live he would not, die he cannot; his pain piercing even to his very bones, and drinking up his marrow, as Job's did; all this discourse being exemplified in him, save that we find not that he kept his bed.