Psalms 38:1 «A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. » O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance] Made purposely for a memorial, both of what he had suffered and from what he had been delivered. See 1Ch 16:4 Exo 30:16 Leviticus 2:2; Leviticus 6:15. Recordatio autem intelligitur miseriae ex misericordia, Psa 132:1 Isaiah 62:6; Isaiah 63:7. It is probable that David had so laid to heart the rape of his daughter Tamar, the murder of his eldest son, Amnon, the flight of his next son, Absalom, and other troubles that befell him (Basil thinks Absalom's conspiracy, Ahithophel's perfidy, Shimei's insolence, &c.), that it cost him a great fit of sickness; out of which hardly recovering, he penned this and some other psalms (as the 35th, 39th, 40th), but this especially, for a memento, to remind him of his own recent misery and God's never failing mercy to him. Both these we are wondrous apt to forget, and so both to lose the fruit of our afflictions, by falling afresh to our evil practices (as children soon forget a whipping), and to rob God, our deliverer, of his due praises; like as with children eaten bread is soon forgotten. Both these mischiefs to prevent, both in himself and others (for we are bound not only to observe God's law, but also to preserve it as much as may be from being broken), David composed this psalm, for to record, or to cause remembrance (see the like title, Psa 70:1), and for a form for a sick man to pray by, as Kimchi noteth; not to be sung for those in purgatory, as some Papists have dreamed.
Ver. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath] He beginneth and endeth the psalm with petitions, filleth it up with sad complaints; wherein we shall find him groaning, but not grumbling; mourning, but not murmuring, for that is not the guise of God's people. He beginneth with Eheu Iehova non recuso coargui et castigari. "Correct me, O Lord, but with judgment; not in anger, lest thou bring me to nothing," Jeremiah 10:24. See Psalms 6:1. See Trapp on " Psa 6:1 "