The penitent in this Psalm feels both the weight of God’s righteous anger, and the bitterness of man’s undeserved enmity (Psa. 38:4,19-20). It suits David’s suffering from Absalom because of his sin against God in the matter of Uriah. He speaks as like a leper outside the camp.
And such is the figure of a convicted sinner, or of a saint under discipline. He is separated as one defiled and defiling; but Jesus can meet us in that place, though none else can. As a poor woman convicted of her sins once said, “I am too bad for any but Jesus,” and that blessed Saviour, as we know, at once “spotless” and yet “made sin,” was led to the slaughter without opening His mouth. (Psa. 38:13; Matt. 26:63; 27:12,14.) He did not answer the accusing of the wicked, but silently, or in the unutterable musing of His spirit, committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. This was expressed in David towards Shimei (2 Sam. 16). David knew not the counsel of the sons of Zeruiah—his soul had no sympathy with it.
And this Psalm may be read as an utterance of the Remnant; for they will call to remembrance, and take upon them the sin of their nation in shedding the righteous blood of Jesus, though personally they had no share in it (Zech. 12:10). For the sin of David touching Bathsheba and Uriah may represent Israel’s sin touching Jesus; innocent blood was shed, and unclean alliances were formed. The Jewish people cried out, “Crucify Him, crucify Him,” and at the same moment said, “We have no king but Caesar.” And then, we may say in a sense and measure, the subsequent sorrows of David at the hand of Absalom represent the Remnant’s sorrows at the hand of their enemy, the willful king; and this makes the same penitential Psalms the utterance of both David and the Remnant.
It is worthy of consideration whether the foot-slipping in Psalm 38:16 is not calamity rather than transgression. (See Deut. 32:35; Psa. 94:18.)