Psalms 38:17

For I am ready to halt ,.... Meaning either that there was a proneness in him to sin; see Jeremiah 20:10 ; or that he was subject to affliction and adversity, as the same word is rendered in Psalm 35:15 ; and the words are either a reason and argument used with the Lord, to hear and keep his foot from slipping, that so his enemies might not rejoice over him, and magnify themselves against him; as they would do should he fall into sin or into any calamity, both which he was liable to: or they are a reason why he was so calm and quiet under the ill usage he met with from friends and enemies, because he was "ready for halting", or "prepared" F15 נכון V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis. for it; he considered that he was born for trouble and adversity; that God had appointed him to it, and it was appointed for him, and therefore he was quiet under it; see Job 5:6 ; he was prepared to meet it; he expected it, it being the common lot of God's people; and therefore when it came upon him it was no strange thing to him. The Septuagint version, and those that follow that, render the words, "I am ready for scourges"; and Jerom applies them to Christ, who was ready to undergo scourges, sufferings, and death itself, for his people;

and my sorrow is continually before me ; that is, for his sin, which was ever before him, stared him in the face, lay heavy on his conscience, and appeared very terrible and loathsome to him; his sorrow for it was without intermission, and was a godly sorrow, a sorrow for sin, as committed against a God of love, grace, and mercy: or he may mean, that his affliction, which was grievous to him, was continually upon him night and day: our Lord himself, David's antitype, was a man of sorrows all his days.