“In You, O Lord, I Have Hoped”: Disability, Identity, and Dialogic Relationship in Psalm 38

Introduction

The Psalter remains a foundational biblical book for its beautiful, often agonized, poetic depictions of life with God. Yet, the Psalter also contains theological positions that present difficulty for modern readers. The penitential psalms, for instance, frequently seem to position suffering as the natural result of sin and divine wrath, aligning with ancient Near Eastern theodicies that grapple with the reasons for human suffering. Disabled readers, though, often find difficulty with these texts, since they appear to locate illness, and what would today be understood as a “disability,” as punishment for sin. Reading penitential psalms, specifically Psalm 38, with a cultural, rather than medical, model of disability, however, redeems much of this persistent negativity around illness. Alongside what Hector Avalos terms a “redemptionist” reading framework,^[1] which centers voices previously overlooked in the biblical text, the cultural model of disability fractures the causal correlation between sin and illness in this poem. In this reading, the psalmist’s community characterizes him as disabled (in modern terminology) and shuns him. Once the psalmist accepts this label, though, he draws nearer to God in dialogic relationship – predicated on his experience of disability; sin remains a central feature of life but does not have the final word in defining the psalmist’s plight. In Psalm 38, therefore, the psalmist’s disability both cultivates a faithful, dialogic relationship with God and shatters the causal connection between sin and suffering often foregrounded in penitential psalms.

Methodology and Literary Background

Reading disability in Psalm 38 requires a precise, nuanced definition of “disability.” For both the ancient Israelite psalmist and his broader social context, the term “disability” would be anachronous. Only recently has disability expanded beyond medical phenomena and visible impairment to encompass a wider range of situations, like that of the ill, suffering psalmist. In the “medical model,” disability has no root in social institutions. Contrasting with the medical model, though, are social and cultural models of disability. Proponents of a social model, such as Saul Olyan, outline how disability is a “social construction,” since it is not a medical condition but “the social meaning attributed to such difference” that creates the term “disability” and its intricately layered implications.^[2] The social model might, however, seem idealistic since, as Jennifer Koosed argues, it is often “impossible to separate out impairment from societal attitudes toward that impairment.”^[3] Koosed, and other scholars such as Jeremy Schipper and Candida Moss, thereby prefer a cultural model of disability, which adds nuance to the social model.^[4] In the cultural model, Rebecca Raphael explains, “disability is not only a result of social organization, but integral to social organization itself.”^[5] This model more accurately depicts the varied landscape of biblical times than the medical model since “the Bible and related literature from antiquity rarely use an exclusively secular medical discourse to discuss disability.”^[6]

Yet, disabled approaches to the biblical text have only recently moved away from “diagnosing” characters with various conditions, a practice rife with often-dangerous tendencies to oversimplify and extrapolate from a culturally- and religiously-conditioned text.^[7] Indeed, as Avalos argues “it is often more important to understand what an ancient culture defined as an ‘illness’ than what the actual cause might have been from a modern scientific standpoint.”^[8] Removing literary diagnosis from the exegetical picture, there remain “at least three approaches” to reading disability in the biblical text; Avalos terms these frameworks as “redemptionist,” “rejectionist,” and “historicist.”^[9] The “redemptionist” approach “seeks to redeem the biblical text, despite any negative stance on disabilities, by recontextualizing it for modern application.”^[10] Rather than rejecting the text for its negative images of disability, or painting a historically accurate picture of life for disabled Israelites, the “redemptionist” approach recognizes the literary and theological value intrinsic in the biblical text and centers its disabled figures.^[11]

Much of the Hebrew Bible discusses illness and suffering, though not with language of “disability,” making a “redemptionist” reading both possible and intriguing. For instance, Job’s suffering has produced extensive scholarship,^[12] and disability features subtly throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, including in Genesis, Exodus, the law books, and the Deuteronomistic History.^[13] The Psalter’s poetry, however, makes it an especially fruitful site of disability exegesis, since the psalms are “among the most complex and evocative of biblical texts and thus can be explored from a disability perspective in equally complex ways.”^[14] Koosed summarizes three of the primary functions of disability in the Psalter: as metaphors for depictions of pain, as foils for God’s power, and as visual warnings against idol worship.^[15] These numerous functions witness to the complexity of health, disability, and identity in the Psalter.^[16]

Encouragingly, the Psalter itself presents dynamic pictures of illness. Although nowhere does the psalmist overtly use language of “disability,” nor does his community, the psalmists are at times, as in Psalm 38, clearly faced with an ongoing illness that threatens participation among and inclusion in society. Such illnesses are chronic, though the poetic time of Psalm 38 makes their duration unclear. Susan Wendell outlines how the “relationship between disability and illness is a problematic one” and convincingly argues that chronic illnesses are themselves disabilities.^[17] Thus, though the Psalter does not use language of “disability,” the psalmist of Psalm 38 nonetheless experiences what would be today read as a disability. As chronically ill and disabled, he also experiences the sociocultural implications of that disability.

In the Psalter, sickness is a complex phenomenon, not merely the result of sin. Contrasting with psalms where sickness appears to result from divine retribution (such as Psalm 6, Psalm 102, and the opening of Psalm 38), Psalm 146, for example, portrays God as an “advocate” for the disabled.^[18] Olyan notes that the psalms’ view of disability also reflects the authors’ “cultural attitudes” toward disability, which themselves varied.^[19] Amid this variegated landscape, any firm view of disability is limited. In querying such rigid attitudes, the penitential psalms are especially intriguing, as they – by contrast – initially seem to only envision disability as the result of sin and divine punishment (as in Ps 6:2 and Ps 102:11). Yet, closer analysis of these psalms presents nuance that uplifts even a poem like Psalm 38’s vision of disability.

The prevalence of body imagery in the Psalter informs disability readings of the psalms by highlighting the body and its function. Indeed, 143 of the 150 psalms contain body imagery,^[20] located primarily in their grammar, “literary tropes, proverbs, or body idioms,”^[21] and intimating the significance of the body. Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher encapsulates many of the Psalter’s variegated uses of body imagery, all of which spotlight a tumultuous but perpetual relationship with self and others; in the Psalter, body imagery is symbolic, revealing “all aspects of human life,” and delineating the psalmist from other humans.^[22] Though the psalms frequently present sick bodies, they simultaneously question the function of those bodies. Amid this landscape, Psalm 38 cries out for a novel rereading, echoing Avalos’s “redemptionist” approach, that centers the emergent relationship between psalmist and God, because of, not despite, disability.

Disability in Psalm 38: Background and Exegesis

Psalm 38 opens with certainty that the psalmist’s illness and social isolation have divine roots: “Lord, do not rebuke me in Your fury / nor chastise me in Your wrath” (Ps 38:2).^[23] The psalmist relates how “there is no whole place in [his] flesh through Your [God’s] rage / no soundness in [his] limbs through [his] offense” (Ps 38:4) before explicating his all-consuming physical illness (Ps 38:5–9); the connection between these verses seems to imply causality between offense and suffering. But the psalmist next outlines how he has not withheld his thoughts from God, even while those around him forsake and torment him (Ps 38:10, 11–13), positioning himself as righteous because of his dialogic prayer. He then re-establishes comparison with his community, resolutely proclaiming that, like the deaf and mute, he neither hears nor speaks, because he hopes in God’s answer and deliverance (Ps 38:14–16); the more that he relies upon and prays to God, the more certain he becomes in his hope in the divine. After expressing this hope, however, he again paints a picture of his continual, socially imposed pain (Ps 38:17–18). But, although he once more acknowledges his “crime,” he also notes how the number of his enemies grows since he “[pursues] good” (Ps 38:19, 20–21), again a sign of his burgeoning confidence despite – or because of – his illness. Finally, he pleads with God not to “forsake” him but to “hasten to [his] help” (Ps 38:22–23), ending the poem with trust in the reception of his prayers and resultant deliverance from suffering. Each time that the psalmist directly addresses God in prayer, he further troubles a potential link between sin and suffering, for it is suffering that solidifies his prayer, the poem’s undercurrent.

Toward an Emergent Human-Divine Relationship

The psalmist’s relationship with God is not static but blossoms throughout the poem – as he alights upon new understandings of illness, so too does he lean upon God in novel and varied ways. He addresses God directly four times (v. 2, v. 10, v. 16, v. 22–23), framing the rest of the poem around the inclusio of petition to and trust in God.^[24] Each moment of direct address, though, employs unique titles for God;^[25] these titular variations reveal “a climactic development of growing intensity and trust between the petitioner and Yahweh.”^[26] Direct address is interlaced with poetic portrayals of the psalmist’s sickness, foregrounding a connection between illness and relationship with God. Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Jr. see three connected sections in the psalm (vv. 4–9, vv. 11–15, and vv. 18–21), all of which “describe the trouble.”^[27] Verse 4 (“There is no whole place in my flesh through Your rage, / no soundness in my limbs through my offense”) implies that the psalmist’s offense leads to divine rage. Here, his impairment, his stumbling, and lack of “soundness” in his “limbs,” lack social origin. For Raphael, however, while the psalm “does indeed include references to both sin and illness/disability,” the “structure of the association is not stable.”^[28] In verse 4, specifically, the psalmist upholds a connection between human sin, divine reaction, and resultant illness, yet also intimates deep reliance upon God, which only intensifies when he is medically impaired^[29] and socially vulnerable. That reliance becomes the foundation for a sustaining relationship with God.

Bodily Activity and Prayer amid Illness

The psalmist’s body seems to break down around him, and he cannot help but voice his pain, both bodily and prayerfully, to God. Such cries supplant previous references to sin; after verse 6 (“For my crimes have welled over my head”), mention of sin does not feature again until verse 19. Moreover, “reference to Yhwh’s anger and Yhwh’s punitive activity … disappears” after verse 3.^[30] In the meantime, the psalmist continues to explicate his plight and call upon God for deliverance. Notably, each of the two words for the psalmist’s “numbness” and “brokenness” uses rare verb forms and point primarily to inward pain rather than outward sickness or distress, linking emotion with illness.^[31] As the psalmist outlines his illness, God’s name is also notably absent,^[32] and, before the psalmist relates his social isolation (vv. 12–13), his description of his illness is surprisingly disinterested. Though he concedes in verse 7 that he “all day long [goes] about gloomy,”^[33] his straightforward language reflects the “numbness” (see v. 9) that afflicts him when considering his plight. Echoing Gillmayr-Bucher’s view that psalmists – despite “being,” rather than possessing bodies – often distance themselves from those bodies,^[34] the psalmist here separates himself from his ill body by assigning agency to his sores in verse 6. It is merely the psalmist’s wounds that “fester,” and the “loins” that burn; his actions come only in emotional reactions to illness (grief, numbness, etc.) and impose distance from his physical suffering.

The psalmist reacts actively in verse 9, however, as he “grow[s] numb” and “roar[s],” contrasting with his body’s passivity, which leaves him “twisted” and “all bent” (Ps 38:7). Even amid illness, then, the psalmist cannot help but react bodily; the psalmist assumes that his body will obey his commands^[35] – and it does, since his roaring (v. 9) immediately leads to confidence that God will hear and notice him – “O Master, before You is all my desire and my sighs are not hidden from You” (v. 10).^[36] His reaction is therefore audible, even if unintelligible. In this way, Goldingay asserts the psalmist is “like any decent praying person” in the Hebrew Bible by expressing his emotions to God.^[37] This righteous self-position contrasts glaringly with the community’s subsequent shunning and suggests a dynamic experience of disability and suffering vis-à-vis sin and/or righteousness. As the psalmist’s illness fosters bodily pain, then he nonetheless reclaims his pain by turning to God for relief.

Distance, Passivity, and Isolation

The psalmist’s illness is intricately connected to his social standing, which suffers while he does, seemingly wracked by illness while he can only watch passively. Before lamenting his social isolation, the psalmist indeed returns to the prolonged depiction of his illness in verse 11. Lamenting “my heart spins around, my strength forsakes me, and the light of my eyes, too, is gone from me,” the psalmist here introduces a dichotomous understanding of illness. In the first half of the verse, the psalmist’s body remains active and autonomous, even though its agency produces debilitating effects. Yet, in the second half of the verse, the use of the passive “is gone from me” witnesses to how illness ravages him while he stands inactive; he can only watch helplessly as the “light of [his] eyes” disappears. The psalmist thereby wavers between viewing his illness as within and outside him. In that vacillation, he implicitly queries the seemingly unchallenged link between sin and suffering, which he previously referenced in verses 2–3 (e.g., “do not rebuke me in Your fury”). That is, the combination of active and passive voice within verse 11 intimates the psalmist’s view of his illness as simultaneously within and outside his grasp, simultaneously the result of sin and a more nebulous plight. At this point, the psalmist turns to both his community and God, with varying results.

Amid illness, the psalmist portrays his “friends,” “companions,” and “kinsmen” ambiguously and without body imagery: “My friends and companions stand off from my plight and my kinsmen stand far away” (Ps 38:12). The depiction of their “standing,” and standing “off” from the psalmist’s plight, physically distances them from the psalmist; such imposed distance would not have been unfamiliar to disabled individuals in ancient Israel.^[38] Yet, though the companions stand far off, they lack other bodily depiction. This lack of body imagery reveals the chasm between them and the psalmist. Though the psalmist might, at times, have a fraught relationship with his body, his body images are always based upon “an experienced reality,”^[39] while those around him are disembodied. They “lay their snares” and “meditate on treachery” (Ps 38:13, NRSV),^[40] but the distance between them and the psalmist is evidenced in the vague picture the poem paints of them.^[41] This distance both walls the psalmist off from his community and occasions his solitary prayer. Indeed, he cannot engage with his companions, and demarcates himself by refusing to depict their bodies. Where he is ill but embodied, they are amorphous. Since the foes distance themselves from the psalmist, their bodies become absent from his. His embodiment, contrasted with their disembodiment, reclaims his agency, for in a bodily world, his ill body retains more potential than their absent bodies.

In Psalm 38, however, most body images are grammatically passive, though usually linked to moments of action and to address to God.^[42] This bodily passivity signals that it is not the psalmist’s own, ill body that presents him as disabled, but how the community views his illness (such as by their distance in vv.12–13).^[43] As the community labels him disabled, the psalmist begins to direct his dialogic focus to heaven, praying to God while cast as “disabled” through social isolation. By emphasizing the social effects of disability, the psalm also forecasts social effects for the community – whom he turns away from – and for God – with whom he renews his dialogue. The lack of body language for the foes both highlights the psalmist’s own disability and strengthens the contrast between psalmist and community. Within this contrast, the psalmist becomes a righteous model of dialogic relationship with God, and the earlier emphasis on community naturally falls away as the foes distance themselves from the psalmist.

Speech, Silence, and the Power of Language

Further deepening the divide between the embodied psalmist and his disembodied companions is his lack of speech, and from this silence arises the psalmist’s introspective process of identification with illness. His silence arises from restraint and disability: he appears unable to speak at all (“like the mute whose mouth will not open,” Ps 38:14), an impairment which the community considers disabling, as witnessed in their withdrawal from the psalmist. Here, though, the psalmist does not spurn that label, but accepts it, locating him as righteous. In so doing, he employs a linguistic move that features throughout the psalms, where the “weakness and vulnerability of the petitioner” is “asserted … vividly through comparison with the helplessness of deaf or mute persons before their accusers in court.”^[44] The psalmist wields this association, comparing himself positively with the deaf and mute; because he is like the deaf and mute, he restrains himself from speaking ill of his adversaries (“And I become like a man who does not hear and has no rebuke in his mouth,” Ps 38:15) and further concentrates his hopes in God (“For in You, O Lord, I have hoped. You will answer, O Master, my God,” Ps 38:16).^[45] As Robert Alter explains, “whether or not he is literally losing his hearing, he is able in the figurative sense to turn a deaf ear to his mocking enemies and concentrate all his expectant attention on God.”^[46] But this move, now subverted, extends beyond simile since the psalmist truly is disabled: his muteness and deafness are disabilities according to the categories of his community and culture. Though also exposing his vulnerability – amid communal scorn – the psalmist’s disability leads him to God.^[47] In other words, the psalmist, certain that God knows his “desire” (Ps 38:10), is righteous precisely because of his impairment, considered a disability in his cultural context, which also grounds his hope in God (Ps 38:16). His disability precipitates his continual posture toward God and his further righteousness.

The psalmist’s inability to speak is woven with his acceptance of disabled identity. That acceptance, that is, his identification as impaired and even disabled, begins in verses 14–15, and returns him to dialogue with God in verse 15. Though his community positions him as disabled in verses 12–13 by their distance, only here does the psalmist accept that identity. These verses (vv. 12–13 and v. 15) which posit “disability,” either by the community or by the psalmist himself, are connected by the presence of participial phrases; in the second half of verse 12, as with the first half of verse 15, the “subject is again a participial phrase, but the predicate turns from action to speech.”^[48] In the community’s mocking statement of the psalmist’s disability, action is paramount, but in his self-identification, speech is. This difference underscores the significance of language in defining disability, and the participle in verse 15 signifies the psalmist’s process of identification with disability. Translating with the participle in mind, Alter thus renders this verse as “and I become like a man who does not hear and has no rebuke in his mouth.”^[49] In this participial phrase, the psalmist intertwines himself with his disability; the phrases “do not hear” and “has no rebuke in his mouth” come to represent him only once he “become[s]” one of the deaf and mute. This phrase, the psalm’s only active participle, reveals the psalmist’s genuine identification with disability, which he earlier presented disinterestedly (v. 4, “There is no whole place in my flesh;” vv. 7–8, “I am twisted, I am all bent,” etc.). By contrast, he here initiates an engaged righteousness occasioned by and redeeming the experience of disability. That involvement is visible in the psalm’s dynamic verb tenses, which shift out of perfect tense only once the psalmist begins to depict his community and then to identify with disability. Accepting his socially and culturally imposed disability prevents him from further sin and wicked words; the birth of his disability correlates with the resurgence of his righteousness. Once the psalmist finds peace in his disability^[50] – an ongoing process, as the participle suggests – he discerns that his illness cultivates an authentic, dialogic relationship with God.

The psalmist’s acceptance of his disability inspires his return to direct address in the next verse. His address in verse 16 – “For in You, O Lord, I have hoped” – is the first unadulterated expression of hope and confidence in God. Brueggemann and Bellinger view this “third use of the divine name” as part of the psalmist’s “fullest petition,” and note that “YHWH is used twice, with the appellation ‘my God.’”^[51] The triplicate invocation also “remind[s] Yhwh forcefully of the personal and relational reasons” that demand an answer the psalmist’s prayers.^[52] When the psalmist is silent, thereby, a consequence of his disability, his hope and confidence in God blossoms. Culturally imposed, the psalmist’s disability becomes the impetus for genuine relationship with God and the occasion for reaffirmed righteousness.

The psalmist’s divine hope and confidence also coheres with a disability-initiated radical understanding of self. Within modern models of disability, for many disabled people, the visualization of disability as social and/or cultural is not only radical but freeing. The social and cultural models of disability each shift emphasis from cure to care, as they do not urge disabled people to “abandon our disabled selves and bodies and assimilate into a perhaps unachievable abled skin.”^[53] This focus is often “liberating,” since, “by locating the cause of our problems outside our bodies, we can begin to love ourselves again.”^[54] In such love, disability does not impede a full life or stifle identity, but rather forms an integral part of that identity. Viewing disability socially and culturally, then, is empowering – including for the psalmist who might now be read as disabled. The psalmist’s newfound confidence in God intimates a shifting self-understanding that reiterates his own theological worth; that the psalmist, amid his experience of disability, dialogues with God signals God’s attention to and love for him as a human being. Such attentive love thrives once the psalmist embraces his disabled identity. The psalmist’s outward silence toward his community cultivates fruitful ground for prayer to God that results in a deepened understanding of both his disability and his loving relationship with the divine.

Gazing Outward

The psalmist’s realities of impairment and isolation, however, do not fall away when he prays to God, with both social and theological implications. In verses 17–18, the psalmist acknowledges the effects of his disability but does not attempt to escape pain, only mockery:

¹⁷ For I thought, “Lest they rejoice over me,
When my foot slips, vaunt over me.”
¹⁸ For I am ripe for stumbling
And my pain is before me always.

Once the psalmist establishes confidence in his disability and in God, he no longer fears his pain, which is “ever with” him (Ps 38:18), and, predicated on the turn of verses 14–15, no longer equates disability and shame. That he decouples himself from this conflation differentiates him from his community and subsequently positions him nearer to God. Demarcated from the vague “them” (v. 17), once the psalmist opens his eyes to his disability, he not only realizes the power of dialogue with God but also wields that dialogue to pray for righteousness. The psalmist’s disability thus births the dialogic relationship with God which stabilizes his prayers, and which proves redemptive for his understanding of illness.

Troubling the Causality of Sin and Sickness

Despite the disabled psalmist’s newfound theological confidence, however, reference to sin returns in verse 19. Such continued reference invites deeper reflection upon the sin-sickness connection that the psalmist previously appeared to uphold. Though verse 19, with its return to discussion of sin (“For my crime I shall tell, I dread my offense”), and later verse 20, may seem unrelated to verse 18, Limburg highlights the interconnectedness of the two. For him, these verses first “focus on the psalmist’s pain (v. 17 [18]) and then confess wrongdoing and sinfulness.”^[55] The succinct staccato of verse 19, though, quickly shifts poetic emphasis to the next two verses; the psalmist does not remain mired in reflection of sin but deepens his prayer. In verses 20 and 21, the psalmist expands on his emotional pain and contrasts himself with his foes: “And my wanton enemies grow many, my unprovoked foes abound. And those who pay back good with evil thwart me for pursuing good.” Intriguingly, even after previously confessing his sin, the psalmist asserts that he “[follows] good” (NRSV).^[56] The transition between sin and good (v. 19, v. 20–21) seems sudden, demanding retrospection on the poem’s earlier verses, particularly the pivotal experience of verses 14–15. There, the psalmist’s identification as disabled and resulting affirmation of relationship with God emerge as formative. Following his commitment to an authentic relationship with God, the psalmist discerns that he pursues good despite sinning. This nuanced realization coheres with human experience, where righteousness is rarely binary.

Notably, there is a glaring lack of body imagery in Ps 38:19–21. For a psalm centered on the experience of illness and penitence, this absence again fractures a link between sin and sickness. As these verses, especially verse 19, return attention to sin, the lack of focus on the body implies that sin does not result in bodily suffering; the psalmist’s illness is both profoundly painful and not birthed from sin. Indeed, that the psalmist contends that his social suffering is “without cause” (Ps 38:20) shatters “that simplistic connection” between “sin and suffering.”^[57] The psalmist’s earlier emphasis on illness disappears; body imagery and reference to disability feature neither in the psalmist’s confession of sin in verse 19, nor in his depiction of the enemies’ illogical pursuit in verses 20 and 21. In a world where illness was often correlated with sin, the psalmist elides what might have been a simple classification as righteous or wicked by splintering the link between sin and suffering: he has sinned, but his illness does not result from that sin.

That the psalmist grapples with this persistent connection between sin and suffering throughout the poem, however, reflects its prevalence in his culture. Indeed, the psalm refuses to completely silence this connection, but rather expresses it “impersonal[ly] and even mechanistic[ally],” while “the appeal against” that connection – the psalmist’s prayer – “is intimate and relational, grounded in deep covenantal conviction.”^[58] That is, relationship with God severs the pervasive causality between sin and suffering. Yet, the psalmist discerns the centrality of relationship with God only once he is disabled. By contrast, his nondisabled companions do not emphasize God’s role in their lives, for they lack the impetus for dialogic relationship with the divine: disability. Disability is, for them, a tool of oppression, not liberation – as it becomes for the psalmist.

This section of the psalm also questions the traditional power dynamics overlaying earlier verses. Raphael views Psalm 38:19 and 20 as “articulat[ing] a concept of proper power,” since the psalmist’s “powerlessness” vis-à-vis his enemies “opens up the space in which God is to manifest God’s power.”^[59] That is, the psalmist’s “weakness” paradoxically “calls out God’s power against the enemies,” and so the psalmist’s own power “lies in his/her weakness, as represented by images of illness and disability.”^[60] By praying to God, the psalmist spotlights his trust in God’s salvific actions, which emerge from his powerlessness among his community. Where the foes employ disability to mock and shun the psalmist, he subverts their expectations by using disability to highlight God’s salvific power. The psalmist thereby reveals how “illness and disability are not static states” but both “represent relationship to other parties and generate the very relationships that are represented” – for the psalmist’s “representation as ill, disabled, and powerless sets the stage for the conclusion inviting God to intervene.”^[61] In embracing his disability, then, the psalmist enriches his life from the seeds of his initial powerlessness. That the psalmist’s disability invites God’s intervention further circumvents a simple understanding of sickness as the result of sin, for it is only in disability that the psalmist connects with God.

Foregrounding Relationship Once More

Psalm 38 is therefore predicated on the psalmist’s blossoming relationship with God, cultivated amid his experience of disability. Indeed, the final verses of the psalm intimate the significance of the emergent human-divine relationship. Psalm 38:22–23 consists of the psalmist’s direct address to God:

²² Do not forsake me, Lord.
My God, do not stay far from me.
²³ Hasten to my help,
O Master of my rescue.

Alongside the opening verses of prayer, this address forms an inclusio of dialogic relationship which threads together the entire poem.^[62] First-person speech features prominently here. However, in these concluding verses, that speech is “no longer focused on the ‘I’ of the psalmist,” but rather serves as an “expression of intense communion and fidelity.”^[63] Once disabled, the psalmist thereby employs first-person speech to further dialogue with God and to assert security in divine deliverance.

Yet, verses 22 and 23 do not present neat endings to the psalmist’s situation; he is not re-welcomed into his community and his illness appears unresolved. Though Dirk Human reads these verses as a hopeful prayer “for the restoration of wholeness on various levels,”^[64] the psalmist notably omits a plea for physical cure.^[65] For Goldingay, this absence of cure adheres with the psalm’s “stepped structure,” as its lack of linearity precludes any “movement toward resolution in the psalm.”^[66] That is, the psalmist does not yearn for deliverance from disability – an absence which mirrors many modern disabled visions of healing^[67] – but for relationship with God.^[68] The parallelism of verse 22 spotlights the centrality of the relationship with God, as the psalmist twice formulates his desire to remain with God. Read alongside the psalmist’s pre-disabled confidence in the divine origins of his sickness, the final verses’ trust in God are striking. The psalmist “appeals beyond and outside any conventional, stereotypical notion of punishment” and instead “to the fidelity to YHWH, who will be [his] advocate and rescuer,” and the psalm “affirms that it is relationship to YHWH … that breaks the connection of sin and suffering.”^[69]

Conclusion

When grounded in dialogue with God, the psalmist accepts the community’s label of disabled, and subverts their expectations to view his disability positively. In embracing his disability, the psalmist undermines a correlation between sin and sickness, turning instead to God while isolated by illness. Indeed, Psalm 38 posits, through absence, the centrality of communion. The psalmist turns to God when he loses his community, yet that loss represents a gaping wound, to which he can respond only through agonized prayer. Both the blossoming of the psalmist’s relationship with God and the withering of his relationship with other humans define this psalm, solidifying the significance of community in a disability theology rooted in scriptural texts such as Psalm 38.