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Psalm 31 · a question people ask

"My strength fails because of my iniquity" (31:10). Is the psalmist's trouble his own fault?

In the text

The psalm says this of his strength: "My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away" (31:10). Iniquity is avon, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "iniquity, guilt, or punishment of iniquity". In the next verses the psalmist names others too: "Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors" (31:11), and "they plot to take away my life" (31:13). The psalm names no particular sin, doesn't say how his iniquity and his enemies are joined, and still prays, "Deliver me in your righteousness" (31:1). So it doesn't say that all his trouble is his own fault, or that none of it is. It holds both, and brings both to the LORD: "Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress" (31:9).

The verses

“For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away. Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.”
Psalm 31:10-11 · World English Bible
“For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.”
Psalm 31:13 · World English Bible
“For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. In you, LORD, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness.”
Psalm 31:1 · World English Bible
“Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.”
Psalm 31:9 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 31

Psalm 31: Into your hand

"Into your hand I commend my spirit" (Psalm 31:5) is first the prayer of a man still asking to be rescued, in a psalm that keeps two hands in view: the LORD's, which holds his times, and his enemies' (Psalm 31:15). And its "For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side" (Psalm 31:13) is, in Hebrew, the same six words that open Jeremiah 20:10.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions