Psalm 32 · a question people ask
"When I kept silence, my bones wasted away" (32:3). Does the Bible teach that hidden sin makes you ill?
Psalm 32 tells the psalmist's own story, and says what he knew in it: while he kept silence his bones wasted away, and he felt the LORD's hand heavy on him "day and night" (32:3-4). Another psalm says something like it: "neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin" (Psalm 38:3). Neither psalm makes a rule that every illness comes from a hidden sin. Other passages show suffering that is not punishment for the sufferer's own sin. The LORD calls Job "a blameless and an upright man" (Job 1:8), and afterwards tells Eliphaz, "you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (Job 42:7). When his disciples asked about a man blind from birth, "who sinned, this man or his parents" (John 9:2), Jesus answered, "This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents, but that the works of God might be revealed in him" (John 9:3). Psalm 32 speaks of one man's silence and what it did to him; it doesn't tell anyone why another person is ill.
The verses
“When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.”
“There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin.”
“The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.””
“It was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”