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Psalm 38:7

For my waist is filled with burning. There is no soundness in my flesh.

5My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness.
6I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.
7For my waist is filled with burning. There is no soundness in my flesh.
8I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart.
9Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you.
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← Psalm 38:6Psalm 38:8 →
Notice

Burning in the waist and the absence of soundness make bodily suffering explicit in a prayer that offers no quick relief.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What does “no soundness in my flesh” express that a less specific description of pain might miss?

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How does this account of burning flesh affect what you feel able to bring before God?

Write on this
Connect

Where else Scripture says this

9 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Psalm 6:2Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint. LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled.Both prayers name bodily distress; Psalm 6 adds an explicit plea for mercy and healing.
Job 2:8He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.Job scraping himself with a potsherd and the psalm’s burning flesh make suffering concrete through bodily details.
2 Chronicles 21:18–19After all this the LORD struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease.Both passages describe severe bodily affliction, though Chronicles names an incurable disease while this verse describes burning and lack of soundness.
Psalm 102:3For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.Burning describes bodily distress in both psalms: the waist is filled with burning here, and bones burn like a torch in Psalm 102.
Psalm 38:5My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness.These verses belong to the same lament, moving from corrupt wounds linked to foolishness to burning and unsound flesh.
Acts 12:23Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he didn’t give God the glory. Then he was eaten by worms and died.The shared thread is bodily affliction; Acts names its cause and a death, while this verse reports the sufferer’s pain.
Job 7:5My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.Both speakers describe their own afflicted flesh in stark terms, with Job detailing skin that breaks out afresh.
Psalm 41:8“An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him. Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.”Both concern bodily affliction, but Psalm 41 reports what others say about the sufferer, while Psalm 38 speaks from within the pain.
Job 30:18My garment is disfigured by great force. It binds me about as the collar of my tunic.The connection is limited to physical distress: burning flesh in the psalm and a garment binding like a collar in Job.
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Describe one bodily burden to God without softening it

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Encouragement

You do not have to soften the description of bodily suffering when you pray. In the surrounding verses, even the sufferer’s groaning is open before the Lord.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 38:7. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 38 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).