Sin and Suffering
For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, and Your hand has pressed down on me.
There is no healthy part in my flesh because of Your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. Psalm 38:2-3 NASB
Your indignation – Look who’s responsible! If God runs the universe, then He must be the one behind my suffering. I mean, He could arrange the cosmos so that sin doesn’t entail misery. Why not? Isn’t He interested, ultimately, in saving His creation? So, why not make sins into “teaching lessons”? Why have consequences that last three and four generations? The Psalmist raises the question.
Notice the parallelism. “You, God, have caused me all kinds of grief. Even my flesh is affected because You’re angry.” But then, “I have no health because of my sin.” Apparently, God’s indignation and my sin result in pretty much the same thing. “Indignation” is an unfamiliar word. It means anger or annoyance about something that is perceived to be unfair. But is that what the psalmist means? We might understand the verse if he wrote, “my indignation,” that is, what seems unfair to me, because he’s the one who is suffering. But how can this be God’s indignation? Does God think suffering is unfair? If He does, then why doesn’t He do something about it? Or maybe something else is happening.
Let’s look at the original word, qāṣap. TWOT notes:
This noun is used twenty-two times. It is regularly translated “indignation,” referring more often to God than to man. zaʿam is used in parallel with qāṣap, as Jeremiah states that the earth shall tremble at God’s wrath (qeṣep), and the nations shall not be able to bear his “indignation” (zāʿam) (Jer 10:10; cf Ps 102:11).[1]
Since the noun is most often attributed to God, perhaps we need to rethink its implication. God is annoyed about what is unfair, but what is unfair isn’t our suffering. Our suffering because of our sins is well deserved. What is unfair is that suffering exists in the first place. It was never supposed to be like this. God did not create men in order for them to sin and suffer. He created men in order for them to participate in the divine purpose, to be fellow-partners with God. What’s annoying is that the world has come to this. What’s unfair is that men have perpetrated suffering upon themselves because they have deviated from the divine intention. What’s undeserved isn’t the consequences of sin but sin itself. Given the choice between obedience and disobedience, what’s unfair is that we should be so obtuse to God’s plan that we choose an opposing way. When we do the arrows sink deeply, the bones collapse, and no part of the flesh is healthy—but all of that isn’t what God wanted or intended. What’s unfair, from God’s point of view, is that all of this was unnecessary. No wonder He’s indignant—not at the subsequent suffering but at the insanity of it all.
Topical Index: indignation, qāṣap, suffering, sin, Psalm 38:2-3
[1] Wood, L. J. (1999). 568 זָעַם. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 247). Chicago: Moody Press.
