Adam Clarke on Psalms 38:20
Commentary and Critical Notes. Browse this work.
Read Psalms 38. Compare commentaries on this chapter.
Source and publication rights
Public domain. Public Domain. Source edition.
Berean Blue opens December 1, 2026. Explore this passage in the app preview.
Psalms38:20
Because I follow the thing that good is - The translation is as bad as the sentence is awkward. תחת רדפי טוב tachath rodpi tob, because I follow goodness. There is a remarkable addition to this verse in the Arabic: "They have rejected me, the beloved one, as an abominable dead carcass; they have pierced my body with nails." I suppose the Arabic translator meant to refer this to Christ.
None of the other Versions have any thing like this addition; only the Ethiopic adds, "They rejected their brethren as an unclean carcass." St. Ambrose says this reading was found in some Greek and Latin copies in his time; and Theodoret has nearly the same reading with the Arabic: Και απερῥιψαν με τον αγαπητον, ῳς νεκρον εβδελυγμενον· "And they cast me, the beloved, out, as an abominable dead carcass." Whence this reading came I cannot conjecture.
Adam Clarke, Commentary and Critical Notes, Psalms 38:20. Public domain.
Permanent link. Source edition.