The psalmist regarded his illness as punishment (line a); literally “your hand was heavy on me,” that is, “you beat me severely” (see the same idiom in 38.2b; 39.10).

The second part of the verse is difficult to understand; the Masoretic text is “was changed my moisture by heats of summer.” The ancient versions differ from the Masoretic text and from each other. The word translated strength (Good News Translation “moisture”) occurs only here and in Numbers 11.8, of “bread (or, cake) baked with olive oil.” Here it is taken to mean “moisture, sap,” in the sense of vitality, strength.

The word translated heat occurs only here in the Old Testament. Following one Hebrew manuscript, which has “as the heat” (instead of the Masoretic text “by the heat”), Good News Translation has taken the language to express a simile and filled it out with “… as moisture is dried up by the summer heat” (similarly Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible).4 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project says the Masoretic text means “my strength was dried up in (or, by) the heat of [summer].” One may assume that Hebrew Old Testament Text Project does not mean to say that the psalmist had suffered a sunstroke; but Hebrew Old Testament Text Project does not explicitly state that the statement is to be taken figuratively, not literally. Bible en français courant has “I was exhausted as a plant by the fierce summer heat” (similarly Biblia Dios Habla Hoy). In some languages it is not natural to speak of one’s strength drying up. Strength is sometimes said to melt, to wither, or fall down. In languages which employ a different description of failing strength, it will often be necessary to adapt the type of simile used; for example, as in Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “as a flower withers from the heat of summer, so I have felt myself fade away.”

Some, instead of the Masoretic text “my moisture,” make the conjecture “my tongue”; Dahood takes the Masoretic text to be the vocative “O Shaddai,” a title for God. These conjectures do not have good support.

For Selah see comments on 3.2.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .