My wounds. The soul being invisible, its distempers are also so; therefore the sacred writers describe them by the distempers of the body. (See the Parallel Texts on these verses.) On reading these and similar passages, say Bp. Lowth, some, who were but little acquainted with the genius of Hebrew poetry, have pretended to enquire into the nature of the disease with which the poet was afflicted; not less absurdly in my opinion, that if they had perplexed themselves to discover in what river he was plunged, when he complains that `the deep waters had gone over his soul.'

Psalm 38:5 My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.

Psalm 32:3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

Isaiah 1:5,6 Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint...

Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?