Psalms 32:3: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”
Looking at the context of this passage we find that David has some hidden sin that he is not confessing. The word for silence in the Hebrew is charesh which is found in this verse as a Hiphal perfect form preceded by the word ki. Ki is generally rendered as because or that rather than when. I really feel the word because is more fitting here than when. Thus you would render this as: “Because I was caused to keep silent.”
That word silent or charesh has multiple usages from silence, to being deaf to plowing a field. The word in its Semitic root has the idea of plowing over. When you plow over something you are digging little trench and the dirt that is dug up will cover the plants that already exist. You then plant new seeds and cover them up. This word charesh eventually reached the Hebrew language as not only plowing but silence. It is silence not in the sense of just being mute, but not speaking up and revealing the truth that is in you. Just as plowing covers up plants that were on the surface, so too does silence cover up sins that are commented and buried deep inside of you.
Let’s say a husband commits adultery and his wife does not know about it. It happened on business trip, a one night stand. He will initially feel a surge of guilt, but he will not tell his wife, he will bury it deep with his soul so she will never know. It may be so buried that at times he forgets all about it, but it is still there, that guilt, that sin that needs to be confessed. His wife may not know about the affair but she will suspect something because her husband is not the same, he is not responding like he used to. That sin that has been chareshed in him, put to silence but it is still there. It will begin to cause his bones to wax old. There is an old Aramaic idiom used to describe someone who is strong and virile. They say he is strong in bones. Bones were considered to be the source of your strength in ancient times. As you grow older the ancients would say that you bones are growing old and weak. In other words, you lose you vitality and strength. The more this husband buries his sin and refuses to confess it the weaker he will grow. That relationship with his wife will continue to deteriorate as he is unable respond in complete honesty with his mate. He will begin to roar. Actually that word roar in the Hebrew is sha’ag which is a rumbling or groaning. A lion roars when it is hungry, you stomach rumbles when it is hungry. This word sha’ag has the idea of a hunger a need to be feed. Hunger is a basic need, when you are hungry you can’t think of anything else but eating. Schools offer breakfast programs because some children go to school hungry and if they are hungry they are so occupied with their hunger they cannot learn in school. Church services end at noon because the people get hungry and if you are hungry you are not going to concentrate on the sermon. Preacher’s may think that their congregation are so hungry for the words they have to speak that they will go fifteen minutes or a half hour over the allotted time, but in reality their congregation stops being hungry for his words and their minds are focused on another hunger. If a preacher goes overtime he may not get an Amen, but than likely a resentment. Not that the people are not spiritual, just that their hunger for food is more manifest than their hunger for the Word.
Eventually this husband will have to confess his adulterous act to his wife and seek her forgiveness if he is ever to have that intimate relationship with her that he once enjoyed. Even though the wife knows nothing about the affair, longs to be close to her husband and share an intimacy, her husband cannot give it to her because he has hidden his sin against her in his heart and if it is in his heart, he cannot share his heart with her. If she cannot share his heart she cannot share her heart with him and thus that relationship will grow cold and stale. The joy of a marriage is having someone that you can share your heart with, someone that you can put your complete trust in and having someone share their heart with you and put their complete trust in you. When that is broken, the joy in that relationship deteriorates.
This is what David is expressing in his relationship with God. He has committed some sin that is unconfessed. He has not sought the Lord’s forgiveness. God is ready to forgive David, ready to embrace him, hug him, express His love for him, share His heart with him, but God cannot do it because David has set up a wall a barrier with his silence or charesh. He has hidden his sin away in his heart. But by hiding his sin in his heart God is not able to share His heart with David’s heart.
I hear people all the time saying they have lost their joy in the Lord, they no longer feel His presence and they are totally frustrated and miserable because they no longer feel the presence of God. But like in a marriage that sense of the presence of your mate, that joy in your relationship comes from sharing your heart with that person and they with you. If you sin against you mate and it is unconfessed you no longer share your hearts with each other and the joy and intimacy is gone. So too with God, if there is sin in your heart you no longer share an intimacy with God for He cannot share His heart with you nor you with Him. That trust is broken.
That is why David says in Psalms 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:” I will go more into this verse tomorrow but for now I want to relate this verse to Psalms 32:3. Why is David asking God to search his heart and to try him? Because something is wrong in their relationship and he knows it is not God’s fault. There is something in him that is hindering his joy and intimacy with God and like a husband must continually ask his wife during their intimate moments alone, “Search my heart, if you find anything in my heart that is offending you, let me confess, forgive me, let me make it up to you, let me do something so that we can again be one together, be intimate together.”
We too must continually, like David, ask God to search our hearts for anything that we have hidden in our hearts, that we are not even aware of because we have kept charesh, silent about it for so long. We must ask God to reveal it to us so we can confess it and ask Him to forgive us so we can again experience that joy and intimacy with Him.
One other thing my study partner pointed out to me while we worked on this verse together, she mentioned that bones are physical and that the emotional impact of an offense against someone, even against God and that loss of joy and intimacy can even have a physical effect on you. The anxiety, stress, fear and guilt can affect your bones. The word for bones in Hebrew is ‘etsem which could also mean simply your external or physical body. Your whole body can grow weary and old before its time if you allow all those sins to remain hidden in you and unconfessed. God doesn’t need us to confess our sins for His sake, we need to confess our sins for our own sakes. God needs us to confess our sins so He can once again enjoy an intimacy with us. If you are not experiencing the joy and intimacy with God that you once knew, “The fault dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.” We must confess our sins and if we are unaware of our sins and there is no joy or intimacy then like a good husband who longs for an intimacy with his mate, he will ask his wife to search his heart to discover what it is that he did to offend her.
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