Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 38:17

"For I am ready to fall, And my sorrow is continually before me." — Psalms 38:17 (ASV)

For I am ready to halt - Margin, as in Hebrew, “for halting.” The word from which the term used here is derived means properly to lean on one side, and then to halt or limp.

The meaning here is that he was like one who was limping along and ready to fall. In the case referred to here, he felt that his strength was almost gone. He was in continual danger of falling into sin or sinking under his accumulated burdens, thus giving occasion for all that his enemies said of him, or for their triumph over him.

People often have this feeling—that their sorrows are so great that they cannot hope to hold out much longer, and that if God does not intervene, they must fall.

And my sorrow is continually before me - That is, my grief or suffering is unceasing. Probably the reference here is particularly to that which “caused” his grief, or which was the source of his trouble—his sin. The fact that he was a sinner was never absent from his mind; that was the source of all his trouble; that was what weighed so heavily on him that it was likely to crush him to the dust.