Musar su Salmi 78:38

Therefore, it is important to make a path before the people who are eager to repent. And there is a difference between people. How so? If the one who sinned is well-versed in the Torah and if the anguish and the fasting are too difficult for him, he will not be able to correct his evil qualities, and so it is best to lighten the burden of the various pains and fasting that have been laid upon him, and he should be instructed to occupy himself with great effort in the study of Torah. And thus did they say (Lev. Rabbah 25:1): "If a man went astray and sinned and is deserving of death at the hands of Heaven, what can he do and live? If he was accustomed to read one page in the Talmud let him read two, if he was accustomed to study one chapter of the Mishnah let him study two, since there is atonement in much study. And let this man do kindness and truth, and through these means his sins will be atoned for, as it is said, "By mercy and truth, iniquity is expiated" (Prov. 16:6). And he should exert himself to perform every single precept as it is set forth, and he should trouble himself to cause the many to have merit, to do kind deeds to people, to pray with serious intent and with submission to God and with a rending of the heart, and he should ask forgiveness from the Lord for all his sins. And he should avoid frivolous laughter and aimless strolling about and idle things, and from hearing "the latest news." Similarly, he should avoid all the things that are only for this world, and he should set a definite plan of what he can do and what he can bear in the way of repentance together with his occupying himself with Torah and the commandments. And he must always try to be submissive to God, and he should fast at least one day a week and on that day he should free himself of everything in the world and sit by himself and arrange thoughts in his heart towards God — to cleave to Him and to be sad of spirit because he has raised himself in rebellion against the Great King. And he should weep and mourn with broken heart and multiply pleadings and multiply praises of God and should receive a lashing three times on that day and when they lash him he should say, "But he, being full of compassion forgiveth iniquity and destroyeth not; yea, many a time doth He turn His anger away" (Ps. 78:38). And so must he say three times at every lashing and so should he continue to do until he finds favor before the King, Most High.

Our Sages instituted that we recite three times a day the verse, “And He, the merciful One atones iniquity, and does not destroy; He frequently withdraws His anger, and does not arouse all His rage” (Tehillim 78:38). It is said once in the prayer “Acknowledge Hashem, call upon His name,” once in “And a redeemer will come to Tzion,” and once at the beginning of the evening service. The reason for this is as follows: In this verse there are thirteen words, corresponding to the thirteen Divine attributes of mercy and three times thirteen is thirty-nine. Now, each day the evil impulse overwhelms a person so that it is only with the greatest difficulty that he is able to avoid committing sins carrying the penalty of thirty-nine lashes. Thus the recitation of this verse is a way of requesting the Holy One Blessed is He to grant atonement for the person’s sin as if he had actually received the lashes, in order that he will not be destroyed on account of it. For iniquity provokes the destructive forces called “anger” and “wrath.” It was these that brought indictments against Israel continually while they were in Egypt so that the Holy One Blessed is He, through His graciousness and compassion only revealed Himself to save them in the merit of the three Patriarchs. When He did reveal Himself it was in the form of the three Divine names: E-H-Y-H (“I will be”), Y-H-V-H (Tetragrammaton) and A-D-N-Y (“Lord”). The sum of the numerical values of these names is 112, which is equal to that of the acronym YB”K, the initial letters of the words, Ya’aneinu be’yom kareinu — “He will answer us on the day that we call out” (Tikkunei Zohar Chadash 130a). For this reason after we recite the verse, “And He is merciful, etc.,” we then recite the verse, “Hashem will save; the King will answer us on the day that we call out” (Tehillim 20:10).

הבער,מבעה,בור,שור, are the four principal causes of damage injury or death. We find in Numbers 32,38, that there was a Canaanite city called Sivmah (same letters as the first letters of the four categories of damage). The four causes of damage are related to the four kinds of קליפות "peels" mentioned in Psalms 78,28,"והוא רחום.” They are: חמה, אף, משחית, עון, names by which G–ds destructive agents are known to us. The word מבעה, meaning damage caused by the teeth, i.e. eating what does not belong to one, is something man is judged on when already in his grave, as our sages explain on Maleachi 2,3, וזריתי פרש … פרש חגיכם, that man will be judged in the grave for what he ate illegally while on earth (Shabbat 151). The category of damage known as שור, refers to the "horns" of Samael (Satan), i.e. the evil urge. The first letters of the words שור, קרן, רגל, spell שקר, lie. The fourth category, fire, i.e. אש also known as hav-er - refers to the fire of purgatory, גהינם.