I said, “I will watch my ways, so that I don’t sin with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me.”
I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.
My heart was hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned. I spoke with my tongue:
“Yahweh, show me my end, what is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am.
Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.”
“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
Now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.
Deliver me from all my transgressions. Don’t make me the reproach of the foolish.
I was mute. I didn’t open my mouth, because you did it.
Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.”
“Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go away and exist no more.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 1. I said, I will take heed to my…
1. I said, I will take heed to my ways. David explains and illustrates the greatness of his grief by this circumstance, that, contrary to his inclination and resolution, he broke forth into the severest complaints. The meaning substantially is, that although he had subdued his heart to patience, and resolved to keep silence, yet the violence of his grief was such that it forced him to break his resolution, and extorted from him, if we might so speak, expressions which indicate that he had given way to an undue degree of sorrow. The expression, I said, it is well known, does not always mean what is expressed in words, but is often used to denote the purpose of the heart, and, therefore, the words in heart are sometimes added. David, therefore, means not that he boasted of his fortitude and constancy, and made a display of them before men, but that before God he was, by continued meditation, well fortified and prepared to endure patiently the temptations by which he was now assailed. We ought to mark particularly the carefulness by which he was distinguished. It was not without cause that he was so much intent on exercising watchfulness over himself. He did so because he was conscious of his own weakness, and also well knew the manifold devices of Satan. He, therefore, looked on the right hand and on the left, and kept watch on all sides, lest temptation stealing upon him unawares from any quarter might reach even to his heart. Access to it, then, had been impossible, since it was shut up on every side, if the extreme severity of his grief had not overpowered him, and broken his resolution. When he says, I will keep my mouth with a muzzle, that I sin not with my tongue, it is not to be understood as if he could with difficulty restrain and conceal his grief, (for it is mere pretense for a man to show by the countenance and speech the appearance of meekness when the heart still swells with pride;) but as there is nothing more slippery or loose than the tongue, David declares that he had endeavored so carefully to bridle his affections, that not so much as one word should escape from his lips which might betray the least impatience. And that man must indeed be endued with singular fortitude who unfeignedly and deliberately restrains his tongue, which is so liable to fall into error. As to what follows, while the wicked standeth before me, it is generally understood, as if David had concealed his grief, lest he should give occasion of blasphemy to the wicked, who, as soon as they see the children of God fail under the weight of their afflictions, insolently break forth into derision against them, which amounts to a contempt of God himself. But it appears to me that by the term standeth, David meant to express something more, — that even while he saw the wicked bearing rule, exercising authority, and exalted to honor, he resolved not to speak a single word, but to bear patiently the poverty and indignity which otherwise grieve and torment not a little even good men. Accordingly, he says not merely that when he was in the presence of the wicked he restrained himself, lest he should be subjected to their scorn, but that even while the worst of men prospered, and, proud of their high rank, despised others, he was fully determined in his own mind not to be troubled at it. By this he very plainly shows that he was so beset with wicked men, ever ready for mischief, that he could not freely heave a sigh which was not made the subject of ridicule and scorn. Since, then, it was so hard a task for David to restrain his tongue, lest he should sin by giving way to complaints, let us learn from his example, whenever troubles molest us, to strive earnestly to moderate our affections, that no impious expression of dissatisfaction against God may slip from us.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13 This was one of the chief singers, 1 Chron.…
This was one of the chief singers, 1 Chron. 16:41.
Albeit he had appointed with himself patiently to have tarried God’s leisure, yet the vehemency of his pain caused him to break his purpose.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–13 Psa 39:1 « To the chief Musician, [even] to…
Psa 39:1 « To the chief Musician, [even] to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David. » I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.
Ver. 1. I said, I will take heed] He resolved so, Psa 38:13-14, sc. to continue as one deaf and dumb, to use Isaac’s apology to scoffing Ishmael, viz. no apology, unless it be that which is real; for vivendo melius arguuntur obtrectatores, quam loquendo, slanderers and railers are best answered by silence. Eiusdem sensus est hic Psalmus cum priori (Kimchi).
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That I sin not with my tongue] A hard task, a long lesson, as Pambus, in the Ecclesiastical History, found it by experience; and after many years’ trial could not take it out. For the tongue is an unruly member; and "if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body," Jas 3:2. David resolved to temper his tongue, and to keep a bridle or a muzzle for his mouth, while he was in extremity of pain, and in the presence of the wicked, who lay at the catch, and would soon exclaim; but his heart deceived him, for he quickly after brake his word, Psa 39:3, and made a rash request, Psa 39:4, so great need is there that the best pray to God to keep the door, as Psa 141:3.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–13 Jeduthun; one of the three chief masters of the…
Jeduthun; one of the three chief masters of the sacred music; of whom see 1Ch 16:41,42; 2Ch 5:12.
I said; I fully resolved. To my ways, i.e. to order all my actions aright, and particularly to govern my tongue, which is very hard to do, and especially under these provocations.
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That I sin not with my tongue; that if any evil thoughts or passions do arise in me, I will endeavour to suppress and mortify them, and not suffer them to boil and break forth into sinful and scandalous reflections upon God and his providence, as they usually do upon such occasions.
As with a bridle, i. e. with all possible care and diligence. The phrase implies the great difficulty of ruling the tongue.
Before me; either,
1. In my presence. Or rather,
2. In my thoughts, as the same phrase is understood, Psa 51:3, i.e. whilst I consider the flourishing estate of wicked men.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 David here recollects, and leaves upon record, the workings…
David here recollects, and leaves upon record, the workings of his heart under his afflictions; and it is good for us to do so, that what was thought amiss may be amended, and what was well thought of may be improved the next time.
I. He remembered the covenants he had made with God to walk circumspectly, and to be very cautious both of what he did and what he said. When at any time we are tempted to sin, and are in danger of falling into it, we must call to mind the solemn vows we have made against sin, against the particular sin we are upon the brink of. God can, and will, remind us of them (Jer 2:20, Thou saidst, I will not transgress), and therefore we ought to remind ourselves of them. So David did here.
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1. He remembers that he had resolved, in general, to be very cautious and circumspect in his walking (Psa 39:1): I said, I will take heed to my ways; and it was well said, and what he would never unsay and therefore must never gainsay. Note, (1.) It is the great concern of every one of us to take heed to our ways, that is, to walk circumspectly, while others walk at all adventures. (2.) We ought stedfastly to resolve that we will take heed to our ways, and frequently to renew that resolution. Fast bind, fast find. (3.) Having resolved to take heed to our ways, we must, upon all occasions, remind ourselves of that resolution, for it is a covenant never to be forgotten, but which we must be always mindful of.
2. He remembers that he had in particular covenanted against tongue-sins - that he would not sin with his tongue, that he would not speak amiss, either to offend God or offend the generation of the righteous, Psa 73:15. it is not so easy as we could wish not to sin in thought; but, if an evil thought should arise in his mind, he would lay his hand upon his mouth, and suppress it, that it should go no further: and this is so great an attainment that, if any offend not in word, the same is a perfect man; and so needful a one that of him who seems to be religious, but bridles not his tongue, it is declared His religion is vain. David had resolved, (1.) That he would at all times watch against tongue-sins: "I will keep a bridle, or muzzle, upon my mouth." He would keep a bridle upon it, as upon the head; watchfulness in the act and exercise is the hand upon the bridle. he would keep a muzzle upon it, as upon an unruly dog that is fierce and does mischief; by particular stedfast resolution corruption is restrained from breaking out at the lips, and so is muzzled. (2.) That he would double his guard against them when there was most danger of scandal - when the wicked is before me. When he was in company with the wicked he would take heed of saying any thing that might harden them or give occasion to them to blaspheme. If good men fall into bad company, they must take heed what they say. Or, when the wicked is before me, in my thoughts. When he was contemplating the pride and power, the prosperity and flourishing estate, of evil-doers, he was tempted to speak amiss; and therefore then he would take special care what he said. Note, The stronger the temptation to a sin is the stronger the resolution must be against it.
II. Pursuant to these covenants he made a shift with much ado to bridle his tongue (Psa 39:2): I was dumb with silence; I held my peace even from good. His silence was commendable; and the greater the provocation was the more praiseworthy was his silence. Watchfulness and resolution, in the strength of God's grace, will do more towards the bridling of the tongue than we can imagine, though it be an unruly evil. But what shall we say of his keeping silence even from good? Was it his wisdom that he refrained from good discourse when the wicked were before him, because he would not cast pearls before swine? I rather think it was his weakness; because he might not say any thing, he would say nothing, but ran into an extreme, which was a reproach to the law, for that prescribes a mean between extremes. The same law which forbids all corrupt communication requires that which is good and to the use of edifying, Eph 4:29.
III. The less he spoke the more he thought and the more warmly. Binding the distempered part did but draw the humour to it: My sorrow was stirred, my heart was hot within me, Psa 39:3. He could bridle his tongue, but he could not keep his passion under; though he suppressed the smoke, that was as a fire in his bones, and, while he was musing upon his afflictions and upon the prosperity of the wicked, the fire burned. Note, Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit ought not to pore much, for, while they suffer their thoughts to dwell upon the causes of the calamity, the fire of their discontent is fed with fuel and burns the more furiously. Impatience is a sin that has its ill cause within ourselves, and that is musing, and its ill effects upon ourselves, and that is no less than burning. If therefore we would prevent the mischief of ungoverned passions, we must redress the grievance of ungoverned thoughts.
IV. When he did speak, at last, it was to the purpose: At the last I spoke with my tongue. Some make what he said to be the breach of his good purpose, and conclude that, in what he said, he sinned with his tongue; and so they make what follows to be a passionate wish that he might die, like Elijah (Kg1 19:4) and Job, Job 6:8, Job 6:9. But I rather take it to be, not the breach of his good purpose, but the reformation of his mistake in carrying it too far; he had kept silence from good, but now he would so keep silence no longer. He had nothing to say to the wicked that were before him, for to them he knew not how to place his words, but, after long musing, the first word he said was a prayer, and a devout meditation upon a subject which it will be good for us all to think much of.
1. He prays to God to make him sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of life and the near approach of death (Psa 39:4): Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days. He does not mean, "Lord, let me know how long I shall live and when I shall die." We could not, in faith, pray such a prayer; for God has nowhere promised to let us know, but has, in wisdom, locked up that knowledge among the secret things which belong not to us, nor would it be good for us to know it. But, Lord, make me to know my end, means, "Lord, give me wisdom and grace to consider it (Deu 32:29) and to improve what I know concerning it." The living know that they shall die (Ecc 9:5), but few care for thinking of death; we have therefore need to pray that God by his grace would conquer that aversion which is in our corrupt hearts to the thoughts of death. "Lord, make me to consider," (1.) "What death is. It is my end, the end of my life, and all the employments and enjoyments of life. It is the end of all men," Ecc 7:2. It is a final period to our state of probation and preparation, and an awful entrance upon a state of recompence and retribution. To the wicked man it is the end of all joys; to a godly man it is the end of all griefs. "Lord, give me to know my end, to be better acquainted with death, to make it more familiar to me (Job 17:14), and to be more affected with the greatness of the change. Lord, give me to consider what a serious thing it is to die." (2.) "How near it is. Lord, give me to consider the measure of my days, that they are measured in the counsel of God" (the end is a fixed end, so the word signifies; my days are determined, Job 14:5) "and that the measure is but short: My days will soon be numbered and finished." When we look upon death as a thing at a distance we are tempted to adjourn the necessary preparations for it; but, when we consider how short life is, we shall see ourselves concerned to do what our hand finds to do, not only with all our might, but with all possible expedition. (3.) That it is continually working in us: "Lord, give me to consider how frail I am, how scanty the stock of life is, and how faint the spirits which are as the oil to keep that lamp burning." We find by daily experience that the earthly house of this tabernacle is mouldering and going to decay: "Lord, make us to consider this, that we may secure mansions in the house not made with hands."
2. He meditates upon the brevity and vanity of life, pleading them with God for relief under the burdens of life, as Job often, and pleading them with himself for his quickening to the business of life.
(1.) Man's life on earth is short and of no continuance, and that is a reason why we should sit loose to it and prepare for the end of it (Psa 39:5): Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth, the breadth of four fingers, a certain dimension, a small one, and the measure whereof we have always about us, always before our eyes. We need no rod, no pole, no measuring line, wherewith to take the dimension of our days, nor any skill in arithmetic wherewith to compute the number of them. No; we have the standard of them at our fingers' end, and there is no multiplication of it; it is but one hand-breadth in all. Our time is short, and God has made it so; for the number of our months is with him. It is short, and he knows it to be so: It is as nothing before thee. he remembers how short our time is, Psa 79:1-13 :47. It is nothing in comparison with thee; so some. All time is nothing to God's eternity, much less our share of time.
(2.) Man's life on earth is vain and of no value, and therefore it is folly to be fond of it and wisdom to make sure of a better life. Adam is Abel - man is vanity, in his present state. He is not what he seems to be, has not what he promised himself. He and all his comforts lie at a continual uncertainty; and if there were not another life after this, all things considered, he were made in vain. He is vanity; he is mortal, he is mutable. Observe, [1.] How emphatically this truth is expressed here. First, Every man is vanity, without exception; high and low, rich and poor, all meet in this. Secondly, He is so at his best estate, when he is young, and strong, and healthful, in wealth and honour, and the height of prosperity; when he is most easy, and merry, and secure, and thinks his mountain stands strong. Thirdly, He is altogether vanity, as vain as you can imagine. All man is all vanity (so it may be read); every thing about him is uncertain; nothing is substantial and durable but what relates to the new man. Fourthly, Verily he is so. This is a truth of undoubted certainty, but which we are very unwilling to believe and need to have solemnly attested to us, as indeed it is by frequent instances. Fifthly, Selah is annexed, as a note commanding observation. "Stop here, and pause awhile, that you may take time to consider and apply this truth, that every man is vanity." We ourselves are so. [2.] For the proof of the vanity of man, as mortal, he here mentions three things, and shows the vanity of each of them, Psa 39:6. First, The vanity of our joys and honours: Surely every man walks (even when he walks in state, when he walks in pleasure) in a shadow, in an image, in a vain show. When he makes a figure his fashion passes away, and his great pomp is but great fancy, Act 25:23. It is but a show, and therefore a vain show, like the rainbow, the gaudy colours of which must needs vanish and disappear quickly when the substratum is but a cloud, a vapour; such is life (Jam 4:14), and therefore such are all the gaieties of it. Secondly, The vanity of our griefs and fears. Surely they are disquieted in vain. Our disquietudes are often groundless (we vex ourselves without any just cause, and the occasions of our trouble are often the creatures of our own fancy and imagination), and they are always fruitless; we disquiet ourselves in vain, for we cannot, with all our disquietment, alter the nature of things nor the counsel of God; things will be as they are when we have disquieted ourselves ever so much about them. Thirdly, The vanity of our cares and toils. Man takes a great deal of pains to heap up riches, and they are but like heaps of manure in the furrows of the field, good for nothing unless they be spread. but, when he has filled his treasures with his trash, he knows not who shall gather them, nor to whom they shall descend when he is gone; for he shall not take them away with him. He asks not, For whom do I labour? and that is his folly, Ecc 4:8. but, if he did ask, he could not tell whether he should be a wise man or a fool, a friend or a foe, Ecc 2:19. This is vanity.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–13 I said,.... That is, in his heart; he purposed…
I said,.... That is, in his heart; he purposed and determined within himself to do as follows; and he might express it with his mouth, and so his purpose became a promise;
I will take heed to my ways; as every good man should; that is, to all his actions, conduct, and conversation: it becomes him to take heed what ways he walks in; that they are the ways of God, which he directs to; that they are the ways of Christ, which he has left an example to follow in; and that they are according to the word of God; that he walks in Christ, the way of salvation, and by faith on him; that he chooses and walks in the way of truth, and not error; and in all, the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless; and in the path of holiness, in which, though fools, they shall not err: and it is also necessary that he should take heed that he does nothing, either by embracing error, or going into immorality, by which the ways of God, and Christ, and truth, are evil spoken of, blasphemed and reproached; and that he does not depart out of these ways, nor stumble, slip, and fall in them;
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that I sin not with my tongue; which is a world of iniquity, and has a multitude of vices belonging to it; not only in profane men, but in professors of religion; whom it becomes to take heed that they sin not with it, by lying one to another, by angry and passionate expressions, by corrupt communication, filthiness, foolish talking, and jesting, which are not convenient; by whispering, talebearing, backbiting, and by evil speaking one of another: particularly there are vices of the tongue, which the saints are liable to under afflictive providences, and seem chiefly designed here; such as envious expressions at the prosperity of others; words of impatience under their own afflictions, and murmurings at the hand of God upon them; such as these the psalmist determined, within himself, to guard against; in order to which he proposed to take the following method;
I will keep my mouth with a bridle: that is, bridle his tongue, that being an unruly member, and to be kept in with bit and bridle, like an unruly horse; see Jam 1:26;
while the wicked is before me; or "against me" (t); meaning either while Ahithophel and Absalom were conspiring and rebelling against him, and Shimei was cursing him, under which he behaved with great silence, calmness, and patience; see Sa2 15:25; or while he had the flourishing condition of wicked men in his view, and was meditating on it; or rather, when anyone of them came to visit him in his affliction, he was determined to be wholly silent, that they might have no opportunity of rejoicing over him, nor of reproaching him, and the good ways of God: and indeed it is proper for the people of God to be always upon their guard, when they are in the presence of wicked men; and be careful what they utter with their lips, who watch their words to improve them against them, and the religion they profess.
(t) "adversum me", V. L. "contra me", Cocceius; so the Targum.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 David relates the struggle which had been in his…
David relates the struggle which had been in his breast, ver. 1-3. He meditates on man's frailty and mortality, ver. 4-6. He prays for pardon, deliverance from trouble, and respite from death, ver. 7-13. To the chief musician, even to Jeduthun, A psalm of David. Title of the psalm. Jeduthun - One of the three chief masters of the sacred musick, 1 Chron. xvi, 41, 42.
I said - I fully resolved. Take heed - To order all my actions right, and particularly to govern my tongue.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 The psalmist's care and watchfulness over his thoughts, tongue,
PSALM XXXIX
The psalmist's care and watchfulness over his thoughts, tongue,
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and actions, 1-3.
He considers the brevity and uncertainty of human life, 4-7;
prays for deliverance from sin, 8-11;
and that he may be protected and spared till he is fitted for
another world, 12, 13.
NOTES ON PSALM XXXIX
The title says, To the chief Musician, Jeduthun himself, A Psalm of David. It is supposed that this Jeduthun is the same with Ethan, 1Ch 6:44, compared with 1Ch 16:41; and is there numbered among the sons of Merari. And he is supposed to have been one of the four masters of music, or leaders of bands, belonging to the temple. And it is thought that David, having composed this Psalm, gave it to Jeduthun and his company to sing. But several have supposed that Jeduthun himself was the author. It is very likely that this Psalm was written on the same occasion with the preceding. It relates to a grievous malady by which David was afflicted after his transgression with Bath-sheba. See what has been said on the foregoing Psalm.
Verse 1. I said, I will take heed to my ways] I must be cautious because of my enemies; I must be patient because of my afflictions; I must be watchful over my tongue, lest I offend my GOD, or give my adversaries any cause to speak evil of me.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 Psa 39:1. I said — I fully resolved, &c.…
Psa 39:1. I said — I fully resolved, &c. “The Psalm,” says Dr. Horne, “begins abruptly with the result of a meditation on the narrow, slippery, and dangerous paths of life; more especially on the extreme difficulty of restraining the tongue, amidst the continual temptations and provocations”
which surround or assault us, to speak unadvisedly with our lips. I will take heed to my ways — That is, to order all my actions aright, and particularly to govern my tongue, that if any evil thought or passions arise within me, I may suppress and mortify them, and not suffer them to break forth into sinful reflections on God and his providence. I will keep my mouth as with a bridle — With all possible care and diligence. While the wicked is before me — In my presence; or in my thoughts, as the phrase is understood, Psa 51:3, that is, while I consider the flourishing estate of wicked men.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–13 I said - This refers to a resolution which…
I said - This refers to a resolution which he had formed. He does not say, however, at what time of his life the resolution was adopted, or how long a period had elapsed from the time when he formed the resolution to the time when he thus made a record of it. He had formed the resolution on some occasion when he was greatly troubled with anxious thoughts; when, as the subsequent verses show, his mind was deeply perplexed about the divine administration, or the dealings of God with mankind. It would seem that this train of thought was suggested by his own particular trials Psa 39:9-10, from which he was led to reflect on the mysteries of the divine administration in general, and on the fact that man had been subjected by his Creator to so much trouble and sorrow - and that, under the divine decree, human life was so short and so vain.
I will take heed to my ways - To wit, in respect to this matter. I will be cautious, circumspect, prudent. I will not offend or pain the heart of others. The particular thing here referred to was, the resolution not to give utterance to the thoughts which were passing in his mind in regard to the divine administration. He felt that he was in danger, if he stated what he thought on the subject, of saying things which would do injury, or which he would have occasion to regret, and he therefore resolved to keep silent.
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That I sin not with my tongue - That I do not utter sentiments which will be wrong, and which I shall have occasion to repent; sentiments which would do injury to those who are already disposed to find ground of complaint against God, and who would thus be furnished with arguments to confirm them in their views. Good men often have such thoughts passing through their minds; thoughts reflecting on the government of God as unequal and severe; thoughts which, if they were suggested, would tend to confirm the wicked and the skeptical in their views; thoughts which they hope, in respect to themselves, to be able to calm down by meditation and prayer, but which would do only unmitigated harm if they were communicated to other men, especially to wicked people.
I will keep my mouth with a bridle - The word used here means rather a “muzzle,” or something placed “over” the mouth. The bridle is to restrain or check or guide the horse; the muzzle was something to bind or fasten the mouth so as to prevent biting or eating. Deu 25:4 : “thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.” See the notes at 1Co 9:9. The meaning here is, that he would restrain himself from uttering what was passing in his mind.
While the wicked is before me - In their presence. He resolved to do this, as suggested above, lest if he should utter what was passing in his own mind - if he should state the difficulties in regard to the divine administration which he saw and felt - if he should give expression to the skeptical or hard thoughts which occurred to him at such times, it would serve only to confirm them in their wickedness, and strengthen them in their alienation from God. A similar state of feeling, and on this very subject, is referred to by the psalmist Psa 73:15, where he says that if he should utter what was really passing in his mind, it would greatly pain and offend those who were the true children of God; would fill their minds with doubts and difficulties which might never occur to themselves: “If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I shall offend against the generation of thy children.” As illustrations of this state of feeling in the minds of good men, and as evidence of the fact that, as in the case of the psalmist, their existence in the mind, even in the severest and the most torturing form, is not proof that the man in whose bosom they arise is not a truly pious man, I make the following extracts as expressing the feelings of two of the most sincere and devoted Christian men that ever lived - both eminently useful, both in an eminent degree ornaments to the Church, Cecil and Payson: “I have read all the most acute, and learned, and serious infidel writers, and have been really surprised at their poverty. The process of my mind has been such on the subject of revelation, that I have often thought Satan has done more for me than the best of them, for I have had, and could have produced, arguments that appeared to me far more weighty than any I ever found in them against revelation.” - Cecil. Dr. Payson says in a letter to a friend: “There is one trial which you cannot know experimentally: it is that of being obliged to preach to others when one doubts of everything, and can scarcely believe that there is a God. All the atheistical, deistical, and heretical objections which I meet with in books are childish babblings compared with those which Satan suggests, and which he urges upon the mind with a force which seems irresistible. Yet I am often obliged to write sermons, and to preach when these objections beat upon me like a whirlwind, and almost distract me.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 39
Psalms 39
To the chief Musician, even to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David
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1 I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue:
I will keep my mouth with a bridle,
While the wicked is before me.
2 I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred.
3 My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing the fire burned:
Then spake I with my tongue,
4 Lord, make me to know mine end,
And the measure of my days, what it is;
That I may know how frail I am.
5 Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth;
And mine age is as nothing before thee:
Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew:
Surely they are disquieted in vain:
He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
7 And now, Lord, what wait I for?
My hope is in thee.
8 Deliver me from all my transgressions:
Make me not the reproach of the foolish.
9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth;
Because thou didst it.
10 Remove thy stroke away from me:
I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity,
Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth:
Surely every man is vanity. Selah.
12 Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry;
Hold not thy peace at my tears:
For I am a stranger with thee,
And a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
13 O spare me, that I may recover strength,
Before I go hence, and be no more.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
For the Title, comp. Introduct. § 12, No. 6. This Psalm is related in many particulars to Psalms 62. and has likewise many features in common with Job, and in some respects with Psalms 38. The Psalmist has undertaken to be silent respecting his sufferings, in the presence of the ungodly lest he should sin in his speech (Psa_39:1). He has been silent a short time in submission, but the burning and violent pain of his heart, enkindled to ill-humor in brooding over this unfortunate state of affairs, has found vent by the tongue (Psa_39:2-3). The context does not indicate that he has uttered such words in the presence of his enemies as have endangered his life, as Hitzig contends referring to an older cotemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. Moreover the following words are not in favor of taking them as a statement of what the Psalmist uttered when in ill-humor (Calvin, Hengst.). They do not express the self-accusation, that he then desired death as the end of his sufferings and prayed for an indication of its nearness. They express the present petition and wish, that God will make the afflicted man conscious of the shortness of life (Psa_39:4), in accordance with the universal perishableness of man (Psa_39:5). If, namely, all mortal movements are a noise about nothing (Psa_39:6), the best thing for the Psalmist is waiting on the Lord (Psa_39:7), whom now he implores, to deliver him from all his transgressions and not make him the scorn of the ungodly. He does not desire nor does he venture to complain that God has involved him in these sufferings (Psa_39:9); on the contrary he implores the removal of the stroke of His hand, because this would destroy him (Psa_39:10), considering the guilt and weakness of man (Psa_39:11). Therefore he can pressingly implore the hearing of his prayer, which is accompanied with tears, before his departure, on account of the shortness of his earthly pilgrimage (Psa_39:12-13). The same words as those in the second half of Psa_39:12 are found in David’s mouth in 1Ch_29:15. The language is more transparent than usual and sticks closer to the subject. [Ewald: “It is the most beautiful of all the elegies in the Psalter.”—“It has great and not accidental resemblances to the discourses of Job 3:31, and since the poets are different in the color of the language and the arrangement of the verses, either this author has read the book of Job, or the author of the book of Job was stimulated by the lamentation of this Psalm to seek a higher solution, the latter is more probable.”—C. A. B.]
Str. I. Psa_39:1. While the wicked is in my presence.—This expression, in itself, might refer to a sinful speaking against the present enemy (Flam., Ruding., Hitzig), or to expressions of ill-will on account of the prosperity of the wicked which was before his eyes, as Psalms 37 (Geier, J. H. Mich., Köster, Delitzsch); but since the poet is throughout the Psalm occupied only with his own situation (Hupfeld), it is best to think of murmuring against God on account of his own severe sufferings, as Psa_38:13 sq., comp. Job_1:22; Job_2:10, (Kimchi, Calvin, De Wette, Hengst.), in which he is in danger of becoming a scorn of fools (Psa_39:8.).
Str. II. Psa_39:2. Away from prosperity.—In the situation above described the afflicted man is silent for awhile, and indeed מִטּוֹב. Since words of silence never have their object with מִן the explanation “about good,” e.g., the law and praise of God, prosperity and joy, (Chald., Aquil., Rabbins, many of the older interpreters until Rosenm.), or what might serve as a justification against slander (Calvin, Ruding.), are inadmissible. It might possibly be interpreted, “I was silent respecting prosperity,” in so far as it was not asked for or was dispensed with (Ewald, Köster), or turned away from the prosperity of the wicked, since the poet sought to put the inconsistency to a dead silence (Delitzsch), which would certainly be better than: turned away from the prosperous (Maurer). We might likewise say: far away from good = without joy and comfort (Geier, J. H. Mich.) or: so that it was not well with me, gloomy (Hupf.), or: not for good = without good results (Hengst.). A hard ellipsis, difficult to be understood, would result from the interpretation that it is an abbreviation of the complete clause: from good even to evil = utterly, Gen_31:24; 2Sa_13:22, (Flam., De Wette, Hitzig). We refer the obscure and disputed expression to the circumstance, in which the poet describes himself as an unfortunate man, whose pain has in vain fretted within him.
[Psa_39:3. Fire burned.—Hupfeld: “This is a usual figure of internal excitement and passion, as well as of the anxiety and pain resulting therefrom, when it is denied expression.” Comp. Psa_22:15; Psa_32:3; Is. 20:9.—C. A. B.]
Str. III. Psa_39:4. Make me to know,etc. The entire manner of expression shows, that the speaker does not inquire after the point of time of his death, because his sufferings would then be at an end, nor complain of his sufferings on account of the shortness of human life, because he has no longer hope of help; which then is taken as the subject of the previous complaint, derived from the time of his ill-humor, as in Job_6:7 sq.; Job_7:7; Job_14:1 sq.; Job_16:22, in contrasted reference to the present patient endurance of what God has done (Psa_39:9), where Luther improperly translates: Thou wilt make it right. The speaker, certainly does not implore instruction respecting the perishableness of all earthly and human things, which indeed he has experienced in the most direct way in his own sufferings and which is presupposed as the foundation of his prayer. Its purpose is: that God, by His operation upon the soul of the sufferer, may cause him to spiritually apprehend this for moral and practical purposes, in order that, when he apprehends his own person as a vanishing thing in the midst of the perishable, he may not make so much bustle about himself and his sufferings in the world, but may lay hold of God by faith, as the only true support. Thus there is unity in the entire Psalm and an advance in thought. The Psalmist speaks in a narrative form, Psa_39:1-3, but subsequently in prayer, arising out of the feelings which the reflection upon his previous action has excited in him, and from which the previous self-accusation as well as the increasing intensity and pressingness of the prayer have originated and are explained. If on the other hand Psa_39:4 sq., is regarded as the subject of the speech of the tongue mentioned in Psa_39:3, then we must either give an entirely new and independent beginning to the prayer, in Psa_39:7 (Calvin, Ruding., Hengst.), which thus divides the Psalm in two halves, with which neither the refrain of Psa_39:5 in Psa_39:11, nor the double Selah would agree; or we must with Hupfeld regard all spoken after Psa_39:3, as the contents of that which in Psa_39:3 welled forth from the glowing heart upon the tongue. Then the unity of the Psalm would be preserved, since the first half would have the meaning of an Introduction; but the contents do not suit the introduction at all, because there is no trace in the prayer of sinning with the tongue.7—I would know what a transitory thing I am.—It is not at all necessary to change חָדֵל into חָלֶד after Psa_89:48, comp. Isa_38:11, (Kimchi, Calvin, Cocc., Cleric., Hupfeld), whose meaning ævum is doubtful, and is taken by Böttcher in the sense of: a little heap of earth, dust (de inferis, § 274).
Psa_39:5. Hand-breadths.—Instead of this the Vulgate has mensurabiles, and the ancient Psalters veteres after the Sept. παλαιάς, which however is a corruption of παλαιστάς or παλεστάς which, as a literal translation of the Hebrew, is found in the Cod. Alex., and in Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen and even was known to Ambrose and by him explained not as the palm but as rings. [Hupfeld: “It is used as a little measure of length to indicate the shortness of life, as with us, a span. The construction is that of the double accusative.”—C. A. B.]—Only mere breath is every man though he stand firmly.—It is best to connect נצב with אדם in contrast with הבל. Man is thus described as vigorous, standing firm (Zec_11:16), strong in his own feelings, bold and stepping securely, and not merely as one “who lives” (Sept.). It is certainly, in no case, to be connected with the following Selah = standing he bowed. It is possible to connect this word with the entire clause = only to mere nothingness is every man appointed (Hengst. [Alexander]), or better: placed as mere breath (Böttcher), constitutus est. But this interpretation is not necessary and it cannot be sustained by appealing to the previous lines. For the assertion that “before Thee” ( = in Thine eyes) means “according to God’s regulation” is just as untenable as that אַיִן never = “nothing,” but always, = nullity. Hupfeld adduces as decisive against it, Isa_40:17; Isa_41:12; Isa_41:24. The confirming “yes” may be put instead of the restricting “only.”8 Usage allows the one as well as the other.
Str. IV. Psa_39:6. Only as a shadow doth man walk.—The Rabbinical interpretation that man walketh “in darkness” is incorrect. The beth is the so-called beth essentiæ. [It introduces the predicate. He walks about consisting merely of an unsubstantial shadow like that image of himself in the shadow upon the ground.—Only for a breath do they make a noise.—Perowne: “All the fret and stir, all the eager clamor and rivalry of men, as they elbow and jostle one another to obtain wealth and rank, and the enjoyments of life, are but a breath. Comp. Jam_4:13-14.”—C. A. B.].—He heapeth up.—It makes no difference in the sense whether we think particularly of treasure. (Job_27:16, [A. V. riches]) or grain (Gen_41:35; Gen_41:49). The following verb, however, is in favor of the gathering of the harvest, and the suffix refers to a nom. plur. masc, understood.9
[Psa_39:7. And now.—Perowne: “Turning away as it were, with a sense of relief from the sad contemplation of man’s fleeting, transitory life, to fix the eye of his heart on Him who abideth forever. We seem almost to hear the deep sigh with which the words are uttered. It is remarkable that even here, it is on God Himself, not on a life to come, that his hope sustains itself.”—C. A. B.].
[Str. V. Psa_39:8. Transgressions are regarded as the root of his sufferings and hence the prayer that they may be removed. Comp. Psa_38:5-6; Psa_31:10.—Scorn of the fool.—Comp. Psa_22:6. They, beholding his sufferings, would mock him and scorn him for his transgression, charging many things against him of which he was guiltless.
Psa_39:9. Because Thou didst it.—The Thou is emphatic and indicates that his sufferings were the work of God and no one else.—C. A. B.].
[Str. VI. Psa_39:11. And like the moth makest what he desires to melt away.—As the moth consumes garments and they waste away, so that which is dearest and most desirable and precious to him, melts away under the stroke of Divine chastisement. This is a usual figure of perishableness, comp. Isa_50:9; Isa_51:8; Job_13:28.—Only a breath is every man—Vid. Psa_39:5, to which this clause refers back.—C. A. B.]
Str. VII. Psa_39:12. [To my tears.—Delitzsch: “Along-side of the words of prayer appear the tears likewise as a prayer understood by God, for when the doors of prayer appear to be closed, the doors of the tears remain open.”—C. A. B.]—For I am a guest with Thee,etc. The expression which is rendered in the Sept. by πάροικος καὶπαρεπίδημος (like 1Pe_2:11), originates from Gen_23:4, as a designation of the relation, in which Abraham stood to the natives of the land through which he wandered, and it was referred afterwards not only to the relation of foreign inhabitants of Canaan to the Israelites who were possessed of the full right of citizenship in the promised land, it being in their possession, Exo_12:49; Lev_24:16; Lev_24:22; Lev_25:6, et al.; but likewise to the relation of the Israelites to God as the true and only Lord, Lev_25:23. The additional clause: as all my fathers, points to a comprehensive relation of this kind. We have therefore to think not of a merely personal and transient helplessness and need of protection, or of a mere dependence upon God, which likewise remains to those within the fellowship of the people of God, but to include in the idea, at the same time, the thought of the merely transient abode of man in this world, as likewise in 1Ch_29:15, and Heb_11:13 sq.—Most ancient Psalters have after apud te, which is missing in Cod. Vat. of the Sept., likewise in terra. The Cod. Vat. also has this reading, while the Cod. Alex. has both readings, ἐν τῇ γῇ παρά σοι.
Psa_39:12. Look away from me, that I may cheer up.—God’s looking away refers to the turning away His angry face, Psa_21:9; Psa_34:16; His look of wrath, Job_7:19; Job_14:6, which has as its result the “cheering up” (Job_9:27; Job_10:20) of the human countenance, since the clouds of care and shadows of trouble vanish.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Even experienced believers are deceived at times as to the little reliance they can place upon good resolutions, but only for a short time. Temptation shows how weak we are, how little patience we have in affliction, how easy and how greatly we sin in our impatience and despondency in murmuring and complaining. “It is to be well pondered that David in this Psalm does not declare his virtues in that he had formed his wishes after the rule of piety and sent them up to God, but that he rather complains of the weakness which misled him to foam in excessive pain and remonstrate with God. He sets before us in his person a mirror of human weakness, in order that we, being warned of the danger, may learn carefully to flee under the shadow of the wings of God.” (Calvin).
2. When, however, in the fiery trial of temptation our good resolutions have not stood the test, the way to salvation is in the confession of our weakness and repentance for our foolish confidence in self. A truly pious man after such experiences of himself, will not justify himself by the plea of good intentions or excuse himself by the greatness of the temptation. He has learned, that he has trodden false paths, whilst he thought to conceal his weakness from the ungodly by a strength which he did not possess, and surrounded himself, without internal devotion and tranquility, with the appearance of quiet and patience. Then the pain consumes still deeper the unbroken heart and if he has kindled in it the dull heat of consuming fretfulness, this soon enough finds vent with the violence of long suppressed resentment.
3. The quiet patience of the pious, in the silence of resignation of oneself into the hands and will of God, is an entirely different thing from the defiant suppression of sullen fretfulness, or cold renunciation in mute resignation. The latter is followed too soon by the stormy outbreak of the enchained ill-humor and the lamentable pouring forth of the disquiet of the heart which is destitute of peace and joy. The former is strengthened by stern self-examination, by earnest reflection upon the world, and by ardent prayer, unto perseverance under the sufferings and temptations in this transitory world.
4. The transitoriness of the world and the brevity of human life, afford the man who is at peace in God, no reasons for consuming ill-humor and despondent complaints. Nor does he seek in them any ground of comfort, when his sufferings pain him, or the riddle of life troubles him. He is not so miserable that he hopes that the one will soon come to an end with the other. He hopes and waits on the Lord as the only reliable and only abiding one, who cannot be carried away by the rushing stream of the perishable, and whose voice cannot be drowned in the roaring and yet vain noise which they make. “It is just this which is so heroic in the Old Testament faith, that in the midst of the riddles of the present, and in view of a future, losing itself in a night of gloom, it casts itself absolutely and without hesitation into the arms of God.” (Delitzsch). Yet we must not forget, that herein is the root of the faith in immortality, resurrection and eternal life, for one of the characteristic names of Jehovah is חַי =the Living one.
5. But now the communion with God in life, is restricted in man by sin, yet it would be entirely destroyed, if there were no deliverance from the power of sin, if the judging and punishing hand of God should strike the sinner dead. Therefore the afflicted man, who in his sufferings not only receives but recognizes the Divine punishment of his sins, directs his prayer to deliverance from both, from his sins and his sufferings. The former is manifest in the latter in this temporal life and is even clear to his enemies. It is accordingly in the interest of God as well, that He should not allow the man who waits upon Him, having been converted to Him, to be the scorn of the fool; and even the brevity of the human pilgrimage in the land of promise may under these circumstances be used as a motive for the speedy exhibition of the Divine mercy, as in Job.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The sins of the tongue must be repented of by the entire man.—There is a time to be silent and a time to speak.—The silence of the sufferer who is resigned to the will of God is very different in its causes and effects from the silence of the tempted sinner in the pride of his self-righteousness, in the weakness of his despondency, in the stubbornness of his despair.—In the hour of temptation it is seen that we need another power than our good resolutions.—He who lives and suffers in faith in the righteous government of God, may have sore trials to bear, but he will not open his mouth in complaints, murmurings, and blasphemies, but in confession of sin, in appeals to the mercy of God, in praising the glory of the Lord.—He who can find no more words for prayer, may let his tears speak for him, and God knows what they mean.—The more severely we have to bear the burden of our sins under the pressure of sufferings, the more ardent is the prayer for release by the hand of God.—The sufferings of the penitent are a scorn of the fool, but God’s eye observes them.—Even under long suffering the path which we walk is but short, and even the least burdened have heavy burdens to bear; so much the more necessary is it to find God early, for, without Him, everything is nothing.—Take care that thou dost not exchange a short joy for long pain, and in chasing after perishable goods lose God, the everlasting good.—The explanation of our earthly pilgrimage; a stranger on earth, at home with God.
Starke: In the pious the spirit has to wage a severe conflict with the flesh on account of the prosperity of the ungodly, and the misfortunes of the pious.—Secret fire and pain concealed within the heart, rage with all the more violence; hence the best advice is to shake them out in God’s lap, and besides manifest oneself a Christian well trained in the cross.—If your tongue is to be kept from sinning against God and your neighbors, your heart must first be purified from pride, impatience, and envy.—If the days of our life are short and their end uncertain, let us be diligent not only to properly employ a part of them, but our whole time.—Where faith and living hope are, Christian patience and humility under the strong hand of God are assured of a desired issue.
Osiander: Man, so far as he is regenerate, desires to quench the ill humor and impatience of his flesh—Selnekker: Faith and Hope must overcome all murmuring.—Dauderstadt: In every trouble our chief care should be not to transgress.—Bake: We build here so firmly and yet are stranger guests.—Bengel: David in this Psalm longs beyond measure for the heavenly native land.—Diedrich: Blessed is the man who has God left to him from the shipwreck of all temporal prosperity, so that he now properly chooses Him for himself, and considers Him.—Taube: Without revelation we understand neither life nor death, with the everlasting lamp we understand both.—Thoughts of death foster the sense of our pilgrimage.—Ahlfeld: Be not deceived respecting your home by a foreign land: 1). Which is the foreign land? 2). Which is the home? 3). How may we hold fast to our home when abroad?—Thym: How does hope comfort in death? It fills us 1) with believing trust in our going home, 2) with glad prospects of home, 3) with comforting confidence of meeting again.—Our life on earth is short and transitory. 1) All men know it; 2) but only the disciples of the Lord think of it; 3) and yet it decides our everlasting welfare.—Deichert: The poor human heart attains rest only by resigning itself entirely to God. 1) Its vain struggles for rest and peace of soul without God; 2) its bitter and searching importunity in prayer to God; 3) its final triumph with God.
[Matth. Henry: Those that are of a fretful, discontented spirit, ought not to pore much, for white they suffer their thoughts to dwell upon the cause of their calamity the fire of their discontent is fed with fuel, and burns the more furiously.—When creature confidences fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust to, and we should thereby be quickened to take so much the faster hold of Him by faith.—Robert Leighton: It is a piece of strange folly, that we defer the whole, or a great part of our day’s work, to the twilight of the evening, and are so cruel to ourselves, as to keep the great load of our life for a few hours or days, and for a pained, sickly body. He who makes it his daily work to observe his ways, is not astonished when that day comes, which long before was familiar to him every day.—We need not long lines to measure our lives by: each one carries a measure about with him, his own hand.—There is a common imposture among people to read their fortunes by their hands; but this is true palmistry indeed, to read the shortness of our life upon the palms of our hands.—Every man’s fancy is to himself a gallery of pictures, and there he walks up and down, and considers not how vain these are, and how vain a thing he himself is.—Barnes: The most perfect calmness and peace in trouble is produced, not when we rely on our own reasonings, or when we attempt to comprehend and explain a mystery, but when we direct our thoughts simply to the fact that God has done it.—Spurgeon: To avoid sin one had need be very circumspect, and keep one’s actions as with a guard or garrison. Unguarded ways are generally unholy ones. Heedless is another word for graceless.—If I have the fever myself, there is no reason why I should communicate it to my neighbors. If any on board the vessel of my soul are diseased, I will put my heart in quarantine, and allow none to go on shore in the boat of speech till I have a clean bill of health.—Nature may do her best to silence the expression of discontent, but unless grace comes to her rescue, she will be sure to succumb.—Worldly men walk like travellers in a mirage, deluded, duped, deceived, soon to be filled with disappointment and despair.—Men fret, and fume, and worry, and all for mere nothing. They are shadows pursuing shadows, while death pursues them.—All our desires and delights are wretched moth-eaten things when the Lord visits us in His anger.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[7][Perowne agrees with Hupfeld in what is the best view. “The words that he ‘spake with his tongue,’ are those which follow to the end of the Psalm. The introduction is merely the record of that inward struggle out of which the Psalm itself arose. And the words that he does speak are directed to God in prayer for teaching, not to man in complaints.”—C. A. B.]
[8][A. V. has “verily” but this is not so good.—C. A. B.]
[9][Wordsworth: “He heapeth up wealth like sheaves on the threshing floor and knoweth not who shall gather the corn into the barn; comp. Mat_25:24, ‘gathering where thou hast not strawed’ or winnowed. David heaped up a great store of riches for the Temple of God, which he was not permitted to build; and he might sometimes feel misgivings and apprehensions lest those preparations should be frustrated, and that provision be dissipated.”—C. A. B.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12 even from good-- (Gen 31:24), everything.
even from good-- (Gen 31:24), everything.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 1, 2. See on Psa_38:13-14.
1, 2. See on Psa_38:13-14.
Bridle—Or muzzle, implying restraint,
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That I sin not—The danger of sinning when speaking under strong excitement, also of being misinterpreted by enemies, led to this resolution. See note on Psa_4:4; and compare Job_1:22; Job_2:10
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–13 1. I said] To myself: I resolved, as the…
1. I said] To myself: I resolved, as the result of self-communing. Cp. Psa_30:6; Psa_31:14.
I will take heed to my ways] Lit. I will keep my ways: keep watch and ward over thought word and action. Cp. Pro_16:17; and the often repeated exhortation in Deuteronomy to ‘take heed’ (Deu_4:9; &c.). He fears that he may sin with his tongue (Job_31:30) by murmuring against God as he contrasts the prosperity of the wicked with his own lot of trial. Cp. Job_1:22; Job_2:10; and generally Psalms 37, 73.
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I will keep &c.] Lit. I will keep a muzzle for my mouth. Cp. Psa_141:3. Perhaps with the LXX, we should read I will put … on.
while the wicked is before me] For the sight of their prosperity is a temptation. Cp. Hab_1:3. This seems to be the sense, rather than that he was afraid of giving way to complaints in the hearing of the wicked, which might give occasion for ridicule or blasphemy.
1–3. The resolution of silence in the presence of temptation.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–13 (1) My tongue.—To enter into the feeling of the…
(1) My tongue.—To enter into the feeling of the poet we must remember the unrestrained way in which Orientals give way to grief. It was natural and becoming for him to “roar” (Psa_38:8, &c.) out his indignation or his grief, to mutter (Psa_1:2, &c) aloud his prayers, to speak out on every impulse. Now he determines to endure in silence and mutely bear the worst, rather than speak what may in the eyes of the impious be construed into a murmur against Divine Providence, into impatience under the Divine decree. (Comp. Psa_38:13-14.)
With a bridle.—See margin, and comp. Deu_25:4, where the cognate verb occurs. The root-meaning is “stop.” For the metaphor comp. Jas_1:26, and Plato, Laws, 3:701, “the argument, like a horse, ought to be pulled up from time to time, and not be allowed to run away, but held with bit and bridle.” (Comp. also Virgil, Æneid, vi. 79.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–13 THE psalmist, vexed and disgusted with life, feeling a…
THE psalmist, vexed and disgusted with life, feeling a desire to murmur and complain, but aware that his words are watched, and his wicked enemies ready to make use of them against him, has resolved on maintaining an entire silence at any rate, while the ungodly are in his sight (vers. 1, 2), but is unable to keep to his resolve. Despite himself, he bursts out into speech a speech of bitter complaint (vers. 4-6). "How long has he got to endure this life so unsatisfactory, so full of vanity?" The outburst relieves him, and he continues in a gentler strain, recognizing God"s hand in the griefs and woes of life, entreating his help, and finally asking to be spared a little, that he may recover strength, before he goes hence and is no more (vers. 7-13).
The title assigns the psalm to David, and represents him as having committed the composition for musical arrangement to the precentor, or choir-master, of the time, who is then named as Jeduthun, one of the chief musicians in David"s service. (1Ch_16:41, 42 25:3-6) There is no reason to dispute this attribution. The poetic beauty of the composition is great, and the circumstances are such as suit David"s early life.
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The pause-sign, "Selah," divides the psalm into three portions:
(1) from ver. 1 to ver 5;
(2) from ver. 6 to ver. 11; and
(3) from ver. 12 to the end.
I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue. There are no grounds for connecting this silence with the abstinence from self-vindication mentioned in the preceding psalm (vers. 13, 14). Indeed, it seems to have had a wholly different origin (see the introductory paragraph). I will keep my mouth with a bridle; i.e. "curb my impatience, restrain and keep in my speech." While the wicked is before me. The Prayer-book Version is better, if less literal, "While the ungodly is in my sight.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-13. Unburdening the heart to God in a time of sore affliction, when nothing can be said to man.
Jeduthun, whose name stands at the head of Ps 39 Ps 62, and Ps 77, was one of a musical family entrusted with the conduct of the musical service in the time of David. The psalms having his name at the head were probably intended to be sung by his choir. It would thus seem that in the Hebrew service of sacred song the prayers and plaints of the individual believer were included, when set to music. If so, the "service of song in the house of the Lord" covered a much wider ground than is usually supposed, and was made to include not only direct address to God, whether of prayer or praise, but also the rehearsal of personal experience; and thus a holy fellowship of song would arise, anticipating long ages before, the expression of the apostle, "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;" only it should be noted that these would be musical utterances of an actual experience going on then and there. It does not follow that the like utterances would be suitable for the service of song now. Discretion and discrimination are needed in the use thereof. This is evidently an individual psalm; it is neither national, prophetic, nor Messianic; it is one of those which reflect the care and anxiety with which David was bowed down at one crisis of his life, though to which of his numerous crises it refers it is not easy to decide, Nor, indeed, is that of moment. It will profit us more to note the course taken by the psalmist at a time of crushing sorrow, and then to see how far the course which he took may be a guide for us under like circumstances.
I LET US NOTE THE COURSE ADOPTED BY THE PSALMIST AT A TIME OF CRUSHING SORROW. There is a somewhat wide divergence among expositors in their estimate of this psalm, and of the mental revelations therein contained. But we feel bound to look at the psalmist"s words tenderly rather than harshly, knowing as we do, how often, in agonies of soul, the best men may utter words which would not escape them in their calmer hours. (cf. Psa_116:11)
1. Here is a case of sore affliction. "Thy stroke" (ver. 10); "the blow of thine hand" (ver. 10). Whatever the sorrow may have been to which reference is made, it is regarded as coming directly from God. "Thou didst it" (ver. 9). It was so heavy that David was "consumed" thereby (ver. 10). And it was looked on by him as a chastisement for his transgressions (of. vers. 8, 11).
2. It is, under such circumstances, very hard to be absolutely still. So the first verse implies. There is little indication that the disturbing trouble arose (as some suggest) from seeing the prosperity of the wicked; but evidently there is some distinctively personal trouble, probably sickness and weakness, which, with all the public demands made upon him, weighs heavily upon his soul, and he is tempted to complain and to seek sympathy from without. But:
3. He is in the midst of uncongenial souls. (Ver. 1) "The wicked is before me." Note: Earthly men are poor companions in the distresses of spiritual men. To the natural man the sorrows of a spiritual man would be altogether unintelligible. And supposing that the troubles here referred to arose about the time of and in connection with Absalom"s rebellion, the majority of those round about David would be men whose thoughts and aims moved entirely in the military or political sphere. Hence:
4. Here is a wise resolve. (Vers. 1, 2) He will say nothing. There would be many reasons for this.
a. No one would enter into his feelings.
b. What he said would be misunderstood.
c. He would consequently be misrepresented.
d. The more he said, the worse matters would be.
e. And if he told men what he thought and felt, he would be very likely to say something which he would afterwards regret.
"That I sin not with my tongue." Hence silence is his wisest course.
5. But suppressed grief consumes like a fire. (Ver. 3) There is nothing which so wears out the soul, nor which so burns within, as woe to which no vent can be given; so David found it, and consequently:
6. The silence is broken. "Then spake I with my tongue." But, in breaking the silence, he speaks not to man, but to God. After the word "tongue," the Authorized Version has a comma, but the Revised Version a colon, indicating that what he said is about to follow. What an infinite mercy that when we cannot say a word to man, through fear of being misunderstood, we can speak to God, and tell him exactly what we feel, as we feel it, knowing that then we touch a heart infinitely tender, and address an intelligence infinitely wise!
7. In speaking to God he moans and groans. (Vers. 4-6) Does David speak petulantly? Is he asking God to let him know how long he has to endure all this? Is he adducing the frailty and nothingness of man as an argument against his being allowed to suffer thus? So many think, and some, as Calvin, are very hard on David very. But why? There is a vast difference between the fretfulness of an overburdened man and the waywardness of a rebellious man. And he who knows our frame, takes the difference into account. When Elijah pettishly said, "Now, O Lord, take away my life I" God did not rebuke him; he sent an angel to him, and said, "Arise and eat; the journey is too great for thee.
8. He declares that his expectation of relief is in God alone. (Ver. 7) Just so. These are not the words of a rebellious, but of a trusting one. And from that point of view the whole psalm must be regarded (cf. Psalm 62).
9. He will not utter a word of complaint. (Ver. 9) Render, "I am dumb; I open not my mouth, because thou hast done it" ("Variorum Bible"). "Thyself hast done it." On this fact faith fastens; and when this is the case, not a word of murmuring will escape the lips. The cry of a trusting soul is, "Here am I; let him do with me as seemeth him good". (2Sa_15:26)
10. Yet he supplicates. (Vers. 8, 10, 13) First, he desires deliverance from sin, then a mitigation of the suffering; such is the order, and the order which only a saint would name. The last verse is, in our versions, obscure. The word "spare " should not be read in the sense intended when we say, "If I am spared," etc., but in the sense of "O spare me this sorrow!" It is a repetition of ver. 10, "Remove this stroke away from me." It asks not for prolongation of life, but for mitigation of pain. The Revised Version margin gives a more correct translation of the phrase, "that I may recover strength;" rather, "that I may brighten up." No conclusion can be drawn from the end of the thirteenth verse, as to the psalmist"s view of another life. The Prayer-book Version, "and be no more seen," gives the sense.
11. The supplication is accompanied by a tender plea. (Ver. 12) "I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." Archbishop Leighton beautifully expresses the force of this plea, "In this world, wherein thou hast appointed me to sojourn a few days, and I betake myself to thy protection in this strange country. I seek shelter under the shadow of thy wings, therefore have compassion upon me.
II HOW FAR IS THE COURSE TAKEN BY DAVID, IN HIS AFFLICTION, A GUIDE FOR US?
1. In some respects we may well imitate him. In restraining our words before man, and in telling all our cares and woes to God exactly as we feel them, and in such a way as will best relieve an overburdened heart.
2. In other respects we should go far beyond him. Believers ought not to confine themselves now within the limits of such a prayer as this; they should always transcend it. We know more of God"s Fatherly love; we know of our great High Priest; we know the fellowship of the Spirit; we know of "the unsearchable riches of Christ;" and hence our prayers should rise above those of David as much as the prayer of Eph_3:14-21 is above the level of this psalm. Note: The best preventive of sins of the tongue is the fuller and more frequent outpouring of the heart to God. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-13. Lessons from a funeral.
It is toll of Archbishop Leighton that a friend once met him by the way, and said, "You have been to hear a sermon?" His answer was, "I met a sermon a sermon de facto, for I met a corpse, and rightly and profitably are the funeral rites performed, when the living lay it to heart." This psalm, so often read at deaths and funerals, suggests some precious lessons for such solemn occasions.
1. A funeral is a time for silence. There is much to think of and ponder in our hearts. We have need to put a restraint upon ourselves, lest we speak rashly or fall into idle and unprofitable talk. But silence cannot always be maintained. As we muse the fire burns, and we are constrained to speak. Let us take care that we speak wisely, with feeling and solemnity, as in the presence of God.
2. A funeral is a time when we are taught the vanity of life. One thing forced on our attention is that life has an end. We know it had a beginning, but we are slow to recognize, at least as to ourselves, that it must have an end. "All men think all men mortal but themselves.
3. Another thing brought to our mind is that life is frail and soon passes away. Measured by human standards, it is but a very little thing a "handbreadth;" looked at in the light of God and of eternity, it dwindles away to "nothing." And yet of what stupendous importance to us is this "nothing"!
4. Another thing is that life at the best is full of sorrow and disappointment (ver. 6). Sophocles, one of the wisest of the heathen, said, "I see that we who live are nothing else but images and vain shadows." The great orator, Burke, said, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" Shakespeare also speaks to the same effect"Out, out, brief candle, Life"s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.
What, then, comes of all our labours, all our cares and disquietudes, all our hopes and ambitions? Is there no good that abideth? Is there no wealth laid up which will endure? Must we say, "All is vanity"? Yes, if there were no God, no future world. But let us take heart; let us turn from the thoughts that vex and disquiet our souls, and that leave us without hope, to the Lord our God and to Jesus Christ who has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. When we mourn the loss of friends, or when we take part with others in love and sympathy in the last rites of the dead, let us renew our faith in God. "My hope is in thee." Thus we shall gain strength to bear our trials meekly, and to rise, even at the grave"s mouth, to the bright vision of immortality. Let us also cry to God for deliverance from sin (vers. 8-11), from the burden of its guilt, from the slavery of its power, from the miserable reproaches which it brings upon us from without and from within, from the base murmurings and discontent which it breeds, and from the cruel forebodings of evil with which it darkens our lives. God alone can bring us help and comfort in such straits. Finally, let us pray earnestly for spiritual invigoration, that we may not fail in our duty to God and to our brethren. We have not only to sympathize, but to act. The best way we can honour the dead is to work for the living. Every breach made in our ranks is a call to close up and to quit ourselves like men, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Every bereavement is a reminder to us that we too are but "strangers" and sojourners here, and that soon God will call us home. If some father in the Church is gathered as a "shock of corn in his season," let us give thanks, and take courage to follow in his steps; if some young man of rare gifts and promise, and very dear to our hearts, is cut down early, let us be assured that it is because his Master has need of him for service in nobler fields, and let us strive to fill up what he may have left undone of good work for God; if some child, the light of our eyes, has been taken from us, let us believe that it is to enter a higher school than ours, where the holy angels are the teachers, and where progress is quick and sure under the radiant smiles of God. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-13. The afflicted man.
The old question of the retributive justice of God lies at the bottom of this psalm. Why should the righteous be afflicted and the wicked prosper, since the sins of the latter are greater and more numerous than those of the former? But he has determined that he will not discuss his difficulties before the wicked, lest he should seem to complain of the Divine ways. But when he can no longer restrain speech, this is what he says, in which we have two main divisions of thought.
I AN AFFLICTED MAN"S PERPLEXITIES. (Vers. 1-6)
1. He wishes to know when his sufferings shall come to an end in death. (Ver. 4)
2. He is deeply impressed that human life should be so brief and fleeting. (Ver. 5) Man is but a breath, so that it seems scarcely worth while to live.
3. The restless exertions which men make here are to no purpose. (Ver. 6) Men are but fleeting shadows, and all that they seek for is evanescent; they are troubled in vain.
II THE AFFLICTED MAN"S HOPE. (Vers. 7-13) In God.
1. The good man is waiting for God. (Ver. 7) To unfold his purpose toward him more fully.
2. To be delivered from all his transgressions. (Ver. 8)
3. His hope in God teaches him self-restraint. (Ver. 9)
4. Teaches him to pray for the Divine mercy to remove his sufferings. (Ver. 10)
5. He pleads for mercy because of the brevity of his life. (Ver. 12) A stranger, "one who is but a passing guest;" a sojourner, "one who settles for a time in a country, but is not a native of it.
6. And because it is near its close, (Ver. 13) I shall soon be no more. Help before it is too late for help. Such faith in God, with such views of this life as being all, is something marvellous, when compared with our faith in him, who believe in an immortal life. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1–13 Title. To the Chief Musician, even to Jeduthun. Jeduthun's…
Title. To the Chief Musician, even to Jeduthun. Jeduthun's name, which signifies praising or celebrating, was a most appropriate one for a leader in sacred psalmody. He was one of those ordained by the King's order "for song in the house of the Lord with cymbals, psalteries, and harps" 1Ch 15:6, and his children after him appear to have remained in the same hallowed service, even so late as the days of Nehemiah. To have a name and a place in Zion is no small honour, and to hold this place by a long entail of grace is an unspeakable blessing. O that our household may never lack a man to stand before the Lord God of Israel to do him service. David left this somewhat sorrowful ode in Jeduthun's hands because he thought him most fit to set it to music, or because he would distribute the sacred honour of song among all the musicians who in their turn presided in the choir. A Psalm of David. Such as his chequered life would be sure to produce; fit effusions for a man so tempted, so strong in his passions, and yet so firm in faith.
Division. The psalmist, bowed down with sickness and sorrow, is burdened with unbelieving thoughts, which he resolves to stifle, lest any evil should come from their expression, Ps 39:1-2. But silence creates an insupportable grief, which at last demands utterance, and obtains it in the prayer of Ps 39:3-6, which is almost a complaint and a sigh for death, or at best a very desponding picture of human life. From Ps 39:7-13 the tone is more submissive, and the recognition of the divine hand more distinct; the cloud has evidently passed, and the mourner's heart is relieved.
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Ver. 1. I said. I steadily resolved and registered a determination. In his great perplexity his greatest fear was lest he should sin; and, therefore, he cast about for the most likely method for avoiding it, and he determined to be silent. It is right excellent when a man can strengthen himself in a good course by the remembrance of a well and wisely formed resolve. "What I have written I have written, "or what I have spoken I will perform, may prove a good strengthener to a man in a fixed course of right. I will take heed to my ways. To avoid sin one had need be very circumspect, and keep one's actions as with a guard or garrison. Unguarded ways are generally unholy ones. Heedless is another word for graceless. In times of sickness or other trouble we must watch against the sins peculiar to such trials, especially against murmuring and repining. That I sin not with my tongue. Tongue sins are great sins; like sparks of fire ill words spread, and do great damage. If believers utter hard words of God in times of depression, the ungodly will take them up and use them as a justification for their sinful courses. If a man's own children rail at him, no wonder if his enemies' mouths are full of abuse. Our tongue always wants watching, for it is restive as an ill broken horse; but especially must we hold it in when the sharp cuts of the Lord's rod excite it to rebel. I will keep my mouth with a bridle, or more accurately, with a muzzle. The original does not so much mean a bridle to check the tongue as a muzzle to stop it altogether. David was not quite so wise as our translation would make him; if he had resolved to be very guarded in his speech, it would have been altogether commendable; but when he went so far as to condemn himself to entire silence, "even from good, "there must have been at least a little sullenness in his soul. In trying to avoid one fault, he fell into another. To use the tongue against God is a sin of commission, but not to use it at all involves an evident sin of omission. Commendable virtues may be followed so eagerly that we may fall into vices; to avoid Scylla we run into Charybdis. While the wicked is before me. This qualifies the silence, and almost screens it from criticism, for bad men are so sure to misuse even our holiest speech, that it is as well not to cast any of our pearls before such swine; but what if the psalmist meant, "I was silent while I had the prosperity of the wicked in my thoughts, "then we see the discontent and questioning of his mind, and the muzzled mouth indicates much that is not to be commended. Yet, if we blame we must also praise, for the highest wisdom suggests that when good men are bewildered with sceptical thoughts, they should not hasten to repeat them, but should fight out their inward battle upon its own battlefield. The firmest believers are exercised with unbelief, and it would be doing the devil's work with a vengeance if they were to publish abroad all their questionings and suspicions. If I have the fever myself, there is no reason why I should communicate it to my neighbours. If any on board the vessel of my soul are diseased, I will put my heart in quarantine, and allow none to go on shore in the boat of speech till I have a clean bill of health.
Title. "To Jeduthun." A Levite of the family of Merari, and one of the great masters of the temple music. The department superintended by Jeduthun and his colleagues in the temple service was that of the "instruments of the song of God, "by which are intended the nebel or psaltery, the kinnor or harp, and the metsiltaim or cymbals. In 2Ch 35:15, Jeduthun is called "the king's seer, " which would seem to indicate that he was the medium of divine guidance to David. The name occurs in the title of Psalms 39, 62, 77; where some have thought that it indicates some special kind of composition, and others some instrument of music, but without reason. William Lindsay Alexander, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia.
Whole Psalm. The most beautiful of all the elegies in the psalter. H. Ewald.
Ver. 1. I said. It was to himself that he said it; and it is impossible for any other to prove a good or a wise man, without much of this kind of speech to himself. It is one of the most excellent and distinguishing faculties of a reasonable creature; much beyond vocal speech, for in that, some birds may imitate us; but neither bird nor beast has anything of this kind of language, of reflecting or discoursing with itself. It is a wonderful brutality in the greatest part of men, who are so little conversant in this kind of speech, being framed and disposed for it, and which is not only of itself excellent, but of continual use and advantage; but it is a common evil among men to go abroad, and out of themselves, which is a madness, and a true distraction. It is true, a man hath need of a well set mind, when he speaks to himself; for otherwise, he may be worse company to himself than if he were with others. But he ought to endeavour to have a better with him, to call in God to his heart to dwell with him. If thus we did, we should find how sweet this were to speak to ourselves, by now and then intermixing our speech with discourses unto God. For want of this, the most part not only lose their time in vanity, in their converse abroad with others, but do carry in heaps of that vanity to the stock which is in their own hearts, and do converse with them in secret, which is the greatest and deepest folly in the world. Robert Leighton.
Ver. 1. No lesson so hard to be learned of us here, as the wise and discreet government of the tongue. David promised a singular care of this, I said, I will take heed, etc. Socrates reports of one Pambo, an honest, well meaning man, who came to his friend, desiring him to teach him one of David's Psalms, he read to him this verse. He answered: this one verse is enough, if I learn it well. Nineteen years after, he said, in all that time, he had hardly learned that one verse. Samuel Page.
Ver. 1. That I sin not with my tongue. Man's mouth, though it be but a little hole, will hold a world full of sin. For there is not any sin forbidden in the law or gospel which is not spoken by the tongue, as well as thought in the heart, or done in the life. Is it not then almost as difficult to rule the tongue as to rule the world? Edward Reyner.
Ver. 1. I will keep a muzzle on my mouth, whilst a wicked man is before me. New Translation, by Charles Carter,
Ver. 1. While the wicked is before me. It is a vexation to be tied to hear so much impertinent babbling in the world, but profitable to discern and abhor it. A wonder that men can cast out so much wind, and the more they have to utter, the more they are prodigal of their own breath and of the patience of others, and careless of their own reckoning. If they believe to give account of every idle word, they would be more sparing of foolish speaking. I like either to be silent, or to speak that that may edify. At tables or meetings, I cannot stop the mouth of others, yet may I close mine own ears, and by a heavenly soul speech with God divert my mind from fruitless talking. Though I be among them I shall as little partake their prattling as they do my meditation. William Struther.
Ver. 1-2. I was dumb, etc.
1. There is a time to be silent. He had been enabled to do this when reproached and unjustly accused by others. He did it for good; others might attribute it to sullenness, or pride, or timidity, or conscious guilt; but he did it for good. Breathe upon a polished mirror and it will evaporate and leave it brighter than before; endeavour to wipe it off, and the mark will remain.
2. There is a time to meditate in silence. The greater the silence without, often the greater commotion within. "His heart was hot." The more he thought, the warmer he grew. The fire of pity and compassion, the fire of love, the fire of holy zeal burned within him.
3. There is a time to speak. "Then spake I." The time to speak is when the truth is clear and strong in the mind, and the feeling of the truth is burning in the heart. The emotions burst forth as from a volcano. Jer 20:8-9. The language should always be a faithful representation of the mind and the heart. G. Rogers, Tutor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle College.
Expository Lectures on Psalm Thirty-nine, in Archbishop Leighton's Works.
Psalms 39:2*
Ver. 1-2. I was dumb, etc.
1. There is a time to be silent. He had been enabled to do this when reproached and unjustly accused by others. He did it for good; others might attribute it to sullenness, or pride, or timidity, or conscious guilt; but he did it for good. Breathe upon a polished mirror and it will evaporate and leave it brighter than before; endeavour to wipe it off, and the mark will remain.
2. There is a time to meditate in silence. The greater the silence without, often the greater commotion within. "His heart was hot." The more he thought, the warmer he grew. The fire of pity and compassion, the fire of love, the fire of holy zeal burned within him.
3. There is a time to speak. "Then spake I." The time to speak is when the truth is clear and strong in the mind, and the feeling of the truth is burning in the heart. The emotions burst forth as from a volcano. Jer 20:8-9. The language should always be a faithful representation of the mind and the heart. G. Rogers, Tutor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle College.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 I said, I will take heed to my ways,…
Psa_39:1-13
I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my tongue; I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle.
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Thought and prayer under trial
I. Thought under trial.
1. Its utterance repressed. I said, I will take heed to my ways.
(1) This effort as repression was pious. Why did he essay to muzzle his tongue? That I sin not. He felt in all probability that the circumstances which brought on his sufferings had awakened within him such sceptical ideas concerning the rectitude or benevolence of the Divine procedure, the utterance of which, in the ears of the wicked, while they were before him, would be highly sinful.
(2) This effort at repression was painful. Imprisoned thoughts, like pent-up floods, increase in turbulent force; the more they are suppressed, the more they heave, swell, and battle.
(3) This effort at repression was temporary. His thoughts became at last irrepressible. I spake with my tongue. To whom? Not to ungodly men--this he resolved not to do because it was sinful--but to the great Jehovah.
2. Its attention arrested. The character of life. Its terminableness. Its frailty. Its brevity. Its vanity. Its emptiness. Its disquietudes. Its worthless labours. (Homilist.)
The unspoken judgment of mankind
Scripture speaks in two different ways about judging others. On the one hand, it says, Judge nothing before the time, till the day of the Lord come; on the other hand, it says, He that is spiritual judgeth all things; and we are told to regard the Holy Spirit, of which we partake, as a spirit of discernment. Nor, if this discernment exists in Christians, can we confine it to distinguishing only flagrant sinners from well-conducted men? No; it extends much farther than that; it goes much deeper. Christians who are endowed with the spirit of holiness, and who have with that gift the spirit also of wisdom and knowledge, can see where the heart is right in others, and where it is not. This is part of that very unconscious power which lies in goodness as such; for goodness finds not goodness in others. On the other hand, disguise it how they will, the contrary character is detected, and repels. So that goodness, as such, has a true wisdom in it. But, perhaps, the great law with respect to judging which is laid down in our texts refers to the delivery of the judgment, it is not to be allowed full expression and manifestation. The judgment will be an outspoken one, ours may not be so. Scripture holds before us the terror of a dreadful exposure when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known (Luk_8:1-56; Luk_12:3). But the tongue of intermediate judgment is tied. There is an embargo laid upon the delivery of it. This, then, is the meaning of the bridle while the ungodly is in my sight. A judgment of some kind is implied, but it is to be a mute judgment. In this temper of the psalmist, then, we observe first, a greater strength than belongs to the other temper of impetuous and premature expression--strength not only of self-control, but of actual feeling and passion. Such a state of mind must needs be stronger, since it does not require the proof which immediate, impetuous expression affords. It is because they feel they want this support of outward expression that therefore men make this outward demonstration. The force of our language reacts upon ourselves, and our minds are encouraged by it, so that their own inward conviction does not give way. They want their verdict sustained. Hence this mute form of judgment must needs be strong. The circumstances of the world are such, that this greater strength of feeling, this silent form of judgment, is positively needed to meet them. For consider what the perpetual expression of judgment, what the constant reply to the challenge of the other side would entail. This challenge is always going on. It is impossible to live in the world without constantly hearing admiration and praise lavished on that which we know in our hearts to be hollow and inferior in character.. The world generally accepts success as a test; indeed, popular judgment is almost obliged to be exceedingly rough. It must take men as they stand, and accept the mechanical praise which flows from a law of public opinion. And, indeed, the exposure of the bad in this world is all but impossible. But if no judgment, however true in the sanctuary of the heart, can declare itself, by the very conditions of society, this is a clear revelation of the will of God that such a manifestation must not be attempted, and that to attempt it would be to forestall His divine purpose. And then we have nothing to fall back upon but the rule of the psalmist--the rule of a mute and silent judgment. I will keep my mouth, as it were, etc. But such men do not escape judgment altogether. The good judge them, and make up their minds about them, though it be unuttered. Is there not an unspoken sentence upon him, a silent verdict in the consciences of the righteous and holy which goes deeper than explanations? And is not this mute verdict an anticipation of that judgment which will not be silent but outspoken--the disclosure and manifestation of the human heart which will take place at the last day? Nay, and is there not even a judgment in Iris own heart which he does not pass altogether comfortably? Is there not a voice within him which would speak if he would let it, and did not suppress it; and which, if it did speak, would scatter to the winds all his refuges of lies. Let us fear that. (J. B. Mozley, D. D.)
Evil speaking, and the proper means to prevent it
I. The reasonableness of this resolution, and particularly with respect to us, as Christians, not to offend with the tongue.
1. Evil speaking brings a great scandal upon our holy religion, as it is so directly opposite to the genius and spirit of it, to the many express precepts which occur in it, and that goodness and candour of temper which so remarkably discovered itself in our blessed Saviour.
2. The injustice of this crime with respect to others.
(1) It is a very evident truth, that according to the worth of anything, wherein we invade another mans right, the wrong we do him is proportionably heightened. It is no less certain that of all the external advantages and comforts of human life, there are none of greater importance to a man than a good name.
(2) Besides defrauding a man of reputation and honour, this crime is for the most part highly injurious and prejudicial to him with respect to his other interests, and very often proves an injury to the public. For, as Plutarch well observes, the reputation of honour and worth affords one a thousand opportunities of doing good in the world, by opening to him an easy passage to the hearts and affections of men; whereas, says he, if a man lie under any calumnies or suspicions, he cannot exert his virtues, be he never so well qualified, to the benefit of others, without committing a kind of violence upon them.
(3) That which heightens the injustice of this crime the more, is, that it is so difficult to make the injured party any reparation. A scandal, when it is once gone abroad, is not easily recalled; but as a poisonous vapour sometimes infects a whole city or region, so a calumny, once set forward, and meeting with so general an inclination to provoke it, is not only apt to spread itself wide, but the further it spreads, the more it usually increases its malignity.
3. The impudence of those who are guilty of this crime.
(1) There are few persons who give their tongues a general liberty of scandal and defamation that do not irritate others to take the same freedom with them.
(2) The folly and imprudence of this vice of evil speaking appears further from hence, that it seldom if ever answers one great end we propose to ourselves by it. We are apt to imagine that by lessening or throwing dirt upon other people, we set ourselves off to greater advantage, and appear in a better light; but we ought to consider the world has, at that very moment, an eye upon our conduct, and the same right to make a judgment of it, as we have to sit upon the actions of other people. And that it will judge of us, not from our declaiming against their vices or defects, and the elevation we would thereby give ourselves above them; but from our personal qualifications or behaviour.
(3) Persons who give themselves the liberty to reflect upon the criminal actions and behaviour of other people, or to charge them perhaps with crimes they never thought of, are frequently observed to speak their own inclinations, and to give some visible and plain hints what they themselves would have been disposed to do under the same circumstances of temptation.
II. The proper method of making this resolution good.
1. To take heed to our ways implies in general that we keep a strict and watchful eye upon all our actions, that we frequently examine and call them over, and impartially state accounts between God and our own consciences.
2. But I shall consider this expression in its more restrained sense, as it imports the great duty of self-reflection or examination. A duty which, if we discharge with that care and frequency we ought, we shall have less time and less inclination to concern ourselves about the failings or disorders of other people.
(1) We shall have less time for this criminal amusement; because, by calling our own ways frequently to remembrance, we shall discover how many opportunities of religious improvement we have trifled away already, or perhaps abused to very wicked and irreligious purposes; and that it concerns us therefore, by a more strict and constant application to the duties of religion for the future, to use our utmost endeavours towards redeeming the time.
(2) By frequently examining into the state of our own souls, we shall also have less inclination to censure the conduct of others. By considering how apt we ourselves are to be tempted, and how easily we have been overcome by temptation, we shall be disposed to make a more favourable judgment of the failings of other people; we shall think it unreasonable to expect that they should be perfect, while we are conscious to ourselves of so many personal defects; we shall be ashamed to condemn men of like passions for taking those liberties which we think excusable in ourselves.
III. Improvement.
1. If evil speaking be in general so heinous a sin, and on so many accounts injurious to the party spoken against, the guilt of it must still be increased, when such particular persons are defamed who bear any extraordinary character, or whose reputation is of greater influence; such as princes and civil magistrates that are put in authority under them, whose honour it is the common interest of society itself to support and maintain, because in proportion to any contempt or indignity offered to their persons, their authority itself will grow cheap and precarious.
2. From what has been said, we may observe the general decay of Christian piety.
3. If evil speaking be so heinous a crime, let us take care not only to avoid it ourselves, but to discountenance it in others. I must own there is some courage and resolution required to stem a torrent which runs so strong, and wherewith such multitudes are carried away; but the more general any sinful practice is, it is an argument of the greater bravery and generosity of mind to oppose it. But if we have not power enough over ourselves to do that, let us take care, at least, that we be not thought by any seeming complacency in it, to encourage so unchristian a conversation. (R. Fiddes.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 39
Psalms 39
PROTRACTED suffering, recognised as chastisement for sin, had wasted the psalmists strength. It had been borne for a while in silence, but the rush of emotion had burst the floodgates. The psalm does not repeat the words which forced themselves from the hot heart, but preserves for us the calmer flow which followed. It falls into four parts, the first three of which contain three verses each, and the fourth is expanded into four, divided into two couples.
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In the first part (Psa_39:1-3) the frustrated resolve of silence is recorded. Its motive was fear of sinning in speech "while the wicked is before me." That phrase is often explained as meaning that the sight of the prosperity of the godless in contrast with his own sorrows tempted the singer to break out into arraigning Gods providence, and that he schooled himself to look at their insolent ease unmurmuringly. But the psalm has no other references to other mens flourishing condition: and it is more in accordance with its tone to suppose that his own pains, and not their pleasures, prompted to the withheld words. The presence of "the wicked" imposed on his devout heart silence as a duty. We do not complain of a friends conduct in the hearing of his enemies. Gods servants have to watch their speech about Him when godless ears are listening, lest hasty words should give occasion for malicious glee or blasphemy. So, for Gods honour, the psalmist put restraint on himself. The word rendered "bridle" in Psa_39:2 by the A.V. and R.V. is better taken as muzzle, for a muzzle closes the lips, and a bridle does not. The resolution thus energetically expressed was vigorously carried out: "I made myself dumb in still submission; I kept silence." And what came of it? "My sorrow was stirred." Grief suppressed is increased, as all the world knows. The closing words of Psa_39:2 b (lit. apart from good) are obscure, and very variously understood, some regarding them as an elliptical form of "from good and bad," and expressing completeness of silence; others taking "the good" to mean "the law, or the praise of God, or good fortune, or such words as would serve to protect the singer from slanders." "But the preposition here employed, when it follows a verb meaning silence, does not introduce that concerning which silence is kept, but a negative result of silence" (Hupfeld). The meaning, then, is best given by some such paraphrase as "joylessly" or "and I had no comfort" (R.V). The hidden sorrow gnawed beneath the cloak like a fire in a hollow tree; it burned fiercely unseen, and ate its way at last into sight. Locked lips make hearts hotter. Repression of utterance only feeds the fire, and sooner or later the "muzzle" is torn off, and pent-up feeling breaks into speech, often the wilder for the violence done to nature by the attempt to deny it its way. The psalmists motive was right, and in a measure his silence was so; but his resolve did not at first go deep enough. It is the heart, not the mouth, that has to be silenced. To build a dam across a torrent without diminishing the sources that supply its waters only increases weight and pressure, and ensures a muddy flood when it bursts.
Does the psalm proceed to recount what its author said when he broke silence? It may appear so at first sight. On the other hand, the calm prayer which follows, beginning with Psa_39:4, is not of the character of the wild and whirling words which were suppressed for fear of sinning, nor does the fierce fire of which the psalm has been speaking flame in it. It seems, therefore, more probable that those first utterances, in which the overcharged heart relieved itself, and which were tinged with complaint and impatience, are not preserved, and did not deserve to be, and that the pathetic, meditative petitions of the rest of the psalm succeeded them, as after the first rush of the restrained torrent comes a stiller flow. Such a prayer might well have been offered "while the wicked is before me," and might have been laid to heart by them. Its thoughts are as a cool hand laid on the singers hot heart. They damp the fire burning in him. There is no surer remedy for inordinate sensibility to outward sorrows than fixed convictions of lifes brevity and illusoriness; and these are the two thoughts which the prayer casts into sweet, sad music.
It deals with commonplaces of thought, which poets and moralists have been singing and preaching since the world began, in different tones and with discordant applications, sometimes with fierce revolt against the inevitable, sometimes with paralysing consciousness of it, sometimes using these truths as arguments for base pleasures and aims, sometimes toying with them as occasions for cheap sentiment and artificial pathos, sometimes urging them as motives for strenuous toil. But of all the voices which have ever sung or prophesied of lifes short span and shadowy activities, none is nobler, saner, healthier, and calmer than this psalmists. The stately words in which he proclaimed the transiency of all earthly things are not transient. They are "nothing but a breath," but they have outlasted much that seemed solid, and their music will sound as long as man is on his march through time. Our "days" have a "measure"; they are a limited period, and the Measurer is God. But this fleeting creature man has an obstinate fancy of his permanence, which is not all bad indeed-since without it there would be little continuity of purpose or concentration of effort-but may easily run to extremes and hide the fact that there is an end. Therefore the prayer for Divine illumination is needed, that we may not be ignorant of that which we know well enough, if we would bethink ourselves. The solemn convictions of Psa_39:5 are won by the petitions of Psa_39:4. He who asks God to make him know his end has already gone far towards knowing it. If he seeks to estimate the "measure" of his days, he will soon come to the clear conviction that it is only the narrow space that may be covered by one or two breadths of a hand. So do noisy years shrink when heavens chronology is applied to them. A lifetime looks long, but set against Gods eternal years, it shrivels to an all but imperceptible point, having position, but not magnitude.
The thought of brevity naturally draws after it that of illusoriness. Just because life is so frail does it assume the appearance of being futile. Both ideas are blended in the metaphors of "a breath" and "a shadow." There is a solemn earnestness in the three-fold "surely," confirming each clause of the seers insight into earths hollowness. How emphatically he puts it in the almost pleonastic language, "Surely nothing but a breath is every man, stand he ever so firm." The truth proclaimed is undeniably certain. It covers the whole ground of earthly life, and it includes the most prosperous and firmly established. "A breath" is the very emblem of transiency and of unsubstantiality. Every solid body can be melted and made gaseous vapour, if heat enough is applied. They who habitually bring human life "before Thee" dissolve into vapour the solid-seeming illusions which cheat others, and save their own lives from being but a breath by clearly recognising that they are.
The Selah at the end of Psa_39:4 does not here seem to mark a logical pause in thought nor to coincide with the strophe division, but emphasises by some long, drawn, sad notes the teaching of the words. The thought runs on unbroken, and Psa_39:6 is closely linked to Psa_39:5 by the repeated "surely" and "breath" as well as in subject. The figure changes from breath to "shadow," literally "image," meaning not a sculptured likeness, but an eidolon, or unsubstantial apparition.
"The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things";
and all the movements of men coming and going in the world are but like a dance of shadows. As they are a breath, so are their aims. All their hubbub and activity is but like the bustle of ants on their hill-immense energy and toil, and nothing coming of it all. If any doubt remained as to the correctness of this judgment of the aimlessness of mans toil, one fact would confirm the psalmists sentence, viz., that the most successful man labours to amass, and has to leave his piles for another whom he does not know, to gather into his storehouses and to scatter by his prodigality. There may be an allusion in the words to harvesting work. The sheaves are piled up, but in whose barn are they. to be housed? Surely, if the grower and reaper is not the ultimate owner, his toil has been for a breath.
All this is no fantastic pessimism. Still less is it an account of what life must be. If any mans is nothing but toiling for a breath, and if he himself is nothing but a breath, it is his own fault. They who are joined to God have "in their embers something that doth live"; and if they labour for Him, they do not labour for vanity, nor do they leave their possessions when they die. The psalmist has no reference to a future life, but the immediately following strophe shows that, though he knew that his days were few, he knew, too, that if his hope were set on God he was freed from the curse of illusoriness and grasped no shadow, but the Living Substance, who would make his life blessedly real and pour into it substantial good.
The effect of such convictions of lifes brevity and emptiness should be to throw the heart back on God. In the third part of the psalm (Psa_39:7-9) a higher strain sounds. The singer turns from his dreary thoughts, which might so easily become bitter ones, to lay hold on God. What should earths vanity teach but Gods sufficiency? It does not need the light of a future life to be flashed upon this mean, swiftly vanishing present in order to see it "apparelled in celestial light." Without that transforming conception, it is still possible to make it great and real by bringing it into conscious connection with God; and if hope and effort are set on Him amid all the smallnesses and perishablenesses of the outer world, hope will not chase a shadow, nor effort toil for very vanity. The psalmist sought to calm his hot heart by the contemplation of his end, but that is a poor remedy for perturbation, and grief unless it leads to actual contact with the one enduring Substance. It did so with him, and therefore "grief grew calm," just because "hope was" not "dead." To preach the vanity, of all earthly things to heavy hearts is but pouring vinegar on nitre, unless it is accompanied with the great antidote to all sad and depreciating views of life: the thought that in it men may reach their hands beyond the time film that enmeshes them and grasp the unchanging God. This psalm has no reference to life beyond the grave; but it finds in present communion by waiting and hope, emancipation from the curse of fleeting triviality which haunts every life separated from Him, like that which the Christian hope of immortality gives. God is the significant figure which gives value to the row of ciphers of which every life is without Him made up. Blessed are they who are driven by earths vanity and drawn by Gods fulness of love and power to fling themselves into His arms and nestle there! The strong recoil of the devout soul from a world which it has profoundly felt to be shadowy, and its great venture of faith, which is not a venture after all, were never more nobly or simply expressed than in that quiet "And now"-things being so-"what wait I for? My hope"-in contrast with the false directions which other mens takes-"to Thee it turns."
The burden is still on the psalmists shoulders. His sufferings are not ended, though his trust has taken the poison out of them. Therefore his renewed grasp of God leads at once to prayer for deliverance from his "transgressions," in which cry may be included both sins and their chastisement. The fool is the name of a class, not of an individual, and, as always in Scripture, denotes moral and religious obliquity, not intellectual feebleness. The expression is substantially equivalent to "the wicked" of Psa_39:1, and a similar motive to that which there induced the psalmist to be silent is here urged as a plea with God for the sufferers deliverance. Taunts launched at a good man suffering will glance off him and appear to reach his God.
Psa_39:9 pleads as a reason for Gods deliverance the psalmists silence under what he recognised as Gods chastisement. The question arises whether this is the same silence as is referred to in Psa_39:1-2, and many authorities take that view. But that silence was broken by a rush of words from a hot heart, and, if the account of the connection in the psalm given above is correct, by a subsequent more placid meditation and prayer. It would be irrelevant to recur to it here, especially as a plea with God. But there are two kinds of silence under His chastisements: one which may have for its motive regard to His honour, but is none the less tinged with rebellious thoughts, and brings no good to the sufferer, and another which is silence of heart and will, not of lips only, and soothes sorrow which the other only aggravated. and puts out the fire which the other fanned. Submission to Gods hand discerned behind all visible causes is the blessed silence. "To lie still, let Him strike home, and bless the rod," is best. And when that is attained, the uses of chastisement are accomplished; and we may venture to ask God to burn the rod. The desire to be freed from its blow is not inconsistent with such submission. This prayer does not break the silence, though it may seem to do so, for this is the privilege of hearts that love God: that they can breathe desires to Him without His holding them unsubmissive to His supreme will.
The last part (Psa_39:10-13) is somewhat abnormally long, and falls into two parts separated by "Selah," which musical note does not here coincide with the greater divisions. The two pairs of verses are both petitions for removal of sickness, either real or figurative. Their pleading persistence presents substantially the same prayer and supports it by the same considerations of mans transiency. The Pattern of perfect resignation thrice "prayed, saying the same words"; and His suffering followers may do the same, and yet neither sin by impatience, nor weary the Judge by their continual coming. The psalmist sees in his pains Gods "stroke," and pleads the effects already produced on him as a reason for cessation. He is already "wasted by the assault of Gods hand." One more buffet, and he feels that he must die. It is bold for a sufferer to say to God, "Hold! enough!" but all depends on the tone in which it is said. It may be presumption, or it may be a childs free speech, not in the least trenching on a Fathers authority. The sufferer underrates his capacity of endurance, and often thinks, "I can bear no straw more"; but yet he has to bear it. Yet the psalmists cry rests upon a deep truth: that God cannot mean to crush; therefore he goes on to a deeper insight into the meaning of that "stroke." It is not the attack of an enemy, but the "correction" of a friend.
If men regarded sorrows and sicknesses as rebukes for iniquity, they would better understand why sinful life, separated from God, is so fleeting. The characteristic ground tone of the Old Testament echoes here, according to which "the wages of sin is death." The commonplace of mans frailty receives a still more tragic colouring when thus regarded as a consequence of his sin. The psalmist has learned it in relation to his own sufferings, and, because he sees it so clearly, he pleads that these may cease. He looks on his own wasted form; and Gods hand seems to him to have taken away all that made it or life desirable and fair, as a moth would gnaw a garment. What a daring figure to compare the mightiest with the feeblest, the Eternal with the very type of evanescence!
The second subdivision of this part (Psa_39:12-13) reiterates the former with some difference of tone. There is a beautiful climax of earnestness in the psalmists appeal to God. His prayer swells into crying, and that again melts into tears, which go straight to the great Fathers heart. Weeping eyes are never turned to heaven in vain; the gates of mercy open wide when the hot drops touch them. But his fervour of desire is not this suppliants chief argument with God. His meditation has won for him deeper insight into that transiency which at first he had only laid like ice on his heart, to cool its feverish heat. He sees now more clearly, by reason of his effort to turn away his hope from earth and fix it on God, that his brief life has an aspect in which its brevity is not only calming, but exalting, and gives him a claim on God. whose guest he is while here, and with whom he has guest rights, whether his stay is longer or shorter. "The land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me". {Lev_25:23} That which was true in a special way of Israels tenure of the soil is true for the individual, and true forever. All men are Gods guests; and if we betake ourselves behind the curtains of His tent, we have rights of shelter and sustenance. All the bitterness of the thought of the brevity of life is sucked out of it by such a confidence. If a man dwells with God, his Host will care for the needs, and not be indifferent to the tears, of His guest. The long generations which have come and gone like shadows are not a melancholy procession out of nothing through vanity into nothing again, nor "disquieted in vain," if they are conceived as each in turn lodging for a little while in that same ancestral home which the present generation inhabits. It has seen many sons succeeding their fathers as its tenants, but its stately strength grows not old, and its gates are open today as they have been in all generations.
The closing prayer in Psa_39:13 has a strange sound. "Look away from me" is surely a singular petition, and the effect of Gods averting His face is not less singular. The psalmist thinks that it will be his regaining cheerfulness and brightness, for he uses a word which means to clear up or to brighten, as the sky becomes blue again after storm. The light of Gods face makes mens faces bright. "They cried unto God, and were lightened," not because He looked away from them, but because He regarded them. But the intended paradox gives the more emphatic expression to the thought that the psalmists pains came from Gods angry look, and it is that which he asks may be turned from him. That mere negative withdrawal, however, would have no cheering power, and is not conceivable as unaccompanied by the turning to the suppliant of Gods loving regard. The devout psalmist had no notion of a neutral God, nor could he ever be contented with simple cessation of the tokens of Divine displeasure. The ever-outflowing Divine activity must reach every man. It may come in one or other of the two forms of favour or of displeasure, bur come it will; and each man can determine which side of that pillar of fire and cloud is turned to him. On one side is the red glare of anger, on the other the white lustre of love. If the one is turned from, the other is turned to us.
Not less remarkable is the prospect of going away into non-being which the last words of the psalm present as a piteous reason for a little gleam of brightness being vouchsafed in this span-long life. There is no vision here of life beyond the grave; but, though there is not, the singer "throws himself into the arms of God." He does not seek to solve the problem of life by bringing the future in to redress the balance of good and evil. To him the solution lies in present communion with a present God, in whose house he is a guest now, and whose face will make his life bright, however short it may be.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Superscription.—“To the chief musician, to Jeduthun, a psalm of…
INTRODUCTION
Superscription.—“To the chief musician, to Jeduthun, a psalm of David.” Jeduthun was one of the leaders of the sacred music in the time of David (1Ch_16:41-42; 1Ch_25:6; 2Ch_35:15). Jeduthun is also the title of one of the twenty-four musical choirs left by David. As the psalm is addressed to the chief musician, it was obviously intended for use in the public worship of the tabernacle. David is said to be the author of the psalm. The particular occasion to which it refers is unknown. But from the psalm itself, it is clear that it was written in a time of doubt and trouble, when the psalmist’s thoughts were of such a character that he could not express them without injury to others and to the cause of God. We have no means of determining what the particular trouble was from which David was suffering. Matthew Henry suggests that “perhaps it was the death of some dear friend or relation that was the trial of his patience, and that suggested to him these meditations of mortality; and at the same time, it should seem too, he himself was weak and ill, and under some prevailing distemper.” Hengstenberg thinks that the psalm was written “when in hot persecucution and violent conflict.” It is clear that the Psalmist was in affliction and trouble, and his mind seems to have been sorely exercised as to the Divine dealings. He could not see the wisdom, the benevolence, or the justice of some of the Divine arrangements. He had dark and painful thoughts on the matter, which he dare not utter. And at length he is compelled to seek relief in prayer. Homiletically we divide the psalm thus,—Silence in Trouble (Psa_39:1-3; Speech in Trouble (Psa_39:4-6); Supplication in Trouble (Psa_39:7-13).
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SILENCE IN TROUBLE
(Psa_39:1-3.)
We have here presented to our consideration:—
I. Silence maintained in trouble. “I said I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue,” &c. (Psa_39:1-2).
1. God’s providential dealings, as seen by us, sometimes occasion doubt and trouble to good men. The Psalmist appears greatly perplexed as to the Divine administration of human affairs. He saw so much grief and pain in life, apparently proceeding from the hand of God, he was himself being consumed by the blow of God’s hand, and life itself was so short and vain, that he could not see the benevolence of the dealings of God with him. The providence of God has occasioned much perplexity and doubt in the minds of good met Asaph was sorely tried at one time by some of its problems (Psalms 73). We all have passed through experiences which at the time seemed utterly irreconcilable with the wisdom and love of God, and unbelieving and painful thoughts and feelings have filled our mind and heart. At such times we shall do well to remember that we see only a very small portion of His ways, and that small portion we see but dimly. Moreover, bitter experiences often lead to richest blessings.
2. The expression of such doubt and trouble in the presence of the wicked is to be avoided as evil. By the utterance of the sceptical and hard thoughts of God which filled his mind, the Psalmist would probably have confirmed the wicked in their unbelief, and encouraged them in their rebellion against God. Asaph felt that if he spake of his mental difficulties, and announced the dark conclusions which suggested themselves to him, he should thereby injure the true children of God. “If I say I will speak thus; behold, I should offend the generation of Thy children.” We are not at liberty to express our doubts, if, by so doing, we should give the wicked an occasion to blaspheme the Holy One, or if we should unsettle the faith of any sincere believer in God.
3. The good man guards against this evil by maintaining silence. “I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue,” &c. A soul resolutely maintaining silence, lest by speech another should be injured, is surely a brave and beautiful sight. “What a strange power,” says Emerson, “there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed, how many sublime conquests effected, during that pause when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her! When some of those cutting, sharp, blighting words have been spoken which send the hot indignant blood to the face and head, if those to whom they are addressed keep silence, look on with awe, for a mighty work is going on within them, and the spirit of evil, or their guardian angel, is very near to them in that hour. During that pause they have made a step toward heaven or toward hell, and an item has been scored in the book which the day of judgment shall see opened. They are the strong ones of the earth, the mighty food for good or evil, those who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief to them; those who give time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation, or to the powers of wrath to stamp upon them their withering passage.” The good man is ready to speak, when by his speech he can help the faith of others. He says, “Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He hath done for my soul.” He is “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him with meekness and fear.” But if by his speech he should incur the risk of imperilling the faith or peace of a believing soul, or of hardening the wicked in his wickedness, then he resolutely keeps silent. The silence of the Psalmist required effort. He put a muzzle upon his mouth. It is a pity that some of the weaklings, who so glibly prate about their doubts, and parade their so-called religious difficulties, would not try to imitate the Psalmist in this respect. But the Psalmist was a strong man, while the majority of those who exhibit their mental and religious difficulties as a sign of a superior order of mind, are the very reverse. The soul that has agonised with real doubts on the most vital and momentous questions will be silent concerning such doubts, or speak of them in such a manner and to such auditors only as will at least derive no harm from his speech.
II. Silence increasing trouble. We adopt Hengstenberg’s rendering of the second verse. “I grew dumb and was still; I was silent, not for good, and my pain was stirred.” He explains it thus, “The Psalmist says he had indeed executed his purpose, declared in the preceding verse, but that ill had thereby accrued. The obstinate and constrained silence, so far from producing good, had rather made his pain rise to a frightful magnitude.” All great emotions require expression. They must have utterance, or the over-taxed brain will reel into madness, and the over-charged heart will burst. Sometimes great emotions find utterance in poetry. We have many instances of this in these Psalms. Prose is all too hard and cold for the expression of intense emotions. The grief-stricken spirit pours out its sorrows in plaintive minor strains, and the jubilant soul hymns its gladness in some triumphant “Gloria in excelsis,” or Jubilate. Yet words the most intensely poetical in significance and arrangement not unfrequently fail to express the soul’s emotion. Very often great emotions find utterance in tears. When words fail to express our deep grief or thrilling joy, tears often come to our relief. “They are the safety-valves of the heart, when too much pressure is laid on.” “They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”
“Sweet tears! the awful language eloquent
Of infinite affection, far too big
For words.”—POLLOK.
Thus tears relieve the soul when surcharged with sorrow or o’erburdened by some great joy. But great emotions may always find relief in prayer. No sorrow is too great or too sacred for us to utter it to the ear of God. We may speak our highest, holiest, joy to Him. And the dark and agonising doubt, which we dare not utter to any of our fellow-men, we may tell to Him. He understands our tears, interprets our sighs, and knows the mysteries of our awful souls; and His ear is ever open to us. At His throne of grace we may ever find relief in trouble, and grace to help in time of need. For a time, the Psalmist seems to have reserved his trouble not only from man but from God also. The emotions which distressed him found no utterance whatever, and so they became more intense and painful. Had he taken his grief to God, it would have been far otherwise with him.
III. Silence growing insupportable in trouble. “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing,” &c. The Psalmist mused upon his own afflictions and the prosperity of the wicked, and the seeming contradictions in God’s government of the world. By meditation, he realised these things more fully and intensely, until at length further silence was an impossibility. The time had come when he must speak. Upon one occasion, Jeremiah said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But it was in mine heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and could not do it.” Such was the state of the Psalmist at this time.
CONCLUSION:—
1. Let us be careful in speaking our doubts and dark thoughts to men. We are bound to see to it that we neither shake the faith of the believer, nor afford the wicked any cause to blaspheme the Holy One.
2. Let us communicate all our mental conflicts and troubles to God. By so doing we shall be relieved; and He will help us by His grace and Spirit.
A COMMENDABLE RESOLUTION
(Psa_39:1.)
“I said I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue.”
We have here—
I. A great danger. We are in great danger of sinning with our tongue. There are several kinds of sinful speech of which we are in danger.
1. Sceptical or irreligious speech. The expression even of honest doubt should be suppressed if it is likely to offend any believer, or to harden the ungodly in wickedness.
2. Careless speech. To talk in a trifling spirit of sacred things, or to speak lightly of matters which concern the reputation and honour of another, is to sin.
3. Untruthful speech. There is much false speech without a directly uttered lie. By keeping back part of the truth, by colouring a narrative, &c., much evil is done. “A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.”
4. Angry, passionate speech. When we have lost our self-control, we are not in a fit state to speak at all. In moments of passion men utter unjust and bitter words, which rankle in the hearts of those to whom they are addressed for years, perhaps for ever. Remember, “words once spoken can never be recalled.”
5. Malicious speech. Let us see to it that we never open our lips with the deliberate intention of injuring any one. Tale-bearers and slanderers are amongst the most guilty of men, and the greatest pests of society.
“Slander;
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons,—nay, the secrets of the grave,
This viperous slander enters.”—SHAKESPEARE.
The danger of uttering sinful speeches arises from
(1.) The facility of speech. No organ of the body moves with greater ease than the tongue.
(2.) The fact that under provocation it is an outlet for pent-up feeling.
(3.) The many temptations to speech. Loquacity is a weakness of the age. With so much talking there must be much that is positively evil, and yet more that is worthless. “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.”
II. A wise precaution. “I will take heed to my ways,” &c. The Psalmist resolves to guard against this evil. We need to exercise care as to—
1. What we speak. Let us speak only the pure, the true, the kindly, the faith-inspiring, &c. “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.”
2. When we speak. “A word spoken in due season, how good is it!”
3. How we speak. Let us use those words which most correctly and clearly express our meaning. In our tones and manner of speech let us avoid the objectionable and evil.
CONCLUSION:—Let us not only avoid the evil, but let us also cultivate the excellent in speech.
“Apt words have power to ’suage
The tumults of a troubled mind,
And are as balm to festered wounds.”
—MILTON.
SPEECH IN TROUBLE
(Psa_39:4-6.)
The Psalmist in his speech reveals his—
I. Desire to know the duration of his life. “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.” Professor Alexander and De Wette translate the last clause: “When I shall cease.” And Hengstenberg: “I wish to know when I may cease.” The Psalmist believed that—
1. His days were determined by God. Man’s “days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee; Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.” “Is there not an apppointed time to man upon earth?” “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” So the Psalmist believed that the measure of his life was fixed, and the number of his days determined by the Lord.
2. He seeks to know when they will come to an end. “Make me to know mine end,” &c. At this time, the life of David was one of trouble; apparently it was full of sorrow, and he was anxious to know when his suffering life would terminate. But, whatever may be the prevailing tone of our life, it is not a wise thing to seek to know the times and seasons of our future days.
3. He desires the termination of his days. David seems to have longed in this verse for his life to be brought to a close. In his present troubled state it seems to him that the end of his sufferings will come only with the end of his life, and he is impatient for that end. Job, in his sufferings, gives expression repeatedly to the same feeling: “Oh, that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me,” &c. (Job_6:8-11). The Psalmist evidently knew that this impatience and this want of submission to the Divine arrangements were evil. Hence, for a time, and before men, he had curbed their expression; but now he pours them out before God. Blessed is he who, whether in suffering or in rest, calmly leaves his life to God. “My times are in Thy hand.”
II. Impression of the brevity of his life. “Behold, Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before Thee.” The Psalmist gives a double expression to his sense of the brevity of his life. His days were “as an handbreadth.” “The word is used to denote anything very short or brief. It is one of smallest natural measures, as distinguished from the foot, i.e., the length of the foot; and from the cubit, i.e., the length of the arm to the elbow.” And, as compared with God’s, his life shrunk, as it were, into nothingness. “My life is as non-existence before Thee.” How brief is life even at its longest! “Our days are few and short indeed, compared with the eternity to which they are conducting us—compared with the work we have to do, for ourselves, for our families, for our generation, for God—compared with the talents committed to our trust, and the improvement of those talents required at our hands—compared with the innumerable obligations that press upon us, from our station in life, our relations in life, our opportunities of usefulness, and the means which we have both of getting and of doing good.” But, compared with the eternal existence of God, our life vanishes. As Matthew Henry says: “All time is nothing to God’s eternity, much less our share of time.” Knowing that life is so brief, yet so important, let us prize it, improve its opportunities,—make the most of it.
III. Impression of the vanity of life.
1. The vanity of human anxieties. “Surely they are disquieted in vain.” The restless strivings and exertions of men seemed to the Psalmist to result in no worthy issue. “Our disquietudes,” says Matthew Henry, “are often groundless (we vex ourselves without any just cause, and the occasions of our trouble are often the creatures of our own fancy and imagination), and they are always fruitless; we disquiet ourselves in vain, for we cannot, with all our disquietment, alter the nature of things or the counsel of God; things will be as they are when we have disquieted ourselves ever so much about them.”
2. The vanity of human acquisitions. “He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them.” The word riches is supplied by the translators. Hengstenberg: “He gathers and knows not who will enjoy it.” The idea is that it is vain to amass treasures knowing not what will become of them when our brief tenure of life is at an end. Many are the illustrations of this truth which might be adduced. Here is one: “M. Foscue, the French millionaire miser, in order to make sure of his treasures, dug a cave in his wine-cellar, so large and deep that he could go down with a ladder. At the entrance was a door with a spring lock, which, on shutting, would fasten of itself. After a time, he was missing. Search was made for him, but to no purpose. At last, his house was sold. The purchaser, beginning to rebuild it, discovered a door in this cellar, and, going down, found him lying dead on the ground, with a candlestick near him; and, on searching farther, discovered the vast wealth which he had amassed. He went into the cave; and the door, by some accident, shutting after him, he perished for want of food. He had eaten the candle, and gnawed the flesh off both his arms. Thus died this avaricious wretch in the midst of the treasures he had heaped together.”—Dictionary of Illus.
3. The vanity of man himself. “Every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.” This rendering is not correct Hengstenberg translates: “Only for utter vanity was every man ordained.” P.-B.—“Verily, every man living is altogether vanity.” Two ideas are expressed,
(1.) that every man is vanity;
(2.) that this is so because of the Divine ordination. God has constituted every man vanity. The Psalmist employs another figure to set forth the vanity of man: “Surely every man walketh in a vain show.” Hengstenberg: “Only as an image walks man.” To the poet man seemed an image rather than a reality,—a mere walking phantom, a thing having no power, no life in itself, but only a mere shadow of life and strength. Such was the gloomy and one-sided view of life which filled the Psalmist’s mind in this time of trouble.
IV. Impatience of life. This is not so much uttered in any word, or number of words, as it breathes in the spirit of all the words of our text. The Psalmist was impatient of life by reason of its shortness, its vanity, and its sufferings. The same feeling finds outspoken and strong utterance in the Book of Job: “My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone, for my days are vanity.” Such impatience of life, if found in us in this Christian age, would be both unwise and sinful. It would be unwise, because of its tendency to unfit us for bearing life’s burden and performing life’s work. It would be unwise, also, because it takes into consideration only a small fragment of our life. This is but “the bud of being, the dim dawn, the twilight of our day.” The hereafter must be taken into account. It would be sinful, because of the want of faith in God which it involves, &c. But David, and the men of his age, must be judged by the light which they had, and not by that which we have, much of which they had not.
V. Want of clear and assured knowledge of any life beyond the present. Had he possessed such knowledge, he could not have spoken so strongly as to the utter vanity of man, not only of his anxieties, and pursuits, and acquisitions, but of man himself. In the view of the Psalmist, at the time when he penned this psalm,
“When death
Has quenched this finer flame that moves the heart,
Beyond is all oblivion, as waste night
That knows no following dawn, where we shall be
As we had never been: the present, then,
Is only ours.”—MALLET.
“It is not to be overlooked,” says Hengstenberg, “that the psalm possesses in part an Old Testament character. While still there was no clear insight into a future state of being, a long-continued state of suffering must have sunk very deep into the heart. ‘When a man dies, will he live again?’ says Job; ‘all the days of my war-service will I wait, till my discharge come.’ With every day of his short and miserable existence was the space narrowing for the display of the retributive justice and grace of God; and when the powers of body and of soul began to fail, then the disconsolate thought would press upon him, that he would never come to partake of the blessing which God had promised to His people—it would scarcely be possible to avoid sinking into perplexity and despair. But this special Old Testament character of the psalm, far from depriving the psalm of its edifying signification for us, rather serves the purpose of enhancing it. The declaration: ‘My hope stands in Thee,’ which the Psalmist uttered in circumstances when it was against all reason to hope, may well put us to shame, who are easily brought into despair by light and temporal afflictions, while we have the prospect of an exceeding weight of glory; and the more that he hoped, while there was the less to hope for, so much the more readily should our hope be kindled by the light of his.” Considering how dim their revelation was, as compared with ours, their faith in God is a rebuke to us, because our faith is not greater. If immortality had beer clearly revealed to the Psalmist, the tone of this psalm would have been very different.
CONCLUSION:
1. Learn the great value of “The Book of Psalms.” In these ancient poems we have true records of the life of godly souls. We see the sins and sorrows, the doubts and fears, the conflicts, temporary defeats, and glorious triumphs of these saints of old; and we are warned, encouraged, &c. Thank God for such a record of the experience of godly men.
2. Learn the great value of Christianity. How different does life appear since Jesus Christ has lived, died, and risen! He “hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
3. By the help of God let us endeavour to live well and earnestly. “Think of living!” says Thomas Carlyle. “Thy life, wert thou the ‘pitifulest of all the sons of earth,’ is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own; it is all thou hast to front eternity with. Work, then, even as He has done, and does, ‘like a star, unhasting, yet unresisting.’ ”
MAN, A WALKING SHADOW
(Psa_39:6.)
“Surely, every man walketh in a vain show.”
These words suggest two main ideas:
I. Life is a journey. “Every man walketh.” This figure implies—
1. Motion. Life is never stationary. Its wheels know no pause. We remain not a day in the same position. The traveller moves onward to fresh scenes, &c. So in life, the events and circumstances of yesterday are behind us to-day, and those of to-day will be in the past to-morrow. Life’s motion is incessant. The traveller, in his journey, may pause to rest or to admire the scenery through which he is passing, but it is not so in the journey of life. In this there is no pausing, not even for a minute. Asleep or awake, active or indolent, living wisely or living as a fool, every man moves forward without any pause, as though urged by a resistless hand. Life’s motion is incessantly onward. The traveller, in his journey, may retrace his steps; but, in the journey of life, we cannot turn back a single step. Every day, we are “going the way whence we shall never return.” A solemn consideration this. The wise man will note it.
2. Destiny, and approach to it. The traveller journeys with an end in view. And life’s journey has an end. As regards the body, we are travelling to the grave; as regards the soul, to the solemn retributions of eternity,—either to heaven or to hell. And how rapidly we advance to the solemn beurne of our pilgrimage! The eagle hastening to its prey, the arrow speeding to its mark, the clouds driving before the strong wind, move not so swiftly as man’s life. How solemn, then, is life! how important its every moment and every action!
II. Life is a journey prosecuted falsely. “Every man walketh in a vain show.” Hengstenberg: “Only as an image man walks.” What does this mean? It does not mean that life is not real. Life is not a vain show, not phantasmal, but a most solemn reality. Nor does it mean that man himself is unreal, a vain show, an image. Man himself is a greater reality than the solid earth or lustrous heavens. What, then, does it mean? It means that man is not true to himself; that he is false to the reality of his own being, false to the reality of life also. Man shuns himself, and lives amid unreality, amid vain shows. Practically, he ignores his own true being and lives in the realm of fiction. This implies that man is not in his normal condition. He was not made for shams, but for truth. But he half-consciously realises the fact that he has lost the blessedness of his being, and by his false modes of seeking to regain it he shows the derangement of his being and powers. He seeks it in vain shows, in excitement, pleasure, wealth, fame, knowledge. “What shadows we are, and what shadows do we pursue,” said the great Edmund Burke. Man sometimes pursues these vain shows until he himself becomes a mere image,—a living, acting, gaudy simulacrum. Can we discover the reason of this? Partly, at least, we may thus account for it. Man feels the greatness of his own being, and cannot interpret it; and he becomes perplexed, burdened. He has impulses which urge him to activity. He has also an instinctive consciousness that his well-being is to be found only in repose; and, prompted by these, he forms confused designs for obtaining satisfaction, by overcoming difficulties and thus gaining repose. But he does not reach the desired goal, because his course is false, and false are his aims. He is ever seeking, never finding. And deep at the root of all this falsity, and disappointment, and unrest, is the sad fact that his own being is not in harmony. The cause of the disquiet, and falsity, and vanity, is within him. Upon all the unrest, and gaudy show, and baffled hopes of men we may write, “Every man walketh in a vain show.” And upon the men themselves we may write, “Only as an image man walks.” Only in God can man be true and blessed; and only through Christ can man rise into union with God. Restored to God, man is restored to himself, and is able to live true to himself, to live not as “an image,” but as a reality. He then finds that true rest is found in the harmonious activity of the powers of his being in accordance with the will of God. Living for God, and in God, “life is real, life is earnest.”
What is the character of your life-journey?
SUPPLICATION IN TROUBLE
(Psa_39:7-13.)
In this instance, we use the word supplication not in the signification of petition or entreaty merely, but in its broad signification as including request, acknowledgment of dependence, thanksgiving, prayer. So using it, the teaching of this section may fitly be grouped under the heading, “Supplication in Trouble.”
Consider:
I. The confidence avowed. “And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in Thee.”
1. Man’s need of hope. Low as the Psalmist was sunk in misery, he had not lost hope. “The miserable hath no other medicine,” says Shakespeare, “but only hope.” “He that loses hope may part with anything.”—Congreve. But he that retains hope may rise from great depths of misery to calm heights of joy. When that star is quenched in the firmament of the soul, the darkness is unrelieved and total Judas lost hope, and was undone. “We are saved by hope.”
2. Man’s only sufficient hope. “My hope is in Thee.” The Psalmist has already bewailed the vanity of man, and of his pursuits. Man is an image pursuing shadows. There is no trust to be reposed in him: to hope in him is to invite disappointment. So the Psalmist turns from human pursuits and possessions, and from man himself, and fixes his hope in God. Although he regarded his troubles as coming from the hand of God, and cried bitterly and complainingly to Him, yet it was to Him that he looked,—in Him that he trusted. God may appear severe, and His ways mysterious and painful, yet there is no one beside Him to whom we can look for help, and in whom we can place our trust in the great trials of life. And He is all-sufficient in all things.
II. The submission expressed. “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it.”
1. The submission. “I am dumb, I open not my mouth.” The silence which is spoken of here is very different from that spoken of in Psa_39:2. Then he was silent lest by his murmurings against the government of God he should cause the wicked to blaspheme; now he is silent because he acquiesces in the arrangements of that government. That was the silence of rebellion, or at least of bitter dissatisfaction and complaint; this is the silence of trustful submission to the will and ways of God. He submits himself to God, feeling no desire now to complain of His providence.
2. The reason. “Because Thou didst it.” The Psalmist looked upon his afflictions and sorrows as produced by God, and in that he found reasons for patient acquiescence. How much more should we! Knowing how wise and loving, how tender and strong He is, let us immediately check any rising complaint with the consideration, “It must be well, for Thou hast done it.”
“It is Thy hand, my God;
My sorrow comes from Thee:
I bow beneath Thy chastening rod,
’Tis love that bruises me.”—DARBY.
III. The petitions presented.
1. For the forgiveness of sin. “Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the reproach of the foolish.” These two clauses have a close relation. That relation, as we understand it, may be expressed thus:—The afflictions of the Psalmist were regarded by men as a proof that he was wicked: on this account his enemies reproached him; if his sins were forgiven, his afflictions would cease, so he thought; and in this way the reproaches of the wicked would be brought to an end. David seems to have viewed his sins as the cause of his sufferings and troubles. He seeks forgiveness of sin before he asks for removal of suffering. This is well and wise. Would that all efforts for the amelioration of human condition proceeded in this order! When moral evil is no more, “natural evil” (so called) will soon cease to be. When sin is not, suffering will not long continue. When the fountain is dry, the stream will speedily cease to run.
2. For the removal of affliction. “Remove Thy stroke away from me; I am consumed by the blow of Thine hand,” &c. (Psa_39:10-11). He regarded
(1.) His afflictions as Divine correction, “Thy stroke, … the blow of Thine hand.… When Thou with rebukes dost correct,” &c. The sufferings of the people of God are frequently God’s chastisement by reason of their sins. When He corrects us, it is because of our iniquity, and in love to us. “My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,” &c. (Heb_12:5-11).
(2.) His affliction was severe. “I am consumed by the blow of Thine hand.… Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth.” Margin: “That which is to be desired in him to melt away.” Hengstenberg: “Thou dost consume, as by a moth, what he loves.” As the moth consumes the most beautiful woollen garment or the finest sable, so the Psalmist says he was being consumed away by the afflictions which had come upon him,—his strength and vigour, his cheerfulness, and courage, and beauty, were passing away before the expressions of the displeasure of God. Yet, severe as these corrections were, God could remove them. Low as he was reduced by suffering, God could raise him up again. For this he prays. He turns for healing to the hand that wounded him; for lifting up to Him who had brought him low.
3. For invigoration before death. “O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more.” Hengstenberg: “Leave off from me, that I may be revived, before I go away and be no more.” The first member, literally: Look away from me, that I may brighten up; q.d. turn away from me Thy angry look, so that my sorrowful one may be made cheerful. “The idea,” says Barnes, “is that of being cheered up; of being strengthened and invigorated before he should pass away.” He desired to be invigorated and comforted before he passed away from this world for ever.
IV. The pleas urged. “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears,” &c. (Psa_39:12). The Psalmist pleads—
1. His sorrow. “Hold not Thy peace at my tears.” “Weeping, if unmurmuring,” says Barnes, “is of the nature of prayer, for God regards the sorrows of the soul as He sees them. The weeping penitent, the weeping sufferer, is one on whom we may suppose God looks with compassion, even though the sorrows of the soul do not find words to give utterance to them.” And, says John Arnd, “This is the effect of tears, when one sees or hears any one weeping sadly, one cannot well remain silent, as the Lord Jesus said to the woman at Nain, ‘Weep not;’ and to Mary Magdalene, ‘Woman, why weepest Thou?’ This nature teaches us. Now, if a man can scarcely be silent to a person’s tears, how much less the Lord God! Therefore, it is said in Psalms 56 that God numbers the tears of believers, and in Isaiah 25 that He will wipe away all tears from our eyes.” In thus pleading his sorrow, the Psalmist appeals to the compassion of God. “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.”
2. His dependence. “For I am a stranger with Thee,—a sojourner, as all my fathers.” “A stranger and pilgrim has nothing of his own, he is quite dependent upon the goodness of those with whom he lives, is everywhere on the footing of a beggar.” By thus pleading his dependence, the Psalmist appeals to the faithfulness of God. Such-appeals are ever met by a full and gracious response.
CONCLUSION:—There is still much vanity, and gloom, and sorrow, in life. There are times when our “burden seems greater than our strength can bear,” and we are ready to cry out in impatient complaint to God. But let us take our burdens to Him. He will interpret their meaning, and give us strength to bear them. He is the unfailing support in life’s troubles of all who trust in Him. “Lord, my hope is in Thee.”
GOD AFFLICTING, AND MAN SUBMITTING
(Psa_39:9.)
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it.”
I. God afflicting man. “Thou didst it.” This will apply—
1. To many temporal losses, e.g., those occasioned by floods, storms, earthquakes, &c.
2. To many bodily afflictions.
3. To the bereavements of death. “I saw this verse engraved with great appropriateness on a beautiful marble monument that had been erected over a grave where lay three children that had been suddenly cut down by the scarlet fever. What could be more suitable in such a trial than such a text? What could more strikingly express the true feelings of Christian piety—the calm submission of redeemed souls—than the disposition of parents, thus bereaved, to record such a sentiment over the grave of their children?”—Barnes.
II. Man submitting to God. “I am dumb, I open not my month, because Thou didst it.” Submission to God may be enforced by the following considerations:
1. The folly of rebelling against Him.
2. The perfection of His character. He is perfect in wisdom, goodness, faithfulness. In accordance with these glorious attributes, He governs the world.
3. The uses of suffering. Great are the benefits of sanctified affliction. “Thou didst it,” we say now in submission. “He hath done all things well,” we shall soon exclaim in rapture.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Psa 39:1-2
Psa 39:1-2
The unspoken judgment of mankind.
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Scripture speaks in two different ways about judging others. On the one hand, it says, "Judge nothing before the time, till the day of the Lord come;" on the other hand, it says, "He that is spiritual judgeth all things:" and we are told to regard the Holy Spirit, of which we partake, as a Spirit of discernment. Goodness as such has a wisdom in it; it knows that which attracts and draws it to itself, and that which does not; it knows the character with which it is in sympathy and agreement, and that with which it is not.
I. What then is meant by our being told that we are to "judge nothing before the time, till the day of the Lord come," etc.? These texts mean (1) that we are not to judge hastily, not to judge others for small and doubtful things; they unquestionably limit and put checks on us in judging others. (2) But perhaps the great law with respect to judging which is laid down in these texts is that judgment in this world, when it is upon the critical point of men’s goodness or badness, is suspended with respect to its delivery; that it is not allowed full expression and manifestation. Openness is the very characteristic of the last judgment. But—and this is the great distinction between the two—the tongue of intermediate judgment is tied. We are not at liberty to say openly what we think about others, even though it may be true.
II. In the temper of the Psalmist we observe a greater strength than belongs to the other temper of impetuous and premature expression—strength not only of self-control, but of actual feeling and passion. To attempt the exposure of the bad in this world would be to fight with all the conditions of our state in this world for another reason. It would be found that the charge could not keep pace with the explanation, but that the explanation would, by the laws of society, overcome it, because by these very laws what society as such requires and is contented with is different from that which satisfies the individual. A thing is true, most true, until you say it; but if you say it, if it goes out of your lips, if it is once spoken, oh, how false it becomes. The floodgates of explanation open. It is crushed, and cannot stand a moment against the full resources of a conventional defence.
III. This judgment, which is hidden at the bottom of human hearts—this is the real judgment, though at present only mute and expectant. Fear this hidden adversary; and if it be not too late, deal with him quickly while thou art in the way with him.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 223.
References: Psa 39:1-7.—J. L. Adamson, Dundee Pulpit, March 2nd, 1872. Psa 39:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 576; J. B. Aitken, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 113. Psa 39:4.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 157. Psa 39:5.—W. Lindsay Alexander, Christian Thought and Work, p. 106. Psa 39:6.—A. C. Tait, Lessons for School Life, p. 209.
Psa 39:6-7
I. The central superficialness of this age, and of what calls itself its theology, is that it is so occupied with things of sense or intellect which do not bear on man’s inner nature, that it forgets itself and its relation to God. It treats with God, not with the tender familiarity of reverential love, but with the calm complacency of one whose rights God is bound to respect, and who is, on the whole, on good terms with God; and therefore it is false and hollow to God and to itself.
II. These two objects of knowledge, unlike as they are, of God and of ourselves, mutually condition one another, and that in part because God has revealed Himself to us chiefly in reference to ourselves. The soul which knows not itself, and has not, by the grace of God, purified itself, will not see clearly the image of God, which it has deformed in itself.
III. Set God before thee, and the Pharisee religion of the day will not be thine. Thou shalt walk, not in a shadowy being, as this life would in itself be, but up and down with God; in God thou shalt take thy rest, with God converse; His wisdom shall be thy wisdom, His truth thy light, His love thy joy. And if this be the mirror, what is the "face to face"? "And now, Lord, what have I ever longed for? My longing expectation is for Thee."
E. B. Pusey, Lenten Sermons, p. 278.
Psa 39:6, Psa 39:12
I. Observe the very forcible expression which is given here to the thought of life common to both verses. (1) "Every man walketh in a vain show." The force of the expression which the Psalmist employs is correctly given in the margin, "in an image," or "in a shadow." The phrase is equivalent to saying, he walks in the character or likeness of a shadow, or, as we should say, he walks as a shadow. That is to say, the whole outward life and activity of every man is represented as fleeting and unsubstantial, like the reflection of a cloud, which darkens leagues of the mountain’s side in a moment, and ere a man can say, Behold! is gone again for ever. (2) Look at the other image employed in the other clause of our text to express the same idea: "I am a stranger and sojourner, as all my fathers were." The phrase has a history. In that most pathetic narrative of an old-world sorrow long since calmed and consoled, when "Abraham stood up from before his dead" and craved a burying-place for his Sarah from the sons of Heth, his first plea was, "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you." He was a foreigner, not naturalised. And such is our relation to all this visible frame of things in which we dwell.
II. Let me point, in the second place, to the gloomy, aimless hollowness which that thought apart from God infuses into life. Shadow is opposed to substance, to that which is real, as well as that which is enduring. No matter how you may get on in the world, though you may fulfil every dream with which you began in your youth, you will certainly find that without Christ for your Brother and Saviour, God for your Friend, and heaven for your hope, life, with all its fulness, is empty. The crested waves seem heaped together as they recede from the eye till they reach the horizon, where miles of storm are seen but as a line of spray. So when a man looks back upon his life, if it have been a godless one, be sure of this, that it will be a dark and cheerless retrospect over a tossing waste, with a white rim of wandering, barren foam vexed by tempest.
III. Note, finally, how our other text in its significant words gives us the blessedness which springs from this same thought when it is looked at in connection with God: "I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner." (1) A stranger with Thee—then we are the guests of the King. (2) A stranger with Thee—then we have a constant Companion and an abiding presence. (3) Strangers with Thee—then we may carry our thoughts forward to the time when we shall go to our true home, nor wander any longer in the land that is not ours.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 15.
Psa 39:9
I. "Thou didst it." It is something to have got firm hold of a fact. A great deal is gained when the sorrow has been traced up to God.
II. "Thou didst it" has some treasures of knowledge for us. As we go round it we begin to make discoveries. (1) God did it; then I know that infinite wisdom did it. (2) God did it; then I know that infinite power did it. (3) God did it, and therefore I know that infinite love did it.
M. R. Vincent, God and Bread, p. 207.
References: Psa 39:12.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 1st series, p. 175; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 7; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 166; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 76. Psa 39:13.—Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 77.
Psa 39:13
These are the closing words of the most beautiful of sacred elegies. It is the pathetic utterance of a heart not yet subdued to perfect resignation, yet jealous with a holy jealousy lest it should bring dishonour upon its God. The thought which haunted the Psalmist with such cruel persistence and suggested doubt of the reality of a loving Providence was the thought which from time immemorial has tried the faith of thousands of true hearts—the thought of the frailty and insignificance of human life. "Surely every man walketh in a vain show," he cries; "he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them."
I. Across the dividing ages we are drawn to the very heart of that nameless wrestler whose conflicts we identify with our own. For if we have a refuge to flee into which was unknown to the authors of these old-world laments, if we can look up, as they could not, with almost open vision, to a Divine Protector, Who has Himself come among us and given us in Christ our Lord the sure pledge of His loving foresight and the earnest of a perfect redress, on the other hand, how the very advance which the world makes brings out the mocking incompleteness of the part we have to play in it.
II. In the text we have a witness to that deep, universal conviction that life and strength are good things. When we thank God for our creation and preservation, we are true to an instinct which is rarely overpowered. That which makes recovery of strength so welcome a thing if once we know what issues depend upon our use of it is the prospect of a new probation, a new chance of employing aright God’s wondrous endowment of life. The Christian prays to be spared above all that he may do more for God, for his fellow-men. He knows that lengthened days, unless they serve these ends, can be no boon at all.
R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 200.
References: Psa 39:13.—J. Keble, Sundays after Trinity, Part II., p. 485. Psalm 39—A. Maclaren, Life of David, p. 236. Psa 40:1.—S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. 15; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xx., p. 21. Psa 40:1-3.—J. West, Penny Pulpit, Nos. 3886 and 3887; Spurgeon, vol. xxviii., No. 1674; R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains, p. 25; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 135. Psa 40:2, Psa 40:3.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 216.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Man’s frailty seen in the light of divine government.
Man’s frailty seen in the light of divine government.
To the chief musician, to Jeduthun: a psalm of David.
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The closing psalm of this threefold series is most general in its character. It shows us sin as the cause, under divine government, of the frailty and vanity of human life and the heart of the righteous, exercised by this, coming to realize and acquiesce in it with all its humiliation. Thus, spite of its gloomy theme, it is for Jeduthun, the praise-giver," that the psalm is appointed, and this is so according to rule that all the strangeness has passed out of it.
The psalm divides naturally into two parts, the first of which is an Ecclesiastes dirge over the misery of man’s "short space," while the second gives the judgment of its cause, the recognition of God’s chastening because of sin, and that His "looking away" from man is his only hope. This, of course, is a very partial view of things; but the exclusion of the evangelic treatment of this -of which the psalmist, as we have seen, cannot be thought so ignorant as might appear -only brings more prominently into sight the matter which occupies him, which is, in fact, the evil and not the good; although it be true, and what is sought in it, that the complete judgment of the evil is itself a good, and allows the ever-ready grace to come freely in. The next psalm returns to Christ, and to His work of propitiation.
1. The sorrow into which he is plunged provokes the psalmist to thoughts that are so full of question, that in the presence of the wicked, ever fretting against God, he is afraid to utter them for fear of sin. He muzzles himself, therefore, and is dumb, even as to good, for he dare not trust himself. But the fire in his heart breaks out at last, and he cannot refrain. He speaks, but to the Lord alone.
He cries, then, to know his end, his days that are measured, and yet he knows not the measure. Alarmed at his frailty, he is alarmed also at how little he realizes his frailty. His days are handbreadths merely, and God has given them their limit, a short space which is really nothing before the Eternal. It is the common condition of man: take the most stable, what is he? a puff of air -a breath.
{*Verse 5 ’short space’ (hand-breadth), Cheled, "transitoriness."}
Then the unreality this gives to things, even while they last! vain disquietude; vain heaping up of what has presently to be left to others, he knows not whom. This is a trite story; but we are too certainly actors in it to allow its triteness to abate its interest for us.
{Verse 6 ’Unreality’, Tzelem, "image."}
2. He turns once more to the Lord, to express the hope he has in Him. He has no expectation elsewhere, but here at once the remembrance of his sins confronts him; he needs deliverance from these he prays that on this account he may not be made the reproach of the fool -the impious -with whom, spite of all, he is not. Conscious of the chastening hand upon him, he was dumb, his mouth stopped, for he could not open it against God. Yet he can make supplication for the removal of the stroke, the blow of His hand under which he is being consumed. And such is man’s condition: his beauty ephemeral as the moth, but as the correction of perversity: for, with his Father’s goods on his hand, he uses them to enjoy himself away from Him, and thus must find the famine in order to be brought back. Every man is therefore but a breath.
Now he breaks out into prayer again, turning his condition into an argument for the pity of the Merciful One. A "stranger" had careful provision made for him in Israel; and a "sojourner," like David’s Moabitish ancestress, could reckon upon the shelter of the wings of the God of Israel. "I," too, he cries, "am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, like all my fathers." A stranger and sojourner is the guest of God, and to prove the largeness of His hospitality.
But he goes further than this, and in a prayer that seems at first to be contradictory to it. "Look away from me," he says, "that I may recover strength," (or, more literally, "brighten up,") before I go hence and be no more." But why "look away"? Certainly not that he wants God to forget him, but the contrary; but he is conscious of his sinfulness, which is the cause of all the sorrow and evil of his life; if a holy God is to look
at that, what hope can there be for him? Surely none; and he and sin are so identified, God must look away from him -must not regard him -that he may have peace or comfort at all. The psalmist can elsewhere supplement this thought with what is necessary to explain it rightly. He can say, "Look upon the face of Thine Anointed" -Thy Christ (Psa 84:9); and thus it is that, according to the gospel paradox, God, can regard us, just as not regarding us. Here, as already said, it is the very purpose of the psalm to give expression to the sense of the evil in us: we shall have no difficulty in fitting to it then the compensating and glorious truth. Repentance and faith are but the opposite sides of all real conversion. With the back on self, the glory of Christ is ever manifest.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv6, 12 Psa 39:6, Psa 39:12.
Psalms
THE BITTERNESS AND BLESSEDNESS OF THE BREVITY OF LIFE
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Psa 39:6, Psa 39:12.
These two sayings are two different ways of putting the same thing. There is a common thought underlying both, but the associations with which that common thought is connected in these two verses are distinctly different. The one is bitter and sad-a gloomy half truth. The other, out of the very same fact, draws blessedness and hope. The one may come from no higher point of view than the level of worldly experience; the other is a truth of faith. The former is at best partial, and without the other may be harmful; the latter completes, explains, and hallows it.
And that this progress and variety in the thought is the key to the whole psalm is, I think, obvious to any one who will examine it with care. I cannot here enter on that task but in the hastiest fashion, by way of vindicating the connection which I trace between the two verses of our text. The Psalmist begins, then, with telling how at some time recently passed-in consequence of personal calamity not very clearly defined, but apparently some bodily sickness aggravated by mental sorrow and anxiety-he was struck dumb with silence, so that he ‘held his peace even from good.’ In that state there rose within him many sad and miserable thoughts, which at last forced their way through his locked lips. They shape themselves into a prayer, which is more complaint than petition-and which is absorbed in the contemplation of the manifest melancholy facts of human life-’Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before Thee.’ And then, as that thought dilates and sinks deeper into his soul, he looks out upon the whole race of man-and in tones of bitterness and hopelessness, affirms that all are vanity, shadows, disquieted in vain. The blank hopelessness of such a view brings him to a standstill. It is true-but taken alone is too dreadful to think of. ‘That way madness lies,’-so he breaks short off his almost despairing thoughts, and with a swift turning away of his mind from the downward gaze into blackness that was beginning to make him reel, he fixes his eyes on the throne above-’And now, Lord! what wait I for? my hope is in Thee.’ These words form the turning-point of the psalm. After them, the former thoughts are repeated, but with what a difference-made by looking at all the blackness and sorrow, both personal and universal, in the bright light of that hope which streams upon the most lurid masses of opaque cloud, till their gloom begins to glow with an inward lustre, and softens into solemn purples and reds. He had said, ‘I was dumb with silence-even from good.’ But when his hope is in God, the silence changes its character and becomes resignation and submission. ‘I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it.’ The variety of human life and its transiency is not less plainly seen than before; but in the light of that hope it is regarded in relation to God’s paternal correction, and is seen to be the consequence, not of a defect in His creative wisdom or love, but of man’s sin. ‘Thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity.’ That, to him who waits on the Lord, is the reason and the alleviation of the reiterated conviction, ‘Every man is vanity.’ Not any more does he say every man ‘at his best state,’ or, as it might be more accurately expressed, ‘even when most firmly established,’-for the man who is established in the Lord is not vanity, but only the man who founds his being on the fleeting present. Then, things being so, life being thus in itself and apart from God so fleeting and so sad, and yet with a hope that brightens it like sunshine through an April shower-the Psalmist rises to prayer, in which that formerly expressed conviction of the brevity of life is reiterated, with the addition of two words which changes its whole aspect, ‘I am a stranger with Thee.’ He is God’s guest in his transient life. It is short, like the stay of a foreigner in a strange land; but he is under the care of the King of the Land-therefore he need not fear nor sorrow. Past generations, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-whose names God ‘is not ashamed’ to appeal to in His own solemn designation of Himself-have held the same relation, and their experience has sealed His faithful care of those who dwell with Him. Therefore, the sadness is soothed, and the vain and fleeting life of earth assumes a new appearance, and the most blessed and wisest issue of our consciousness of frailty and insufficiency is the fixing of our desires and hopes on Him in whose house we may dwell even while we wander to and fro, and in whom our life being rooted and established shall not be vain, howsoever it may be brief.
If, then, we follow the course of contemplation thus traced in the psalm, we have these three points brought before us-first, the thought of life common to both clauses; second, the gloomy, aimless hollowness which that thought breathes into life apart from God; third, the blessedness which springs from the same thought when we look at it in connection with our Father in heaven.
I. Observe the very forcible expression which is given here to the thought of life common to both verses.
‘Every man walketh in a vain show.’ The original is even more striking and strong. And although one does not like altering words so familiar as those of our translation, which have sacredness from association and a melancholy music in their rhythm-still it is worth while to note that the force of the expression which the Psalmist employs is correctly given in the margin, ‘in an image’-or ‘in a shadow.’ The phrase sounds singular to us, but is an instance of a common enough Hebrew idiom, and is equivalent to saying-he walks in the character or likeness of a shadow, or, as we should say, he walks as a shadow. That is to say, the whole outward life and activity of every man is represented as fleeting and unsubstantial, like the reflection of a cloud which darkens leagues of the mountains’ side in a moment, and ere a man can say, ‘Behold!’ is gone again for ever.
Then, look at the other image employed in the other clause of our text to express the same idea, ‘I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers.’ The phrase has a history. In that most pathetic narrative of an old-world sorrow long since calmed and consoled, when ‘Abraham stood up from before his dead,’ and craved a burying-place for his Sarah from the sons of Heth, his first plea was, ‘I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.’ In his lips it was no metaphor. He was a stranger, a visitor for a brief time to an alien land; he was a sojourner, having no rights of inheritance, but settled among them for a while, and though dwelling among them, not adopted into their community. He was a foreigner, not naturalised. And such is our relation to all this visible frame of things in which we dwell. It is alien to us; though we be in it, our true affinities are elsewhere; though we be in it, our stay is brief, as that of ‘a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night.’
And there is given in the context still another metaphor setting forth the same fact in that dreary generalisation which precedes my text, ‘Every man at his best state’-or as the word means, ‘established,’- with his roots most firmly struck in the material and visible-’is only a breath.’ It appears for a moment, curling from lip and nostril into the cold morning air, and vanishes away, so thus vaporous, filmy, is the seeming solid fact of the most stable life.
These have been the commonplaces of poets and rhetoricians and moralists in all time. But threadbare as the thought is, I may venture to dwell on it for a moment. I know I am only repeating what we all believe-and all forget. It is never too late to preach commonplaces, until everybody acts on them as well as admits them-and this old familiar truth has not yet got so wrought into the structure of our lives that we can afford to say no more about it.
‘Surely every man walketh in a shadow.’ Did you ever stand upon the shore on some day of that ‘uncertain weather, when gloom and glory meet together,’ and notice how swiftly there went, racing over miles of billows, a darkening that quenched all the play of colour in the waves, as if all suddenly the angel of the waters had spread his broad wings between sun and sea, and then how in another moment as swiftly it flits away, and with a burst the light blazes out again, and leagues of ocean flash into green and violet and blue. So fleeting, so utterly perishable are our lives for all their seeming solid permanency. ‘Shadows in a career, as George Herbert has it-breath going out of the nostrils. We think of ourselves as ever to continue in our present posture. We are deceived by illusions. Mental indolence, a secret dislike of the thought, and the impostures of sense, all conspire to make us blind to, or at least oblivious of, the plain fact which every beat of our pulses might preach, and the slow creeping hands of every parish clock confirm. How awful that silent, unceasing footfall of receding days is when once we begin to watch it! Inexorable, passionless-though hope and fear may pray, ‘Sun! stand thou still on Gibeon; and thou moon! in the valley of Ajalon,’-the tramp of the hours goes on. The poets paint them as a linked chorus of rosy forms, garlanded, and clasping hands as they dance onwards. So they may be to some of us at some moments. So they may seem as they approach; but those who come hold the hands of those who go, and that troop has no rosy light upon their limbs, their garlands are faded, the sunshine falls not upon the grey and shrouded shapes, as they steal ghostlike through the gloom-and ever and ever the bright and laughing sisters pass on into that funereal band which grows and moves away from us unceasing. Alas! for many of us it bears away with it our lost treasures, our shattered hopes, our joys from which all the bright petals have dropped! Alas! for many of us there is nothing but sorrow in watching how all things become ‘part and parcel of the dreadful past.’
And how strangely sometimes even a material association may give new emphasis to that old threadbare truth. Some more permanent thing may help us to feel more profoundly the shadowy fleetness of man. The trifles are so much more lasting than their owners. Or, as ‘the Preacher’ puts it, with such wailing pathos, ‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.’ This material is perishable-but yet how much more enduring than we are! The pavements we walk upon, the coals in our grates-how many millenniums old are they? The pebble you kick aside with your foot-how many generations will it outlast? Go into a museum and you will see hanging there, little the worse for centuries, battered shields, notched swords, and gaping helmets-aye, but what has become of the bright eyes that once flashed the light of battle through the bars, what has become of the strong hands that once gripped the hilts? ‘The knights are dust,’ and ‘their good swords are’ not ‘rust.’ The material lasts after its owner. Seed corn is found in a mummy case. The poor form beneath the painted lid is brown and hard, and more than half of it gone to pungent powder, and the man that once lived has faded utterly: but the handful of seed has its mysterious life in it, and when it is sown, in due time the green blade pushes above English soil, as it would have done under the shadow of the pyramids four thousand years ago-and its produce waves in a hundred harvest fields to-day. The money in your purses now, will some of it bear the head of a king that died half a century ago. It is bright and useful-where are all the people that in turn said they ‘owned’ it? Other men will live in our houses, will preach from this pulpit, and sit in these pews, when you and I are far away. And other June days will come, and the old rose-trees will flower round houses where unborn men will then be living, when the present possessor is gone to nourish the roots of the roses in the graveyard!
‘Our days are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.’ So said David on other occasions. We know, dear brethren! how true it is, whether we consider the ceaseless flux and change of things, the mystic march of the silent-footed hours, or the greater permanence which attaches to the ‘things which perish,’ than to our abode among them. We know it, and yet how hard it is not to yield to the inducement to act and feel as if all this painted scenery were solid rock and mountain. By our own inconsiderateness and sensuousness, we live in a lie, in a false dream of permanence, and so in a sadder sense we walk in ‘a vain show,’-deluding ourselves with the conceit of durability, and refusing to see that the apparent is the shadowy, and the one enduring reality God. It is hard to get even the general conviction vivified in men’s minds, hardest of all to get any man to reflect upon it as applying to himself. Do not think that you have said enough to vindicate neglect of my words now, when you call them commonplace. So they are. But did you ever take that well-worn old story, and press it on your own consciousness-as a man might press a common little plant, whose juice is healing, against his dim eye-ball-by saying to yourself, ‘It is true of me. I walk as a shadow. I am gliding onwards to my doom. Through my slack hands the golden sands are flowing, and soon my hour-glass will run out, and I shall have to stop and go away.’ Let me beseech you for one half-hour’s meditation on that fact before this day closes. You will forget my words then, when with your own eyes you have looked upon that truth, and felt that it is not merely a toothless commonplace, but belongs to and works in thy life, as it ebbs away silently and incessantly from thee.
II. Let me point, in the second place, to the gloomy, aimless hollowness which that thought, apart from God, infuses into life.
There is, no doubt, a double idea in the metaphor which the Psalmist employs. He desires to set forth, by his image of a shadow, not only the transiency, but the unsubstantialness of life. Shadow is opposed to substance, to that which is real, as well as to that which is enduring. And we may further say that the one of these characteristics is in great part the occasion of the other. Because life is fleeting, therefore, in part, it is so hollow and unsatisfying. The fact that men are dragged away from their pursuits so inexorably makes these pursuits seem, to any one who cannot see beyond that fact, trivial and not worth the following. Why should we fret and toil and break our hearts, ‘and scorn delights, and live laborious days’ for purposes which will last so short a time, and things which we shall so soon have to leave? What is all our bustle and business, when the sad light of that thought falls on it, but ‘labouring for the wind’? ‘Were it not better to lie still?’ Such thoughts have at least a partial truth in them, and are difficult to meet as long as we think only of the facts and results of man’s life that we can see with our eyes, and our psalm gives emphatic utterance to them. The word rendered ‘walketh’ in our text is not merely a synonym for passing through life, but has a very striking meaning. It is an intensive frequentative form of the word-that is, it represents the action as being repeated over and over again. For instance, it might be used to describe the restless motion of a wild beast in a cage, raging from side to side, never still, and never getting any farther for all the racing backward and forward. So here it signifies ‘walketh to and fro,’ and implies hurry and bustle, continuous effort, habitual unrest. It thus comes to be parallel with the stronger words which follow,- ‘Surely they are disquieted in vain’; and one reason why all this effort and agitation are purposeless and sad, is because the man who is straining his nerves and wearying his legs is but a shadow in regard to duration-’He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.’
Yes! if we have said all, when we have said that men pass as a fleeting shadow-if my life has no roots in the Eternal, nor any consciousness of a life that does not pass, and a light that never perishes, if it is derived from, directed to, ‘cribbed, cabined, and confined’ within this visible diurnal sphere, then it is all flat and unprofitable, an illusion while it seems to last, and all its pursuits are folly, its hopes dreams, its substances vapours, its years a lie. For, if life be thus short, I who live it am conscious of, and possess whether I be conscious of them or no, capacities and requirements which, though they were to be annihilated to-morrow, could be satisfied while they lasted by nothing short of the absolute ideal, the all-perfect, the infinite-or, to put away abstractions, ‘My soul thirsteth for God, the living God!’ ‘He hath put eternity in their heart,’ as the book of Ecclesiastes says. Longings and aspirations, weaknesses and woes, the limits of creature helps and loves, the disproportion between us and the objects around us-all these facts of familiar experience do witness, alike by blank misgivings and by bright hopes, by many disappointments and by indestructible expectations surviving them all, that nothing which has a date, a beginning, or an end, can fill our souls or give us rest. Can you fill up the swamps of the Mississippi with any cartloads of faggots you can fling in? Can you fill your souls with anything which belongs to this fleeting life? Has a flying shadow an appreciable thickness, or will a million of them pressed together occupy a space in your empty, hungry heart?
And so, dear brethren! I come to you with a message which may sound gloomy, and beseech you to give heed to it. No matter how you may get on in the world-though you may fulfil every dream with which you began in your youth-you will certainly find that without Christ for your Brother and Saviour, God for your Friend, and heaven for your hope, life, with all its fulness, is empty. It lasts long, too long as it sometimes seems for work, too long for hope, too long for endurance; long enough to let love die, and joys wither and fade, and companions drop away, but without God and Christ, you will find it but ‘as a watch in the night.’ At no moment through the long weary years will it satisfy your whole being; and when the weary years are all past, they will seem to have been but as one troubled moment breaking the eternal silence. At every point so profitless, and all the points making so thin and short a line! The crested waves seem heaped together as they recede from the eye till they reach the horizon, where miles of storm are seen but as a line of spray. So when a man looks back upon his life, if it have been a godless one, be sure of this, that he will have a dark and cheerless retrospect over a tossing waste, with a white rim of wandering barren foam vexed by tempest, and then, if not before, he will sadly learn how he has been living amidst shadows, and, with a nature that needs God, has wasted himself upon the world. ‘O life! as futile then as frail’; ‘surely,’ in such a case, ‘every man walketh in a vain show.’
III. But note, finally, how our other text in its significant words gives us the blessedness which springs from this same thought of life, when it is looked at in connection with God.
The mere conviction of the brevity and hollowness of life is not in itself a religious or a helpful thought. Its power depends upon the other ideas which are associated with it. It is susceptible of the most opposite applications, and may tend to impel conduct in exactly opposite directions. It may be the language of despair or of bright hope. It may be the bitter creed of a worn-out debauchee, who has wasted his life in hunting shadows, and is left with a cynical spirit and a barbed tongue. It may be the passionless belief of a retired student, or the fanatical faith of a religious ascetic. It may be an argument for sensuous excess, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’; or it may be the stimulus for noble and holy living, ‘I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh.’ The other accompanying beliefs determine whether it shall be a blight or a blessing to a man.
And the one addition which is needed to incline the whole weight of that conviction to the better side, and to light up all its blackness, is that little phrase in this text, ‘I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner.’ There seems to be an allusion here to remarkable words connected with the singular Jewish institution of the Jubilee. You remember that by the Mosaic law, there was no absolute sale of land in Israel, but that every half century the whole returned to the descendants of the original occupiers. Important economical and social purposes were contemplated in this arrangement, as well as the preservation of the relative position of the tribes as settled at the Conquest. But the law itself assigns a purely religious purpose-the preservation of the distinct consciousness of the tenure on which the people held their territory, namely, obedience to and dependence on God. ‘The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me.’ Of course, there was a special sense in which that was true with regard to Israel, but David thought that the words were as true in regard to his whole relation to God, as in regard to Israel’s possession of its national inheritance.
If we grasp these words as completing all that we have already said, how different this transient and unsubstantial life looks! You must have the light from both sides to stereoscope and make solid the flat surface picture. Transient! yes-but it is passed in the presence of God. Whether we know it or no, our brief days hang upon Him, and we walk, all of us, in the light of His countenance. That makes the transient eternal, the shadowy substantial, the trivial heavy with solemn meaning and awful yet vast possibilities. ‘In our embers is something that doth live.’ If we had said all, when we say ‘We are as a shadow,’ it would matter very little, though even then it would matter something, how we spent our shadowy days; but if these poor brief hours are spent ‘in the great Taskmaster’s eye,’-if the shadow cast on earth proclaims a light in the heavens-if from this point there hangs an unending chain of conscious being-Oh! then, with what awful solemnity is the brevity, with what tremendous magnitude is the minuteness, of our earthly days invested! ‘With Thee’-then I am constantly in the presence of a sovereign Law and its Giver; ‘with Thee’-then all my actions are registered and weighed yonder; ‘with Thee’-then ‘Thou, God, seest me.’ Brethren! it is the prismatic halo and ring of eternity round this poor glass of time that gives it all its dignity, all its meaning. The lives that are lived before God cannot be trifles.
And if this relation to time be recognised and accepted and held fast by our hearts and minds, then what calm blessedness will flow into our souls!
‘A stranger with Thee,’-then we are the guests of the King. The Lord of the land charges Himself with our protection and provision; we journey under His safe conduct. It is for His honour and faithfulness that no harm shall come to us travelling in His territory, and relying on His word. Like Abraham with the sons of Heth, we may claim the protection and help which a stranger needs. He recognises the bond and will fulfil it. We have eaten of His salt, and He will answer for our safety.-’He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine eye.’
‘A stranger with Thee,’-then we have a constant Companion and an abiding Presence. We may be solitary and necessarily remote from the polity of the land. We may feel amid all the visible things of earth as if foreigners. We may not have a foot of soil, not even a grave for our dead. Companionships may dissolve and warm hands grow cold and their close clasp relax-what then? He is with us still. He will join us as we journey, even when our hearts are sore with loss. He will walk with us by the way, and make our chill hearts glow. He will sit with us at the table-however humble the meal, and He will not leave us when we discern Him. Strangers we are indeed here-but not solitary, for we are ‘strangers with Thee.’ As in some ancestral home in which a family has lived for centuries-son after father has rested in its great chambers, and been safe behind its strong walls-so, age after age, they who love Him abide in God.-’Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.’
‘Strangers with Thee,’-then we may carry our thoughts forward to the time when we shall go to our true home, nor wander any longer in a land that is not ours. If even here we come into such blessed relationships with God, that fact is in itself a prophecy of a more perfect communion and a heavenly house. They who are strangers with Him will one day be ‘at home with the Lord,’ and in the light of that blessed hope the transiency of this life changes its whole aspect, loses the last trace of sadness, and becomes a solemn joy. Why should we be pensive and wistful when we think how near our end is? Is the sentry sad as the hour for relieving guard comes nigh? Is the wanderer in far-off lands sad when he turns his face homewards? And why should not we rejoice at the thought that we, strangers and foreigners here, shall soon depart to the true metropolis, the mother-country of our souls? I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this ‘bank and shoal of time’ upon which he stands-even though the tide has all but reached his feet-if he knows that God’s strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the moment when the sand dissolves from under him, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him high above the floods in that stable land where there is ‘no more sea.’
Lives rooted in God through faith in Jesus Christ are not vanity. Let us lay hold of Him with a loving grasp-and ‘we shall live also’ because He lives, as He lives, so long as He lives. The brief days of earth will be blessed while they last, and fruitful of what shall never pass. We shall have Him with us while we journey, and all our journeyings will lead to rest in Him. True, men walk in a vain show; true, ‘the world passeth away and the lust thereof,’ but, blessed be God! true, also, ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 This is a Ps. of great pathos and beauty.…
This is a Ps. of great pathos and beauty. The writer's sore sickness, accepted as the punishment of sin (Psa_39:9-11), has impressed him with the frailty and vanity of human life. He refrains at first from all complaint lest his words should be sinful and harmful (Psa_39:1-2). When he does speak it is to utter without bitterness his conviction of life's brevity and nothingness (Psa_39:3-6). He concludes with a humble prayer that though he is but a pilgrim on earth God may grant him pardon and recovery before he passes from the world (Psa_39:7-13).
Title.—(RV) 'For the Chief Musician, for Jeduthun,' etc. Jeduthun was one of the directors of sacred music in David's time (1Ch_16:41; 1Ch_25:1). If the Ps. be of later origin the phrase in the title may mean 'after the manner of Jeduthun,' as in Psalms 62, 77.
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1. While the wicked is before me] The visible prosperity of the wicked afforded the temptation to complain.
2. Even from good] RM 'and had no comfort.'
3. Complete silence proved impossible. Pent-up feeling found a safe relief in prayer.
5. Vanity] or, 'a breath' (Heb.).
6. In a vain shew] RM 'as a shadow,' like a phantom in a dream: the eager efforts of life are contrasted with the emptiness of their results.
7. What wait I for?] If life ends in vanity what is there to hope for? The answer is 'God,' and the meaning is not so much that God will be the soul's portion in the future life, as that God's presence here redeems life from its nothingness.
8. The foolish] those who have mocked at his troubles.
9. The characteristic tone of the whole Ps. is in these words. The writer accepts with reverent resignation all the facts and experiences of life.
11. This is another v. summing up the philosophy of the Ps. Makest his beauty, etc.] RM 'consumest like a moth his delights': see Isa_50:7; Mat_6:19.
12. Stranger.. sojourner] The fact that life is transient becomes here a plea for favour.
13. Spare me] lit. 'look away from me,' 'avert thy frown.' Recover strength] lit. 'brighten up.' The day of life may be short, but the Psalmist seeks for sunshine while it lasts.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 1 Jeduthun
1 Jeduthun
Jeduthun, a Levite, chief singer and instructor. See 1Ch 9:16; 1Ch 16:38; 1Ch 16:41; 1Ch 16:42; 1Ch 25:1; 1Ch 25:3; 1Ch 25:6; 2Ch 5:12; 2Ch 35:15; Neh 11:17. He is mentioned in Psalms 39, 62, 77. Jeduthun was first called Ethan.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalm 39
Psalm 39
Deep Soul Exercise in View of Man’s Frailty and Nothingness
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1. The vanity of life (Psa 39:1-6)
2. Self-judgment and prayer (Psa 39:7-13)
This Psalm is connected closely with the preceding one and shows deep soul exercises. In the midst of trial, with God’s hand resting upon the sufferer, he had been silent before his enemies. Before the Lord he did not maintain silence but pours out his heart, confessing the vanity of his fleeting life which appears to him as a hand-breadth and altogether vanity. Beautiful is Psa 39:7. “And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee.” All else the saint waits for in this little life down here is vanity except the Lord. These two Psalms have also their special application to the suffering remnant, who learn the vanity of all things and wait for the Lord only.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Believer’s Attitude in View of the Apparent Happiness…
The Believer’s Attitude in View of the Apparent Happiness of the Godless.
To the chief musician, even to Jeduthun, or Ethan, the name of one of David’s chief choristers, who was the leader of a family or choir of singers, active chiefly in the liturgical part of worship, a psalm of David.
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v. 1. I said, I will take heed to my ways, to his entire manner of thinking and acting, that I sin not with my tongue, namely, by murmuring and complaining over his own misfortune as compared with the good fortune of the wicked; I will keep my mouth with a bridle, a muzzle, to prevent his lamenting, while the wicked is before me, in his presence, while he was compelled to see the godless prosper in the fullness of his power, in apparent enjoyment of everything that was good.
v. 2. I was dumb with silence, in trusting submission, I held my peace, even from good, away from prosperity, he shut his heart and mind off from everything and communed with God alone; and my sorrow was stirred, his fretting finally constrained him to cry out to the Lord.
v. 3. My heart was hot within me, his emotions like a smothered flame, seeking for an outlet; while I was musing, the fire burned, bursting through all repression. Then spake I with my tongue, directing his complaint to the Lord.
v. 4. Lord, make me to know mine end, give him the proper understanding of the vanity of this earthly life and the quickness with which it is cut off, and the measure of my days, what it is, that this measure may soon be filled up; that I may know how frail I am, a mortal being in the midst of perishable things. This thought is intended to stress, not so much the shortness of human life, as its utter vanity and therefore the folly of concerning one’s self with the matters of this world to the exclusion of the one thing needful, the laying hold of God in faith and trust.
v. 5. Behold, Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, a mere span of life being assigned to each mortal; and mine age is as nothing before Thee, before the face of the eternal God. Verily, every man at his best state, even when he seems to be most firmly established, is altogether vanity, transitory and perishable. Selah.
v. 6. Surely every man walketh in a vain show, an unsubstantial shadow like the image of himself cast on the ground by the light; surely they are disquieted in vain, only for a breath they make a noise, all their restless and noisy bustle with which they fret and stir themselves and elbow and jostle one another to obtain wealth and rank, is like a single breath; he heapeth up riches, that being the average person’s chief concern in life, and knoweth not who shall gather them, dishonest adversaries or laughing heirs enjoying the fruit of his toil. With such contemplations the believer hushes the voice of his lamenting and extinguishes the fire of his murmuring.
v. 7. And now, Lord, what wait I for? Turning away with relief from the contemplation of earthly vanity, the believer lets his eyes rest upon the Lord. My hope is in Thee, all his trust grounded in Jehovah alone, in whom he has the fullness of all true joys.
v. 8. Deliver me from all my transgressions, which, as he knew, furnished abundant reasons for his own sufferings; make me not the reproach of the foolish, a target for the scorn of fools, whose mockery would, at the same time, bring disgrace upon the Lord.
v. 9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, with reproachful lamenting directed against Jehovah, because Thou didst it, a confession with which he bows under the almighty hand of God.
v. 10. Remove Thy stroke away from me, which seemed like a blow by the hand of divine anger; I am consumed by the blow of Thine hand, as the Lord set Himself in battle against him, knowing that he was doomed to destruction if the Lord should continue His course of chastisement.
v. 11. When Thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, sending forth His punishment upon the guilty, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth; for just as garments disappear under the attack of moths, so the handsome appearance of man melts away under the stroke of divine chastisement. Surely every man is vanity, a mere breath, which disappears in a moment. Selah.
v. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord, his appeal for relief being addressed to the mercy of Jehovah, and give ear unto my cry, in a gracious, compassionate answer; hold not Thy peace at my tears, which flowed with the depth of his suffering; for I am a stranger with Thee, a mere guest in this world, and a sojourner, like a person who is not a citizen of a country, but lives there merely by concession, as all my fathers were. Just as the patriarchs did not hold citizenship in the country where they dwelled, so all believers do not consider this earth their true home, their citizenship being in heaven, Php 3:20.
v. 13. O spare me, turning from him the look of His angry face, that I may recover strength, being cheered in the midst of his troubles, before I go hence and be no more. Instead of being bound under wrath and chastened under displeasure, David longs for the face of God turned upon him in mercy, in order that he may give thanks and praise Him all his life. And so every believer, although oppressed with sin and sorrow, the anger of God and suffering, still turns to the heavenly Father in firm confidence, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, Rom 5:3-5.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship,"
Jeduthun
One of David's chief musicians had this same name. This may refer to him. (See: How to Translate Names)
A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
I will watch what I say
Here "watch" is an idiom that mean "pay attention to." AT: "I will pay attention to the things that I say" (See: Idiom)
so that I do not sin with my tongue
Here "tongue" refers to the writer's speech. AT: "so that I do not speak an offense against Yahweh" (See: Metonymy)
muzzle
To "muzzle" means to keep a mouth shut. Here David means that he will not speak while he is with an evil person. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
psalm
David
sin
tongue
evil
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 Ps 39 This prayer for rescue reflects the psalmist’s…
Ps 39 This prayer for rescue reflects the psalmist’s discouragement, which comes from having a limited perspective on his situation.
39:title Jeduthun was a levitical singer appointed by David along with Asaph (1 Chr 9:16; 16:38; 25:1).
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39:1-3 Suffering in silence only intensifies the psalmist’s anguish, pain, and inner turmoil.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.