“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.
Parallel Translations
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“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.
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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.
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(39-13) Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; keep not silence at my tears; for I am a stranger with Thee, a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to Psalms 39:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
- Leviticus 25:23 “ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
- 2 Kings 20:5 “Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, ‘Yahweh, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you will go up to Yahweh’s house.
- Genesis 47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
- Psalms 116:3 The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.
- Psalms 119:19 I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
- 1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
- Psalms 56:8 You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?
- Hebrews 5:7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
- 1 Peter 1:17 If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your living as foreigners here in reverent fear,
- 2 Samuel 16:12 It may be that Yahweh will look on the wrong done to me, and that Yahweh will repay me good for the cursing of me today.”
- Job 16:20 My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
- Psalms 102:1 Hear my prayer, Yahweh! Let my cry come to you.
- 2 Corinthians 5:6 Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;
- Psalms 119:54 Your statutes have been my songs in the house where I live.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 12 Hear my prayer, O Jehovah! David gradually increases…
12 Hear my prayer, O Jehovah! David gradually increases his vehemence in prayer. He speaks first of prayer; in the second place, of crying; and in the third place, of tears This gradation is not a mere figure of rhetoric, which serves only to adorn the style, or to express the same thing in different language. This shows that David bewailed his condition sincerely, and from the bottom of his heart; and in this he has given us, by his own example, a rule for prayer. When he calls himself a stranger and a sojourner, he again shows how miserable his condition was; and he adds expressly, before God, not only because men are absent from God so long as they dwell in this world, but in the same sense in which he formerly said, My days are before thee as nothing; that is to say, God, without standing in need of any one to inform him, knows well enough that men have only a short journey to perform in this world, the end of which is soon reached, or that they remain only a short time in it, as those who are lodged in a house for pay. The purport of the Psalmist’s discourse is, that God sees from heaven how miserable our condition would be, if he did not sustain us by his mercy.
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.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give…
Psa 39:12 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].
Ver. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear, &c.] My prayer, my cry, my tears. See how his ardency in prayer grew by degrees, and so availed much, Jas 5:16. We must rise in our requests, pray, cry, weep, ask, seek, knock, let the Lord see that we are in good earnest; and then we may have anything. Tears have a voice, and are very effectual orators.
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For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner] And in that respect subject to many miseries and molestations, Satanical and secular, till I shall repatriasse, get home (as Bernard expresseth it); and this was the condition of all my godly predecessors, who yet found favour with thee, and so I hope shall I.
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 At my tears, joined with my prayers, Heb 5:7.
At my tears, joined with my prayers, Heb 5:7.
I am a stranger: though I be not only a native, but either anointed or actually king of this land; yet in truth I am but a stranger, both in regard of my very uncertain and short continuance here, where I am only in my journey or passage to my real and long home, which is in the other world; and in respect of the many wants, and hardships, and contempts, and injuries to which I am exposed, as men usually are in strange lands. And therefore I greatly need and desire thy pity and help, O thou who art the patron of strangers, whom thou hast commended to our care and kindness, Exo 12:48; Lev 19:33; 25:35, &c. With thee; either,
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1. In thy sight or judgment, and therefore truly. We are apt to flatter ourselves, and can hardly believe that we are but strangers here, where we seem to have settled habitations; and possessions, but thou knowest the truth of the business, that we are really such. Or,
2. In thy land or territory, in which I sojourn only by thy leave and favour, and during thy pleasure, as this whole phrase is used, Lev 25:23, whence these words are taken, as also Lev 25:35 36,39,40,45,47, where that branch of it, with thee, is so meant. And withal this phrase, both here and Lev 25:23, may have a further emphasis in it, implying that every Israelite, and particularly David himself, in respect of men, were the proprietors or owners of their portions, of which no other man might deprive or dispossess them, and therefore David’s enemies had done wrongfully in banishing him from his and from the Lord’s inheritance; but yet in respect of God they were but strangers, and God was the only Proprietor of it.
As all my fathers were; both in thy judgment, expressed Lev 25:23, and in their own opinion, Heb 11:13, &c. upon which account thou didst take a special care of them, and therefore do so to me also.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Hear my prayer, O Lord,.... Which was, that he…
Hear my prayer, O Lord,.... Which was, that he would remove the affliction from him that lay so hard and heavy upon him;
and give ear unto my cry; which shows the distress he was in, and the vehemency with which he put up his petition to the Lord;
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hold not thy peace at my tears; which were shed in great plenty, through the violence of the affliction, and in his fervent prayers to God; see Heb 5:7;
for I am a stranger with thee; not to God, to Christ, to the Spirit, to the saints, to himself, and the plague of his own heart, or to the devices of Satan; but in the world, and to the men of it; being unknown to them, and behaving as a stranger among them; all which was known to God, and may be the meaning of the phrase "with thee"; or reference may be had to the land of Canaan, in which David dwelt, and which was the Lord's, and in which the Israelites dwelt as strangers and sojourners with him, Lev 25:23; as it follows here;
and a sojourner, as all my fathers were; meaning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their posterity; see Gen 23:4; as are all the people of God in this world: this is not their native place; they belong to another and better country; their citizenship is in heaven; their Father's house is there, and there is their inheritance, which they have a right unto, and a meetness for: they have no settlement here; nor is their rest and satisfaction in the things of this world: they reckon themselves, while here, as not at home, but in a foreign land; and this the psalmist mentions, to engage the Lord to regard his prayers, since he has so often expressed a concern for the strangers and sojourners in the land of Israel.
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 A stranger - I am only in my journey…
A stranger - I am only in my journey or passage to my real home, which is in the other world.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 12. Hear my prayer] Therefore, O Lord, show…
Verse 12. Hear my prayer] Therefore, O Lord, show that mercy upon me which I so much need, and without which I must perish everlastingly.
I am a stranger with thee] I have not made this earth my home; I have not trusted in any arm but thine. Though I have sinned, I have never denied thee, and never cast thy words behind my back. I knew that here I had no continuing city. Like my fathers, I looked for a city that has permanent foundations, in a better state of being.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 39:12. Hold not thy peace at my tears…
Psa 39:12. Hold not thy peace at my tears — Joined with my prayers. For I am a stranger, &c. — Though I be not only a native, but actually king of this land, yet, in truth, I am but a stranger and sojourner, both in regard of my very uncertain and short continuance here, where I am only on my journey to my real and long home; and in respect of the many wants, hardships, contempts, and injuries to which I am exposed, as men usually are in strange lands. And, therefore, I greatly need and desire thy pity and help. With thee — Either, 1st, In thy sight or judgment, and therefore in reality. We are apt to flatter ourselves that we are settled inhabitants, and can hardly believe we are but strangers on earth, but thou knowest the truth of the matter, that we really are such. Or, 2d, In thy land, or territory, who art the only proprietor of it, in which I only sojourn by thy leave and favour, and during thy pleasure, as is expressed Lev 25:23, whence these words are taken. As all my fathers were — Both in thy judgment and in their own, Heb 11:13, upon which account thou didst take special care of them, and, therefore, take care also of me.
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 Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto…
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry - That is, in view of my affliction and my sins; in view, also, of the perplexing questions which have agitated my bosom; the troublous thoughts which passed through my soul, which I did not dare to express before man Psa 39:1-2, but which I have now expressed before thee.
Hold not thy peace - Be not silent. Do not refuse to answer me; to speak peace to me.
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At my tears - Or rather, at my weeping; as if God heard the voice of his weeping. Weeping, if uncomplaining, 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. Compare the notes at Job 16:20. See also Rom 8:26,
For I am a stranger - The word used - גר gêr - means properly a sojourner; a foreigner; a man living out of his own country: Gen 15:13; Exo 2:22. It refers to a man who has no permanent home in the place or country where he now is; and it is used here as implying that, in the estimation of the psalmist himself, he had no permanent abode on earth. He was in a strange or foreign land. He was passing to a permanent home; and he prays that God would be merciful to him as to a man who has no home - no permanent abiding place - on earth. Compare the notes at Heb 11:13; notes at 1Pe 2:11.
And a sojourner - This word has substantially the same signification. It denotes one living in another country, without the rights of a citizen.
As all my fathers were - All my ancestors. The allusion is doubtless derived from the fact that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob thus lived as men who had no permanent home here - who had no possession of soil in the countries where they sojourned - and whose whole life, therefore, was an illustration of the fact that they were “on a journey” - a journey to another world. 1Ch 29:15 - “for we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” Compare the notes at Heb 11:13-15.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Consonant with the tenor of the Psalm, he prays…
Consonant with the tenor of the Psalm, he prays for God's compassionate regard to him as a stranger here; and that, as such was the condition of his fathers, so, like them, he may be cheered instead of being bound under wrath and chastened in displeasure.
Next: Psalms Chapter 40
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 12, 13. The concluding verses are a prayer for…
12, 13. The concluding verses are a prayer for restoration, urged by the shortness and frailty of life.
Prayer… cry… tears— “Prayer,” here, must be understood of prostrate pleading; “cry,” or outcry, as lamentable wailing; and “tears” alone could climax the earnestness of his devotions. “When the gates of prayer seem to be closed, the gates of tears still remain unclosed.”—Delitzsch.
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Stranger… sojourner—A glance at the primitive nomadic life of his ancestors, Gen_23:4; Gen_47:9; compare Heb_11:9; Heb_11:13. A “stranger” is a traveller, one passing through a country with no fixed abode; a “sojourner” is one dwelling in a country for a time, and holding property by legal sufferance, but not a citizen: both transient.
Oh spare me—Literally, look away from me; that is, turn away thy threatening look and avenging hand.
That I may recover strength— Hebrew, and 1 will be joyful. Bishop Alexander reads: “That I may smile again.”
Before I go hence—The verb simply means to depart, but is sometimes used to signify departing by death, dying, as Gen_15:2, “I go childless,” I die, or depart, childless.
And be no more—Literally, and am not; exist no longer with living men upon earth, death being represented as it affects our relation to earthly life. On this verse see Job_7:8; Job_7:19-21; Job_10:20-21; Job_14:6; to which the metaphors and sentiments correspond. The phrase “I go,” or, depart, is grounded in the belief that the “I,” or ego, is different from and independent of the body.
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 12. hold not thy peace] Restoration to health will…
12. hold not thy peace] Restoration to health will be an answer. But the word may be rendered, as in R.V. of Psa_28:1, be not deaf. So Jerome, ne obsurdescas.
It is a Rabbinic saying that there are three kinds of supplication, each superior to the other; prayer, crying, and tears. Prayer is made in silence, crying with a loud voice, but tears surpass all. “There is no door, through which tears do not pass,” and, “The gates of tears are never locked.” Cp. Heb_5:7.
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a stranger with thee, and a sojourner] Omit and. ‘Stranger’ and ‘sojourner’ were the technical terms for aliens residing in a country to which they did not belong, and where they had no natural rights of citizenship (Gen_23:4). The words suggest the idea of a temporary residence, dependent on the good-will of the actual owners. The Israelites were taught to regard themselves as ‘strangers and sojourners’ in the land of Canaan, which belonged to Jehovah (Lev_25:23): and here the idea is extended to man in general. The earth is God’s, and man is His tenant upon it (Psa_119:19). This being so, the Psalmist appeals for a hearing on the ground that he is but a temporary resident on the earth (Gen_47:9), God’s guest for a while only in the upper world, where alone His Presence can be enjoyed. And further, as the strangers and sojourners among them were specially commended to the care of Israel (Exo_22:21; &c.), he would plead to be treated by God with a corresponding clemency.
The words are placed in David’s mouth by the Chronicler (1Ch_29:15), and applied by St Peter (1Pe_2:11) to the Christian’s position in the world, παρακαλῶ ὡς παροίκους καὶ παρεπιδήμους, the words used in the LXX here. Cp. Heb_11:13.
as all my fathers] Cp. Elijah’s words, 1Ki_19:4.
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 (12) For I am a stranger.—A reminiscence of Gen_23:4,…
(12) For I am a stranger.—A reminiscence of Gen_23:4, and adopted 1Pe_2:11 from the LXX. (See New Testament Commentary, and comp. Heb_11:13.) The psalmist, like the Apostle, applies Abraham’s words metaphorically to this earthly pilgrim age (comp. 1Ch_29:15), and pathetically asks why, when the tenure of life is so uncertain, God looks angrily on him? (For the passionate appeal for a respite, comp. Job_10:20-21, and for the Hebrew conception of the under world, Psa_6:5, Note.)
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 Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto…
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears. Tears appeal to the Divine pity in an especial way. "Weep not!" said our Lord to the widow woman at Nain; and to Mary Magdalene, "Why weepest thou?" He himself offered up his supplications with strong crying and tears"; (Heb_5:7) and so his faithful servants. (Job_16:20 Psa_6:6 Psa_38:3 Psa_42:3 Psa_56:8 Isa_16:9 Jer_15:17 Lam_2:11 Luk_7:38 Act_20:19) Hezekiah"s tears especially moved God to pity him. (2Ki_20:5) For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner. "Here we have no continuing city", (Heb_13:14) but are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth". (Heb_11:13) Hence, being so weak and dependent, we may the more confidently claim God"s pity. As all my fathers were. (comp. Lev_25:23, "The land is mine; ye are strangers and sojourners with me
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 Ver. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Drown not…
Ver. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Drown not my pleadings with the sound of thy strokes. Thou hast heard the clamour of my sins, Lord; hear the laments of my prayers. And give ear unto my cry. Here is an advance in intensity: a cry is more vehement, pathetic, and impassioned, than a prayer. The main thing was to have the Lord's ear and heart. Hold not thy peace at my tears. This is a yet higher degree of importunate pleading. Who can withstand tears, which are the irresistible weapons of weakness? How often women, children, beggars, and sinners, have betaken themselves to tears as their last resort, and therewith have won the desire of their hearts! "This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul, "falls not in vain. Tears speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues; they act as keys upon the wards of tender hearts, and mercy denies them nothing, if through them the weeper looks to richer drops, even to the blood of Jesus. When our sorrows pull up the sluices of our eyes, God will ere long interpose and turn our mourning into joy. Long may he be quiet as though he regarded not, but the hour of deliverance will come, and come like the morning when the dewdrops are plentiful. For I am a stranger with thee. Not to thee, but with thee. Like thee, my Lord, a stranger among the sons of men, an alien from my mother's children. God made the world, sustains it, and owns it, and yet men treat him as though he were a foreign intruder; and as they treat the Master, so do they deal with the servants. "It is no surprising thing that we should be unknown." These words may also mean, "I share the hospitality of God, "like a stranger entertained by a generous host. Israel was bidden to deal tenderly with the stranger, and the God of Israel has in much compassion treated us poor aliens with unbounded liberality. And a sojourner, as all my fathers were. They knew that this was not their rest; they passed through life in pilgrim guise, they used the world as travellers use an inn, and even so do I. Why should we dream of rest on earth when our fathers' sepulchres are before our eyes? If they had been immortal, their sons would have had an abiding city this side the tomb; but as the sires were mortal, so must their offspring pass away. All of our lineage, without exception, were passing pilgrims, and such are we. David uses the fleeting nature of our life as an argument for the Lord's mercy, and it is such a one as God will regard. We show pity to poor pilgrims, and so will the Lord.
Ver. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord, etc. Now, in this prayer of David, we find three things, which are the chief qualifications of all acceptable prayers. The first is humility. He humbly confesses his sins, and his own weakness and worthlessness. We are not to put on a stoical, flinty kind of spirit under our affliction, that so we may seem to shun womanish repinings and complaints, lest we run into the other evil, of despising the hand of God, but we are to humble our proud hearts, and break our unruly passions...The second qualification of this prayer is, fervency and importunity, which appears in the elegant gradation of the words, Hear my prayer, my words; if not that, yet, Give ear to my cry, which is louder; and if that prevail not, yet, Hold not thy peace at my tears, which is the loudest of all; so David, elsewhere, calls it the voice of weeping....The third qualification is faith. "He who comes to God must believe that he is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Heb 11:6. And, certainly, as he that comes to God must believe this, so he that believes this, cannot but come to God; and if he be not presently answered, "he that believes makes no haste, "he resolves patiently to wait for the Lord, and go to no other. Condensed from Robert Leighton.
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Ver. 12. Hold not thy peace at my tears. We may, in all humility, plead our heart breakings and weepings in sense of want of mercies which we crave, and our pantings and faintings after the same. Thomas Cobbett.
Ver. 12. For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Both in thy judgment expressed Le 25:23, and in their own opinion Heb 11:13. Upon which account thou didst take a special care of them, and therefore do so to me also. Matthew Poole.
Ver. 12. I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner. How settled soever their condition be, yet this is the temper of the saints upon earthto count themselves but strangers. All men indeed are strangers and sojourners, but the saints do best discern it, and most freely acknowledge it. Wicked men have no firm dwelling upon earth, but that is against their intentions; their inward thought and desire is that they may abide for ever; they are strangers against their wills, their abode is uncertain in the world, and they cannot help it. And pray mark, there are two distinct words used in this case, strangers and sojourners. A stranger is one that hath his abode in a foreign country, that is not a native and a denizen of the place, though he liveth there, and in opposition to the natives he is called a stranger: as if a Frenchman should live in England, he is a stranger. But a sojourner is one that intends not to settle, but only passes through a place, and is in motion travelling homeward. So the children of God in relation to a country of their own in another place, namely, heaven, they are denizens there, but strangers in the world; and they are sojourners and pilgrims in regard of their motion and journey towards their country. Thomas Manton.
Ver. 12. A Stranger. 1. A stranger is one that is absent from his country, and from his father's house: so are we, heaven is our country, God is there, and Christ is there. 2. A stranger in a foreign country is not known, nor valued according to his birth and breeding: so the saints walk up and down in the world like princes in disguise. 3. Strangers are liable to inconveniences: so are godly men in the world. Religion, saith Tertullian, is like a strange plant brought from a foreign country, and doth not agree with the nature of the soil, it thrives not in the world. 4. A stranger is patient, standeth not for ill usage, and is contented with pilgrim's fare and lodging. We are now abroad and must expect hardship. 5. A stranger is wary, that he may not give offence, and incur the hatred and displeasure of the natives. 6. A stranger is thankful for the least favour; so we must be thankfully contented with the things God hath bestowed upon us: anything in a strange country is much. 7. A stranger, that hath a journey to go, would pass over it as soon as he can, and so we, who have a journey to heaven desire to be dissolved.
8. A stranger buyeth not such things as he cannot carry with him; he doth not buy trees, house, household stuff, but jewels and pearls, and such things as are portable. Our greatest care should be to get the jewels of the covenant, the graces of God's Spirit, those things that will abide with us. 9. A stranger's heart is in his country; so is a saint's. 10. A stranger is inquisitive after the way, fearing lest he should go amiss, so is a Christian. 11. A stranger provides for his return, as a merchant, that he may return richly laden. So we must appear before God in Sion. What manner of persons ought we to be? Let us return from our travel well provided. Condensed from Thomas Manton.
Ver. 12. David pleads the good impressions made upon him by his affliction.
1. It had set him a weeping.
2. It had set him a praying.
3. It had helped to wean him from the world.
Matthew Henry.
Ver. 12. (last clause). Am I a stranger and a sojourner with God? Let me realise, let me exemplify the condition.
1. Let me look for the treatment such characters commonly meet with.
2. And surely if any of my own nation be near me, I shall be intimate with them.
3. Let me not be entangled in the affairs of this life.
4. Let my affection be set on things that are above, and my conversation be always in heaven.
5. Let me be not impatient for home; but prizing it.
W. Jay.
Psalms 39:13*
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 Hold not Thy peace at my tears.
Psa_39:12
Hold not Thy peace at my tears.
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Earthly tears and heavenly songs
This is a beautiful world, but there are tears in it. All eyes have them, and they fall fast and often. Their causes are varied.
1. Gods rebukes for sins. Therefore repent.
2. The reign of temptation. Seek Gods strength.
3. The difficulties in our work for Christ.
4. The condition of society.:But the worst may be reclaimed Blessed is it to make the endeavour.
5. Bereavement. In the Royal Academy there was a small but pathetic picture. It is a coastguardsmans cottage. His beloved wife is dead. There is the table spread for his meal; the young daughter in a black dress is cutting a loaf of bread; his little boy--boy like--is eating away at his dinner; the heart-broken man eats not, but stretches out his hand to touch a little child in a cradle beside him. Here is sorrow, hers is sadness. And there are thousands of such homes. But there are no tears in heaven. (G. W. McCree.)
I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.--
The Christian a stranger and sojourner
I. The psalmists experience includes a deep and habitual sense of the transitory and unsatisfying nature of all earthly things.
II. To be a stranger with god, and a sojourner, includes realizing anticipations of another and enduring world.
III. The psalmists experience comprehends an earnest and assiduous cultivation of all christian graces and virtues. The character of a stranger and a sojourner is made up of many bright lineaments of excellence, harmoniously blended as are rays of different hues in the solar orb. Certain features of his experience may, at first view, appear to be hardly consistent with others; as, for example, undaunted firmness with a meek and lowly spirit; the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove; inflexible opposition to all sin, with profound compassion towards all sinners.
IV. To be a stranger with God, and a sojourner, includes a faithful improvement of the ordinances of grace and the dispensations of providence. (J, Smyth, D. D.)
Believers considered as strangers and sojourners
I. Whence is it that good men consider themselves as strangers and sojourners on earth?
1. Every man is a stranger who is not a native of the place where he resides; but a sojourner is one who makes only a passing visit to the place, with a resolution to leave it again and proceed on his journey. This last is a distinguishing character of the saints (2Co_5:1-2). They are strangers in affection as well as condition; their hearts are elsewhere.
2. The saints justly count themselves strangers because they are regenerated, born from above, distant from their native country.
II. What manner of behaviour is most expressive of this temper, and best suited to the condition of strangers?
1. If we look on this earth as a strange country, through which we are only passing to our native home, it certainly ought to be our care that we receive as little hurt as possible in our passage. The greatest hurt the world can do us is to make us forget the place of our destination, and loiter in the way. Its smiles more to be dreaded than its frowns.
2. It is not enough that we receive no hurt; be careful to make all the provision we can for our better country (1Jn_3:3; 2Pe_1:11).
3. It becomes strangers to endure with patience and fortitude any hardships and inconveniences (2Co_4:8-9.)
4. If we view heaven as our everlasting abode, we ought to be solicitous to be thoroughly acquainted with the way (Psa_119:19; Psa_119:54; Psa_19:7-11).
5. If we consider ourselves as strangers, we ought to behave like those who belong to a better country. They who love their country will be jealous of its credit.
6. If we have turned our back on the world, let us help one another on in our way, and take as many as possible with us; do all we can to strengthen the weak, advise the doubtful, animate the discouraged. (R. Walker.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain 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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hear my prayer ... listen to me ... listen…
Hear my prayer ... listen to me ... listen to my weeping
These three phrases mean basically the same thing and show how strongly the writer wants God to respond to him. (See: Parallelism)
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Do not be deaf to me
The writer speaks of Yahweh's lack of response to him as if Yahweh was deaf. AT: "Do not ignore me as if you could not hear me" (See: Metaphor)
I am like a foreigner with you, a refugee
The writer speaks of Yahweh's lack of response as if Yahweh considered him to be a total stranger to him. AT: "I am like a complete stranger to you" (See: Simile)
Turn your gaze from me
Here "your gaze" represents Yahweh's punishment. AT: "Please stop punishing me" (See: Metonymy)
so that I may smile again
Here "smile" is associated with being happy. AT: "so that I can be happy again" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
pray
alien
die
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 39:12 A guest (or foreigner) had no rights of…
39:12 A guest (or foreigner) had no rights of land ownership (see Lev 25:23). The patriarchs had lived as guests in Canaan (Ps 105:23).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.