Psalms 39 WEB
Summary: A meditation on mortality and restrained speech, Psalm 39 opens with the psalmist resolving to guard his tongue in the presence of the wicked, a silence that becomes unbearable until he finally speaks (v. 1-3). His plea is strikingly existential: "let me know my end... let me know how fleeting my life is" (v. 4), comparing a lifetime to "a few handbreadths" (v. 5). It closes asking God to look away so he might "smile again, before I depart and am no more" (v. 13), one of the Psalter's starkest confrontations with human transience.
1I 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.”
2I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.
3My heart was hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned. I spoke with my tongue:
4“Yahweh, show me my end, what is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am.
5Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.”
6“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
7Now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.
8Deliver me from all my transgressions. Don’t make me the reproach of the foolish.
9I was mute. I didn’t open my mouth, because you did it.
10Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
11When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.”
12“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.
13Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go away and exist no more.”
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