Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 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].
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.
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, , the words used in the LXX here. Cp. Heb 11:13.
as all my fathers ] Cp. Elijah’s words, 1Ki 19:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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.
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 – ger – 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 39:12
Hold not Thy peace at my tears.
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.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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,
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 Davids enemies had done wrongfully in banishing him from his and from the Lords 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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12, 13. Consonant with the tenorof the Psalm, he prays for God’s compassionate regard to him as astranger here; and that, as such was the condition of his fathers,so, like them, he may be cheered instead of being bound under wrathand chastened in displeasure.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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;
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, Le 25:23; as it follows here;
[and] a sojourner, as all my fathers [were]; meaning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their posterity; see Ge 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb.: 39:13-14) Finally, the poet renews the prayer for an alleviation of his sufferings, basing it upon the shortness of the earthly pilgrimage. The urgent is here fuller toned, being .
(Note: So Heidenheim and Baer, following Abulwald, Efodi, and Mose ha-Nakdan. The Masoretic observation , “only here with Kametzchateph ,” is found appended in codices. This Chatephkametz is euphonic, as in , Gen 2:23, and in many other instances that are obliterated in our editions, vid., Abulwald, , p. 198, where even = , Psa 89:45, is cited among these examples (Ges. 10, 2 rem.).)
Side by side with the language of prayer, tears even appear here as prayer that is intelligible to God; for when the gates of prayer seem to be closed, the gates of tears still remain unclosed ( ), B. Berachoth 32b. As a reason for his being heard, David appeals to the instability and finite character of this earthly life in language which we also hear from his own lips in 1Ch 29:15. is the stranger who travels about and sojourns as a guest in a country that is not his native land; is a sojourner, or one enjoying the protection of the laws, who, without possessing any hereditary title, has settled down there, and to whom a settlement is allotted by sufferance. The earth is God’s; that which may be said of the Holy Land (Lev 25:23) may be said of the whole earth; man has no right upon it, he only remains there so long as God permits him. glances back even to the patriarchs (Gen 47:9, cf. Psa 23:4). Israel is, it is true, at the present time in possession of a fixed dwelling-place, but only as the gift of his God, and for each individual it is only during his life, which is but a handbreadth long. May Jahve, then – so David prays – turn away His look of wrath from him, in order that he may shine forth, become cheerful or clear up, before he goes hence and it is too late. is imper. apoc. Hiph. for (in the signification of Kal), and ought, according to the form , properly to be ; it is, however, pointed just like the imper. Hiph. of in Isa 6:10, without any necessity for explaining it as meaning obline ( oculos tuos ) = connive (Abulwald), which would be an expression unworthy of God. It is on the contrary to be rendered: look away from me; on which compare Job 7:19; Job 14:6; on cf. ib. Job 10:20; Job 9:27; on , ib. Job 10:21; on , ib. Job 7:8, Job 7:21. The close of the Psalm, consequently, is re-echoed in many ways in the Book of Job The Book of Job is occupied with the same riddle as that with which this Psalm is occupied. But in the solution of it, it advances a step further. David does not know how to disassociate in his mind sin and suffering, and wrath and suffering. The Book of Job, on the contrary, thinks of suffering and love together; and in the truth that suffering also, even though it be unto death, must serve the highest interests of those who love God, it possesses a satisfactory solution.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
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. (78) 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.
(78) “ Comme des gens qui sont logez en une maison par emprunt.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 Abrahams 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.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
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.
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.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
4). Recognising the brevity of a man’s life on this earth, in comparison with God’s, he prays that he may be restored and given a little more time before his life is finally over so that he can make good use of it.
Psa 39:12
Hear my prayer, O YHWH,
And give ear to my cry,
Hold not your peace at my tears,
For I am a stranger with you,
A sojourner,
As all my fathers were.
Oh spare me, that I may recover strength,
Before I go hence, and am no more.
The idea behind these words is that the earth is God’s, and we enter into it but briefly, as though we were mere immigrants with only a short time to dwell on the earth, before finally going on our way from here and being no longer on it, God being the only One Who has permanence here.
This idea of being a sojourner is applied by Abraham to himself (Gen 23:4), by Moses to all Israel, considered as the feudal subjects and dependents of YHWH (Lev 25:23) and by David to himself and his contemporaries (1Ch 29:15). All saw themselves as just ‘passing through’.
Thus he prays for the restoration of his strength so that he might fulfil his days on earth, before he must finally depart from it. He wants to be able to make the best use of the time he has left. The Psalm gives no indication of what lies beyond (unlike, for example Psa 16:11; Psa 17:15; Psa 23:6), but it does exude a confidence and faith in God that is in line with those ideas. He simply rests his hope in God. Peter applies this idea of the ‘stranger and sojourner’ to the Christian as he goes through life towards his heavenly home (1Pe 2:11).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 39:12. For I am a stranger with thee, &c. More like a stranger, and sojourner in this country, than an inhabitant or lord of it; with thee, who in a particular manner art the proprietor of this land, which thou hast chosen to be thy peculiar inheritance. The land, says Moses, is thine; we are but strangers and sojourners with thee. Lev 25:23.
REFLECTIONS.1st, This psalm contains much matter for a mournful song, suited to soothe the sorrows which mortality is heir to, and reconcile our souls to the holy will of God.
David reflects upon the solemn purposes that he had formed, to watch over his words and ways; which was so needful when many eyes were upon him, waiting for his halting. He said within his heart, I will take heed to my ways, to walk circumspectly after the word and will of God. I will keep my mouth with a bridle from every murmuring expression under my trials, while the wicked is before me; who would take pleasure in seeing him provoked to speak unadvisedly with his lips. Note; (1.) We need much watchfulness and circumspection, in order to walk aright; a careless heart will make crooked ways. (2.) Nothing is more difficult to restrain than the tongue; and he is a perfect man who can always govern it.
2nd, The views of man’s vanity bid him look for a more enduring portion in God. And therefore,
1. He professes that on him all his hope is stayed; and that, as he could expect nothing beneath the sun as his happiness, neither would he be disquieted with the light and momentary troubles to which he might be exposed. Note; (1.) The less we expect on earth, the more will our eyes be turned to heaven. (2.) All else is a vain hope; they who hope in God shall never be ashamed.
2. He prays for pardon and deliverance. His sins were his great concern; he longs above all things to be delivered from their condemning guilt and their prevailing power, that he may enjoy true peace of conscience. Note; (1.) Our ceaseless prayer must be for pardoning mercy, till obtained. The sting of affliction is removed, when sin is forgiven. (2.) One stroke of disease makes strange alterations; the bloom of beauty fades, the sparkling eye is dim, the ruddy lip is livid; and languor, paleness, and decay, mar all the lovely form. What poor things then to be proud of, what precarious vanities! (3.) The prayer of faith, and the tears of penitence, will never be disregarded of God. (4.) When we consider ourselves as really strangers upon earth, who neither have nor seek our rest below, every trial that we meet will quicken our pace, and whet our longings after our house and home, a mansion in the skies.
3. With holy resignation he surrenders up himself to God; having begun to pray, his ruffled spirits are composed, and his soul returns to its rest again. Since God’s hand is in every affliction, and every chastisement most righteous, yea, less than our iniquity deserves, it ill becomes us to find fault, but rather continually to acknowledge that he doth all things well.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
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.
For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psalms
THE BITTERNESS AND BLESSEDNESS OF THE BREVITY OF LIFE
Psa 39:6
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.
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.
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.
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.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 39:12-13
12Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner like all my fathers.
13Turn Your gaze away from me, that I may smile again
Before I depart and am no more.
Psa 39:12-13 As is common in the Psalms, it closes with prayer requests.
1. Hear BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal imperative
2. Give ear BDB 24, KB 27, Hiphil imperative
3. Do not be silent BDB 361, KB 357, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense, cf. Psa 28:1; Psa 35:22; Psa 83:1; Psa 109:1
4. Turn Your gaze away BDB 1043, KB 1609, Hiphil imperative, see Job 7:17-19; Job 10:20-21; Job 14:6
5. That I may smile again BDB 114, KB 132, Hiphil cohortative, see Job 9:27; Job 10:20
Psa 39:12 The last two lines of this verse address the tension between
1. special covenant people
2. continuing sinners with fleeting lives (cf. 1Ch 29:15; Psa 119:19; Psa 119:54; Heb 11:13; 1Pe 2:11).
Remember this is the fog of the OT. The gospel of Jesus Christ will address many of these issues and questions about life, purpose, and eternity!
I am a stranger This word/concept bothers me. It seems to denote one who does not know God or is not known by God. But in context it refers to a visitor in a tent who stays one or two nights and departs. It is another example of figurative language used to describe and bemoan the transitoriness of human life.
Psa 39:13 In light of the holiness of YHWH, this life becomes distressed (cf. Job 14:6). The pull to be like YHWH (cf. Mat 5:48; Lev 19:2) is overwhelming. Only in Jesus can a peace come for us to be in the presence (i.e., gaze, i.e., associated with YHWH’s judgment, cf. Job 7:19; Job 14:6; Isa 22:4) of a holy God!
In light of this verse, Peter’s request in Luk 5:8 makes sense!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary, which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought-provoking, not definitive.
1. Why does the psalmist want to be silent in the presence of the wicked (Psa 39:1)?
2. Explain in your own words the implication of Psa 39:4.
3. What is a handbreadth?
4. Explain Psa 39:11 b. Why would YHWH take everything precious from one of His followers?
5. Does Psa 39:11 c imply that YHWH does not care about individual humans?
6. What does Psa 39:12, c and d, mean? Are we strangers to YHWH?
7. Explain in your own words the meaning or implication of Psa 39:13.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Psa 39:12
Psa 39:12
“Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, and give ear unto my cry;
Hold not thy peace at my tears:
For I am a stranger with thee,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.”
“Hold not thy peace at my tears” (Psa 39:12). God is ever concerned with human tears. Our Lord said to the widow of Nain, “Weep not”! and to Mary Magdalene, “Woman, why weepest thou? …. If a man can scarcely ignore a person’s tears, how much less can God? God numbers the tears of believers (Psalms 56); and the ultimate purpose of the Father is to ‘Wipe away all tears from human eyes’ (Isa 25:8; Rev 7:17; Rev 21:4).
“A sojourner, as all my fathers were” (Psa 39:12). Men are tempted to treat this world as a permanent residence, but it is not so.
“We are here today, and gone tomorrow;
Yes I know, that is so.”
– From Gilbert and Sullivan’s H. M. S. Pinafore.
The word “pilgrim” is often used as a synonym for “sojourner,” and it is extremely appropriate. A “pilgrim,” is literally, “one who crosses the field.” The word came from the period of the Crusades, when lonely persons attempting to make their way to the Holy Land, could often be seen “crossing the fields” of homesteaders; and, of course, they appeared briefly only once and then vanished forever. That is the way it is with all of us pilgrims and sojourners.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 39:12. This is another application to God for his mercy and guidance. Stranger with thee means David was here for a time only and would soon pass away. He wished to pass the few years of his life on this earth under the care of the Lord.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
hold: Psa 56:8, Psa 116:3, 2Sa 16:12, *marg. 2Ki 20:5, Job 16:20, Heb 5:7
for I am: Psa 119:19, Psa 119:54, Lev 25:23, 1Ch 29:15, 2Co 5:6, Heb 11:13, 1Pe 1:17, 1Pe 2:11
as all: Gen 47:9
Reciprocal: Gen 21:34 – General Gen 23:4 – stranger Gen 26:3 – Sojourn Gen 28:4 – which Exo 2:22 – for he said Exo 18:3 – Gershom Psa 6:6 – I water Psa 35:22 – keep Isa 38:5 – I have seen Mar 9:24 – with
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE PILGRIMS PRAYER
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. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
Psa 39:12-13
There are three points in the text calling for notice.
I. The spirit of the prayer.In this prayer we observe a mixture of
(a) Faith.The Psalmist believed that God is a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. And therefore he says, Hear my prayer, O Lord. He felt that he was not praying to a deaf idol, which has ears, but hears not. He felt, too, that he was not praying into the air, but to an unseen yet present God. Alas! too many have no faith in prayer. They do not really desire that for which they pray.
(b) Earnestness.Give ear unto my cry. We often complain that God does not hear our supplications. But whose is the fault? The fault is not Gods. The fault is our own. Ye have not, replies God, because ye ask not; or if you do ask, ye ask amiss. Ye ask without faith. Ye ask without earnestness. And therefore God heareth you not.
(c) Contrition.David knew that he was a sinnera miserable, gross sinnerand therefore he cried, Deliver me from my transgressions. Oh, that our prayers may be equally acceptable in Gods sight! Oh, that He may see faith, earnestness, and contrition, even with tears, marking our supplications! And then, through the Saviours intercession, we shall boldly make Davids form of prayer our own.
II. The occasion of the prayer.Some writers think the psalm was written during Absaloms rebellion, when David was compelled to flee from Jerusalem and to go over Jordan as an outcast and a wanderer. He thereupon cried unto God for deliverance, and said, I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. But, whatever was the occasion of the psalm, the mind of David seems to have been greatly discomposed when he wrote it; and he had a deep impression of the vanity and uncertainty and shortness of human life. Now this feeling ought to be our feeling also; and that, too, not on particular occasions, but at all times. We should feel that life is short, and that therefore we ought to wait more and more in prayer upon our God. And why need we go to God in prayer? This will be seen from the last verse of our text.
III. The object of the prayer.The object of the prayer was that David might be in a prepared state before his soul departed into the eternal world. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more. If David imagined that the rebellion of Absalom might prove successful, and end in some way in his own death, he might well ponder the solemnity of that event. To die, even to the Christian, is a momentous thing; and most Christians, if suddenly asked whether they are willing to depart, would inwardly cry, with the Psalmist, O spare me a little! You have a good hope through Gods grace; you trust your sins are all pardoned through the blood of the Saviour; you glory in Christ as the Lord your righteousness; and yet, like Hezekiah you feel you would like time to set your house in order before you go. Let us learn to meditate, and so learn to pray. Meditate on your sins, and you will then pray, as David did, Deliver me from all my transgressions. Meditate on the purifying influences of Christs atonement, and you will then pray, Purge me with hyssop, the hyssop of the Redeemers blood, and I shall be clean; wash me in the purifying fountain, and I shall be whiter than snow. Meditate on the converting power of the Holy Ghost, and your prayer will then be, Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Meditate on the shortness of time, and you will then pray, as David prayed, Hold not Thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger with Thee and a sojourner.
Canon Clayton.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
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.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
In closing, David asked God to remove His chastening, whatever it was, so he could enjoy his final years of life. [Note: See W. A. M. Beuken, "Psalms 39 : Some Aspects of the Old Testament Understanding of Prayer," The Heythrop Journal 19 (1978):1-11.]
The brevity of life impresses one increasingly as he or she grows older. People are usually more conscious of this in times of sorrow than in happy times. It is natural for a believer to want God to teach him or her to live wisely, and want Him to be patient with one’s sinfulness in view of life’s shortness.