Scripture Daily

Context No. 949 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 39:1-13: in context

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“LORD, 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.” Selah. 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.” Selah. 12“Hear my prayer, LORD, 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.”

This psalm begins with David trying to hold his tongue. He resolves to keep silent, to muzzle his mouth so he will not sin while the wicked are watching, but the silence only makes the pressure build. His heart grows hot, the fire burns, and finally he speaks, not against his enemies but to God about his own mortality: LORD, show me my end, the measure of my days, let me know how fleeting I am. My days are a few handbreadths, my lifetime nothing before you; every man is but a breath, a passing shadow who heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather it.

The psalm is a meditation on how short and light a human life is, and it says so plainly. Every man stands as a mere breath; we go about like a shadow; we busy ourselves and pile up things we will leave to someone we cannot name. This could be pure despair, and the psalm feels its weight fully. But watch where it turns. Right in the middle of confessing that life is vapor, David asks, and now, Lord, what do I wait for? and answers his own question: my hope is in you. The brevity of life does not send him into cynicism or frantic grabbing; it drives him to God as the only thing worth hoping in when everything else is passing. And he prays as a stranger and sojourner, a passing guest of the God he addresses, asking only for mercy and a little relief before he goes. Facing his own smallness honestly is what clears the ground for hope to rest where it belongs.

When I honestly feel how brief and light my life is, does it drive me to grab more frantically, or to say with David, my hope is in you?

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