Psalms 39:1-13: a reflection

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.”

In this psalm, the writer, weighed down by suffering and the brevity of life, prays a striking prayer: LORD, make me know my end, and the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am. He reflects on how short and frail life is, a mere handbreadth, a breath, a passing shadow, and how people busy themselves and heap up wealth without knowing who will gather it. And out of this sober reckoning with his own mortality comes a turning point: And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.

Notice what the psalmist asks for: to grasp his own frailty and the brevity of his days. This is not morbid; it is wisdom. He asks God to make him truly feel how fleeting life is, so that he will live rightly, not busying himself in vain and heaping up what he cannot keep, but setting his hope where it belongs. Facing his mortality honestly leads him not to despair but to God: my hope is in you.

That is a prayer worth praying. We easily live as though our days were endless, absorbed in busyness and accumulation, forgetting how brief and frail life really is. The psalmist asks God to teach him the truth of his own mortality, not to crush him, but to make him wise, to loosen his grip on passing things and fix his hope on God. Ask God to help you number your days, to feel honestly how fleeting your life is, so that you invest it in what matters and set your hope on him. Life is a breath; let that truth make you wise, and turn your hope, as the psalmist's did, to God: for what do I wait? My hope is in you.

Lord, the psalmist prayed, make me know my end, and the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am, and out of that honest reckoning with his mortality, he turned to you: my hope is in you. Teach me to number my days. I easily live as though my days were endless, absorbed in busyness and accumulation, forgetting how brief and frail my life really is. Help me feel honestly how fleeting it is, not to crush me, but to make me wise, to loosen my grip on passing things and fix my hope on you. Life is a breath; let that truth make me wise, and turn my hope, as the psalmist's did, to you. For what do I wait? My hope is in you.