Prayer for Wisdom and Forgiveness
To the Chief Musician, To Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.
• The poignant prayer of a soul deeply troubled by the fragility of human life (NIV)
39:1 I said, “I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me.”
• I said – “I steadily resolved and registered a determination”. In his great perplexity his greatest fear was lest he should
sin; and therefore, he cast about for the most likely method for avoiding it and he determined to be silent. (TOD)
• David had covenanted against tongue sins (MH)
• Guard my ways – to avoid sin one had need be very circumspect and keep one’s actions as with a guard or garrison.
Unguarded ways are generally unholy ones. (TOD)
• Watchfulness in the habit is the bridle upon the head; watchfulness in the act and exercise is the hand upon the
bridle (MH)
• Tongue sins are great sins; like sparks of fire ill-words spread and do great damage (TOD)
• Wicked before me – it is a vexation to be tied to hear so much impertinent babbling in the world, but profitable to
discern and abhor it. If they believed to give account of every idle word, they would be more sparing of foolish speaking.
Though I be among them I shall as little partake their prattling as they do my meditation (Struther/TOD)
39:2 I was mute with silence,
I held my peace even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred up.
• It is a hard thing to be denied the benefit of complaint in sufferings, as it has a tendency to relieve the mind, and
indeed, in some sort, to call off the attention from the place of actual suffering; and yet undue and extravagant
complaining enervates the mind, so that it becomes a double prey to its sufferings. On both sides there are
extremes. (AC)
• I tried to keep quiet without success (Z)
39:3 My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:
• The friction of inward thoughts produced an intense mental heat (TOD)
• He could bridle his tongue but he could not keep his passion under (MH)
• The muzzled tongue burst all its bonds (TOD)
• Musing – what a blessed privilege is prayer. Meditation is a help to prayer. (TOD)
• Musing – meditated – sighed, groaned (Z)
• Bernard said ‘Lord, I will never come away from thee without thee”. (TOD)
39:4 “LORD, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
• It is well that the vent of the soul is Godward and not towards man (TOD)
• The Psalmist would know more of the shortness of life, that he might better bear and do (TOD)
• We know we must die, and that it is no long course to the utmost period of life; yet our hearts are little instructed by
this knowledge (TOD)
• When we look upon death as a thing at a distance we are tempted to adjourn the necessary preparations for it; but,
when we consider how short life is, we shall see ourselves concerned to do what our hand finds to do, not only with all
our might, but with all possible expedition (MH)
39:5 Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.
Selah
• Man’s life is styled days because it is not conferred upon us by wholesale, by months and years, but by retail of
days, hours, minutes, moments, as to check our curiosity in making enquiry how long we have to live; so acquainting us
with the brevity thereof, we may learn to depend upon God’s bounty for the loan of our life, employ it for His glory, and
every day prepare for the Bridegroom, Christ (TOD)
• Handbreadth – one of the shortest measures; each one carries a measure about with him, his own hand (TOD)
• Handbreadth – span (AC)
• All time is swallowed up in Your eternity (AC)
• All of a man’s projects, plans, schemes, the dust, and shortly passes both from the sight and remembrance of
men (AC)
• Vapor – something that passes quickly, not something that has no meaning (NCBC)
• Selah – As men being in serious discourse, when they hear a sudden noise hold their peace to listen, saying, hark!
So David’s heart being smitten by the voice of God’s Spirit, the music ceased, stopped, and he checked himself as
it were thus, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears”. (TOD)
• Stop here, and pause awhile, that you may take time to consider and apply this truth, that every man is vanity (MH)
• Selah is an hyperbole or illustration of the truth by way of excess in advancing and enlarging it, to make the truth
and sense more clear and evident, as if we should say, “that is wonderful!” (TOD)
39:6 Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them.
• We who live are nothing else but images and a vain shadow (TOD)
39:7 “And now, LORD, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.
• When there is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature it is to be found in God, and in communion with Him;
and to Him we should be driven by our disappointments in the world (MH)
39:8 Deliver me from all my transgressions;
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
• How fair a sign it is when the psalmist no longer harps upon his sorrows, but begs freedom from his sins (TOD)
• David acknowledges his sin and throws himself on the mercy of the LORD (NCBC)
• Deliver me from the guilt I have contracted, the punishment I have deserved (MH)
39:9 I was mute, I did not open my mouth,
Because it was You who did it.
39:10 Remove Your plague from me;
I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.
• Our ways and our doings procure the trouble to ourselves and we are beaten with a rod of our own making (MH)
• I am conquered; I can hold the contest no longer; You are too powerful for me (AC)
39:11 When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty melt away like a moth;
Surely every man is vapor. Selah
• God does not trifle with His rod; He uses it because of sin, and with a view to whip us from it; hence He means His
strokes to be felt, and felt they are (TOD)
• Vapor – “a curious picture of nothing” (Trapp-TOD)
39:12 “Hear 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, as all my fathers were.
• 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 (TOD)
• God made the world, sustains it, and owns it, and yet men treat Him as though He were a foreign intruder (TOD)
• A stranger is one that has his abode in a foreign country, that is not a native and a denizen of the place, though he
lives there, and in opposition to the natives he is called a stranger. A sojourner is one that intends not to settle, but only
passes through a place, and is in motion travelling homeward. (TOD)
• Strangers: (TOD)
o One that is absent from his country and from his father’s house
o One in a foreign country and not know nor valued according to his birth and breeding
o One liable to inconveniences
o One who is patient, stands not for ill usage, and is contented with pilgrims’ fare and lodging
o One is wary that he may not give offense and incur the hatred and displeasure of the natives
o One who is thankful for the least favor
o One that has a journey to go, would pass over it as soon as he can
o One who buys not such things as he cannot carry with him; he does not buy trees, house, household stuff,
jewels or pearls, and such things as are portable
o One whose heart is in his country
o One who is inquisitive after the way, fearing lest he should go amiss
o One who provides for his return, as a merchant, that he may return richly laden
39:13 Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength,
Before I go away and am no more.”
• It is not out of a fond love for this world, but to prepare himself the better for another (TOD)