Psalms 39:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I was dumb with silence Or, I was dumb in silence; two words expressing the same thing with greater force. I held my peace even from good I spake not a word, either good or bad, but remained, like a dumb man, in perfect silence. I refrained even from giving God the glory, with respect to my illness, by acknowledging his greatness and justice, and the nothingness and sinfulness of man. Perhaps the reason why he would not speak at all before his enemies was, because he was unwilling to give them an occasion of triumph, as he thought he should do if he acknowledged his weakness and sin. But he could not bear this restraint long; it became more and more grievous. My sorrow, he says, was stirred My silence did not assuage my grief, but increased it, as it naturally and commonly does. “There is a time to keep silence,” says Dr. Horne, “because there are men who will not hear; there are tempers, savage and sensual, as those of swine, before whom evangelical pearls, or the treasures of heavenly wisdom, are not to be cast. This consideration stirreth up fresh grief and trouble in a pious and charitable heart.”