Psalms 39:1. I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.
This is what David said; what he had deliberately resolved upon and solemnly determined in his own mind: «I said, I will take heed to my ways.» That is a good thing for all of us to resolve and to say: «I will take heed.» To be heedless is to be graceless. No man ever does a good thing by accident. We shall none of us get to heaven by blundering. «I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue.» The tongue may be a most powerful instrument of evil. Tongue sins are terrible sins. They are like sparks of fire which may set a whole town upon a blaze. He that can take heed to his tongue will probably be able to manage all the rest of the members of his body. The tongue is the most unmanageable member of our frame; and if we sin not with our tongue, we shall most likely be kept from sinning in other ways. «I will keep my mouth with a bridle,» says David; it should be rendered, «with a muzzle.» He did not mean that he would merely control his tongue, but that he would silence it altogether. «I will keep my mouth with a muzzle, while the wicked is before me.» I do not know whether that was a right resolution on David's part. Tongues were meant to be used and there are often opportunities of using them to God's glory even in the presence of the wicked. Sometimes, we are bound to use our tongue in rebuking their sin; yet we cannot criticize David's resolution very much, because when the wicked are before us, it may be only like casting pearls before swine if we begin to speak to them even upon the best themes, and we may be drawn away, by their company to speak that which is questionable. So that often, it may be best to keep our mouth muzzled while the wicked are before us.
Psalms 39:2. I was dumb with silence,
«I was as silent as if I had been dumb. I did not say a word.» It seems to me that this silence of the psalmist was partly sullen and partly judicious: «I was dumb with silence,»
Psalms 39:2. I held my peace, even from good;
He was a total abstainer from all speech. Perhaps he felt that he could not speak a little without speaking too much, and so he refrained from speech altogether. Yet we must not follow his example so closely in this matter, for there is a time for speech as well as a time for silence. It was not good for David to hold his peace even from good. It is good for us to hold our peace rather than speak unwisely, but it would be better for us to speak wisely, discreetly, as God's Spirit should direct us.
Psalms 39:2. And my sorrow was stirred.
It is a great relief to sorrow to be able to speak about it. Be not silent in thy grief, lest thy grief should burn too fiercely within thy heart. It is often one of the signs of a failing mind when persons sit quite still, and will not tell their grief to anyone. Tell thy grief to thy God first of all, and thou mayest also tell it with advantage to some sympathizing friend. But David felt that he could not speak, so his sorrow was stirred, troubled, agitated, like a pent-up fire that must sooner or later burst into a blaze.
Psalms 39:3. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned:
While he was musing, his heart was fusing, and there was much that was most confusing to him. He saw the prosperity of the wicked, and the oppression of the righteous. He heard the reproaches of the ungodly, and he felt the stings of affliction and trial in his own soul. So, as he did not speak, his heart grew hot within him: «While I was musing the fire burned:
Psalms 39:3. Then spake I with my tongue,
We say, «Murder will out,» and so will misery. David's heart had become like a volcano, and the fire burned so furiously within that he was obliged to let the burning lava flow forth, and so give his soul vent. There is no speech like that which comes from a hot heart. That shot from the tongue which has been made red-hot in the heart is sure to tell upon the adversary. «Then spake I with my tongue;» and what he said was not unwise. There was nothing of boasting or excitement in it; it was a very wise, plain, earnest prayer.
Psalms 39:4. LORD,
That was a good beginning of David's speech. When we turn our burning words towards God, and not towards men, good will come of them. David's hot heart finds a vent Godward. This was the wisest thing that he could do, cry unto his God. «Lord,»
Psalms 39:4. Make me to know mine end,
Did David mean to pray, «Let me die,» like Elias did? I am half afraid that he did, and many a time some of God's servants, in their great heats when their soul has been fuller of passion than of faith, have prayed in this sense, «Make me to know mine end.» Yet a better meaning may be put upon the psalmist's words, and we are bound to put the best meaning upon them that we can. He may have meant, «Let me know, Lord, that my sorrows will come to an end, that they are not to last for ever.» Death may be looked at through the glass of faith till it becomes even a goodly and desirable object. «Lord, make me to know mine end,»
Psalms 39:4. And the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.
Our days are all measured, they do not come to an end by accident As mercers measure their ells and their yards of silk or cotton goods, so does God measure out life to us. There is not half an inch more or less than God himself determines that we shall have. If David wanted to know what the measure of his days was, he was trying to pry into the folded leaves of the future. Such prying is both wrong and futile, and we may be thankful that we do not know what the measure of our days is in this sense. We do know that, at their utmost, they are not likely to exceed the threescore years and ten, or the fourscore years, which now make up the ordinary measure of human life.
Psalms 39:5. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth;
That is a very short measure, the breadth of a hand, the space that we can span with one of our hands, yet that is the true measure of our life: «Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth;»
Psalms 39:5. And mine age is as nothing before thee:
What are seventy or eighty years, even if we live so long as that, out of the thousands of years that men have lived on the face of the earth? One man's life seems but a drop in the great ocean of human history. Yet what an insignificant thing human history itself is! Some thousands of years ago, there were no men upon this earth; yet what is the history of the whole world compared with eternity? It is not worth speaking of, it is scarcely one tick of the clock of eternity. Why, this world is only like a newly blown bubble, and the sun is but a spark fresh from the eternal fire. As compared with the eternal God, man is a non entity, a nullity, and David was right when he said to the Lord, «Mine age is as nothing before thee.»
Psalms 39:5. Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
When he is strongest, calmest, happiest, when he is in his prime, when he is at his best, of which he is so vain, is itself vain. Whatever there may be true about man, this is true, that he is unstable, and soon passes away. He is constant in nothing but his inconstancy. «Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.»
Psalms 39:6. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew:
This world is a mere theater, and men strut across its stage, acting their various parts. They come and they go as if they were mere figures moved by invisible wires; the most of men do not live at all, but only seem to live for they have not the true, spiritual, eternal life within them. Every man walks like a performer in a pageant, or like those who march in a procession. We think we are standing still, and watching others pass by, but we are ourselves part of the vain show, and are passing away with the rest.
Psalms 39:6. Surely they are disquieted in vain:
They fret, they fume, they vex themselves, but it is all in vain. They make a noise, so the Hebrew says, in vain. Hear the clamor of the streets, hear the buzz of the exchange, hear the noise of war, and the shouts of conflict. It is all in vain, it is all for nothing. You are troubled about your business, troubled about your children, troubled about your wealth, troubled about I know not what; surely, you are disquieted in vain. Oh, that we could but believe that all this disquietude is only vanity! Then might we live much more peaceful lives.
Psalms 39:6. He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
He has cut his corn, and it stands in sheaves in the field, but his enemy comes, and carts it away; or if he has gathered it into his granary, it is consumed by rats or mice, or it becomes mildewed and useless. How many there are who spend their lives gathering wealth with the muck-rake, and then their sons come with the fork and shovel, and scatter it quite as quickly as their fathers gathered it. What is the good of getting all this gold together, and stinting yourself in order to get it, when the one who has it after you will never thank you for it, or if he did, you would be dead and buried, and would know nothing of his gratitude?
Psalms 39:7. And now, Lord, what wait I for?
The psalmist improves as he advances. Now you see that he is cut loose from the world. He has seen the vanity of man, and he has seen the vanity of wealth, so he says, «'Now, Lord, what wait I for? What is there here, in this land of shadows, that I should wait for? Why sit I down where nothing good has ever come, or ever can come? «The ropes that held the balloon to earth are cut, and up it mounts.
Psalms 39:7. My hope is in thee.
This is a glorious hope; this is a hope that finds its all in God, this hope will outlast death and the grave; this hope will be our treasure in eternity. Can each of you truly say this, «My hope is in thee»? Let this be the language of your heart as you speak to your God, «This is what I wait for, that I may enjoy thy presence here, and that I may rejoice in thy presence hereafter; I wait for the coming of my Lord; I wait for the time when the Lord shall call me home.»
Psalms 39:8. Deliver me from all my transgressions:
That is a better prayer than if David had said, «Deliver me from all my sorrows.» Now he has hit the very center of the target: «Deliver me from all my transgressions.» So let each one of us pray at this moment, «O Lord, I do not ask to be saved from thy rod, but I do ask to be washed from my sin. Do what thou wilt with me, but do forgive me, do sanctify me, do let me be washed in the precious blood of Jesus. ‘Deliver me from all my transgressions.'»
Psalms 39:8. Make me not the reproach of the foolish.
Do not let the wicked be able to say, «See the sadness of that man's countenance, see how sullen he looks. His face is like a thundercloud, it is clear that a Christian has no joy.» Let not the wicked be able to say that, my Lord; but save me from sin, and give me the full joy of thy salvation, and then they will not be able to reproach me.
Psalms 39:9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.
You will understand this verse much better if we read it in another tense as it should be: «Now I will be dumb, I will not open my mouth, because thou didst it.» David was wrong the first time when he was dumb, but he is right this second time. Two things may be very like one another outwardly, yet very different inwardly. There is a silence which the Christian ought to keep.
Psalms 39:10. Remove thy stroke away from me:
The child of God, who is perfectly resigned to his heavenly Father's will may yet pray to be delivered from his trouble. Prayer for deliverance from grief is quite consistent with perfect submission to the will of God. We may pray, for Jesus prayed, «O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;» but we must take care also to add, «Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.»
Psalms 39:10. I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
«Thou hast beaten me sorely; oh, smite me not again!» This is good pleading, for God does not mean to consume his own children. He means to consume our sins, and when he makes us cry, «Deliver me from all my transgressions,» and when we submit to his holy will, he will soon put his rod away. As soon as you are willing to bear it, you shall not have to hear it any longer. When you submit yourself to the stroke, then the stroke will cease to be given.
Psalms 39:11. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
When God whips his children, he does not play with them. God is in earnest, if we are not; and when he corrects us, he means us to feel his rod, and he means us to bear the scars it leaves upon us. There must be real strokes, and real smarts, ere we are likely to be cured of sin, and, sometimes, when he is dealing in chastisement with his people, he makes their beauty to depart like a piece of cloth or fur when the moth gets into it, and utterly destroys it. What a poor thing beauty is if the moth can eat it up! If a little affliction can take away our beauty, we may well pray for that beauty for which Moses pleaded, «Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.» That is a beauty of quite another kind, the beauty of grace which no moth can consume. But if we have not that, our beauty is a poor thing. Let no man, let no woman, be vain of beauty which can so soon be gone.
Psalms 39:12. Hear my prayer, O LORD,
David is dumb, yet he prays, dumb as to complaints, but eloquent as to pleading with his God.
Psalms 39:12. And give ear unto my cry;
The psalmist goes from pleading to crying, and believers often thus intensify their prayers. There is something more sorrowful, more earnest, more prevalent, about crying unto God than mere ordinary praying: «Give ear unto my cry;»
Psalms 39:12. Hold not thy peace at my tears:
David goes further still, for the most eloquent things in the world are tears. They are the irresistible weapons of weakness. Many a woman, many a beggar, many a child, has gained by tears what could not be obtained in any other way; so David pleaded most powerfully when he prayed, «Hold not thy peace at my tears:»
Psalms 39:12. For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
«Thou dost entertain me in thy tent as I have entertained wanderers many a time. I have broken bread with thee, and eaten of thy salt, be kind to the stranger and sojourner as thou hast bidden thy servants to be.» Or does David mean that, as God is a stranger in his own world, so are we while necessarily passing through it?
Psalms 39:13. O spare me,
That is a singular petition, for just now, he seemed to be wanting to get to the end of his days; yet he says, «O spare me,» like Elias, who was afraid to die, and so ran away from Jezebel, and then prayed to God, «Let me die.» So are God's children still a mass of contradictions, longing for death, and yet, when death comes, they cry, «O spare me! O spare me!»
Psalms 39:13. That I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
«Give me a little respite, that I may take my nourishment, and have my sleep before I go hence to be no more, for soon I shall do that. But give me a little interlude first, wherein I may again take my harp, and sing to thy praise.» If worldlings cannot understand this mingled experience God's children know that this is only one of the many paradoxes with which they are perfectly familiar. In any case, may each one of us be ready when it shall be God's time for us to «go hence, and be no more» here!