3). His solution lies in hoping in YHWH and walking rightly before Him, being delivered from all his transgressions. Meanwhile therefore he prays that YHWH will restore him to health, while recognising that he himself through his illness experience is being corrected for his own sins (Psalms 39:7-11).
‘And now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in you.
Deliver me from all my transgressions,
Make me not the reproach of the foolish.
His solution lies in hoping in YHWH. He recognises that that is what he is waiting for. If there is any solution it is to be found in God, and in living for Him. So he prays that he might be delivered from all his transgressions, and might live a life that cannot be reproached by the foolish (those who themselves ignore God - Psalms 14:1), a life pleasing to God.
‘I was dumb, I opened not my mouth,
Because you did it.
Here the suggestion appears to be that he was struck dumb with wonder as he recognised that God had done what he asked. He had delivered him for his transgressions and from all reproach, and had responded to his hope. He had brought him peace and rest in the recognition that his life was in God's hands.
Remove your stroke away from me,
I am consumed by the blow of your hand.
When you with rebukes correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty to consume away like a moth,
Surely every man is vanity.' Selah.
So he now prays that he might recover from his illness. For his illness had dragged him down and almost devoured him, as by a blow from God's hand. The result of this rebuke from God, which had been in order to correct him from his sinful ways, was that he had become but a shadow of his former self. He had become, as it were, moth-eaten. And it had revealed to him how vain life in itself was.