1 To the chief musician, to Jeduthun; a psalm of David.
2 I said, I will keep my ways, from sinning with lay tongue; I will keep a muzzle to my mouth, while the wicked [man is] before me.
3 I have been dumb [in] silence, I held my peace from good, but my pain was excited.
4 My heart grew warm in the midst of me; in my musing the fire burneth: I spoke with my tongue.
5 Make me to know, O Jehovah, my end, and the measure of my days, what it [is]; let me know how frail I am.
6 Behold, thou hast made my days handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before thee: surely all vanity [is] every man appointed. Selah.
7 Surely in an image doth man walk; surely in vain are they disquieted: he hoardeth, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
8 And now what wait I for, O Lord? My expectation [is] from thee.
9 From all my transgressions deliver me; make me not the reproach of the fool.
10 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because thou didst [it].
11 Remove from me thy stroke; from the strife of thy hand I am consumed.
12 With chastisement for iniquity thou correctest man, and consumest like the moth what he desireth; only vanity is every man. Selah.
13 Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, and to my cry give ear; at my tears be not silent; for a stranger [am] I with thee, a sojourner like all my fathers.
14 Look away from me, and let me comfort myself before I go and am not.
Notes on Psalm 39
“To the chief musician, to Jeduthun: a psalm of David.” As the saint felt nothing before God, and therefore checked himself in presence of the wicked, so much the more could he speak, when the fire burned, in turning to Jehovah Who was using His stroke for correction, and this of iniquity. He owned himself a stranger and sojourner like saints of old, his fathers. To be strong and great here below was not his desire, but in his weakness he would be dependent on Jehovah. This closes the exercises of heart expressed to God by the tried godly. A vast change appears when Christ is introduced personally, as we shall see in the psalm that follows.
Here again we have a pair of psalms, where Christ appears unmistakably, even if the latter be not personal as the former.