Psalm 39

To the choirmaster: for Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. 

1 I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence.”

2 I was mute and silent; I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse.

3 My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue:

David determines that he will deal with his anger by simply keeping it all inside. He will rely on his self-control to guard his ways and his tongue when the wicked are in his presence. There are two possible contexts for these verses. First, it could be that David is angry at the wicked, something everyone can identify with. There are people that set us off by their stupid ideas and actions. Generally we simply like to avoid people that irritate us, but when we are forced to be with them (because they are family members or co-workers), we have to develop mechanisms for keeping the peace. The advice of Jiminy Cricket comes to mind: “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing.” However, this only gets us so far. Inevitably the irritation becomes too strong and something is said that triggers a response. Like a dam that bursts from holding back volumes of water, once our tongue is loosed it can’t be stopped. David’s distress level was reaching the boiling point as his heart warmed within him. As he meditated on the person and the situation (yes, that is the common word for meditation, hagah), the fire inside him only grew hotter until it exploded with force and he spoke with his tongue. There is wisdom in holding your tongue. This is clear teaching of scripture whether it is James 3 or any number of proverbs. However, the second, and more likely context of this psalm is anger toward God. Read the remainder of the psalm and you’ll see that when David speaks, it is not against the wicked, but against the eternal God who has placed man in limited constraints and who is now disciplining David. Because God is ultimately in control of things, all causality in a sense can be traced back to him, or so David’s thinking goes in the heat of the moment. So perhaps David is not holding his tongue in the presence of the wicked to avoid speaking against them. Perhaps instead he is more concerned about how the wicked will perceive his words of anger toward God. This is similar to the sense of Psalm 73:15 -- “If I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’ (thus = questioning God’s goodness), I would have betrayed the generation of your children.” David doesn’t want the unbeliever to hear his doubts and frustrations with God. There is wisdom in that as well, although it’s also important to let others know that you’re not perfect, and it’s natural for even the most faithful to have doubts. The lesson of these verses is to speak your doubts, your frustrations, even your anger. Bottling it up doesn’t help and actually may make it worse.

4 “O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!

5 Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

6 Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing [Surely as a breath] they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!

The remainder of the psalm reveals that David is ultimately angry at God for disciplining him for his sin. This is why this psalm naturally follows the previous psalm of confession. As David suffers the natural consequences of sin, he contemplates the brevity of life in relation to the eternal nature of God. He says that a man’s life is measured in a few handbreadths, that is a few inches on the timeline of eternity. In relation to the unending existence of God, David’s lifetime of 70 years or so is as nothing. In fact, all of human history for that matter is a mere breath, as short as a few seconds of drawing in and then exhaling. Then it is over. “Sunrise, sunset, quickly flow the years”, as Tevia sang at his daughter’s wedding. I’ve lived almost 56 years and looking back it feels that they have flown by. The greatest and happiest of those days can never be recovered except in fleeting memories. It’s not just David’s life, but every man goes about as a shadow, growing shorter by the minute as the sun rises. They work for nothing ultimately because all that they accumulate in their life cannot go with them and it will eventually pass to strangers. A man’s life is measured in what he accomplishes, what he leaves behind whether that is wealth, ideas, influence, or family. But once he is gone, all of those things fade away and in less than a hundred years he is a name on a forgotten tombstone. That is the life of every one of us. It is my life. There is wisdom in seeing where we fit in the big picture of human history. None of us amounts to very much. It humbles us and it causes us to value every moment that we do have. It compels us to do things that are meaningful and lasting and not fritter our days away with trivialities. It moves us to attempt things of real significance and good for others. It motivates us to spend our wealth in this life so that we can control where it goes and how it is used. David’s really not asking God to reveal the date of his death. But if God did give us that date on the calendar, how would it affect the way that we lived? I suppose it would depend on how soon that date is arriving. 

7 “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.

8 Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool!

In this center of this psalm David makes his primary plea and declares his resolute trust. He is waiting and hoping in the Lord. This is stated in the form of a rhetorical question, implying that he has no other place to turn. The Lord is his only hope. So he prays first that God would deliver him from all his transgressions, acknowledging that his own poor choices have brought about his current condition. He is likely here praying for the consequences of his transgressions to be mitigated. It is something of a “save me from myself” type of prayer. His own transgressions have gotten him in this mess and his own actions cannot get him out of it. Second, he prays that he wouldn’t become the source of scorn, the butt of jokes from fools. Most people have a pretty strong radar for hypocrisy. We can spot it pretty quickly and we love to point it out because it distracts from our own hypocrisy. Perhaps the reason we can see it in others is that we are so familiar with its operation in our own lives first. David’s forays into sin have left him vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy, and it is a valid charge. How can you be the nation’s worship leader and still indulge in illicit behavior? How can you declare your undivided devotion to God in song and prayer and then demonstrate the opposite in your secret actions? Now David’s actions are not so secret and the charge of hypocrisy is not a claim as much as a simple statement of fact. Nothing has changed since the time of David. We remain easily susceptible to the charge of hypocrisy because we are hypocrites in so many ways. And like David, our only option is to plead for the grace and mercy of God to help us each moment to reject actions that do not reflect faith and to receive his forgiveness for past actions while moving forward in hope. 

9 I am mute; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it.

10 Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand.

11 When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah

David gets to the real heart of his complaint in these verses. If God is just and David is guilty, then he must be punished. This is what David acknowledges in these verses. He has nothing to say in his defense. He doesn’t speak; he doesn’t even open his mouth. There are no words. David’s suffering is the just result of his actions and so he declares to God, “it is you who have done it.” It is God’s hand that has come down upon David, described here as a hostile strike of his hand. David is being disciplined by God, rebuked for his sin. He is watching what is dear to him be consumed as fabric might be consumed by a moth. In this moment he feels impotent, his life but a breath. He and all of mankind must submit to the just hand of God. While God seems like the bad guy in this context, slapping David around and destroying all that he holds dear, in actuality David has done this to himself. Sin has its own corrupting effect, devouring the inner man, waging war on the conscience, driving division between loved ones. It’s a nasty business and God can’t be blamed when we merely receive the due consequences for our actions. David admits his own culpability for his suffering in the psalm while still recognizing that ultimately God has created a world in which justice is assured. You can direct your anger at God when you suffer the consequences of your sin, but it will do no good. God desires truth in the inner places, and that begins with an acknowledgement of your own sin and your own responsibility for its terrible consequences. 

12 “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.

13 Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!”

David began his prayer in silence, but now he can’t stop talking. He asks three times for the LORD to hear his prayer, his cry, and his tears. In the first verses David was holding his tongue and here he asks God not to do the same. God seems to be muzzled now even as He watches David’s tears. We don’t know David’s tone of voice here of course, although the translator provides an exclamation point. His earlier accusations of God as the source of his suffering suggest that David is a bit frustrated with God. This becomes even more clear in the final verse where he asks the LORD to look away so that he may smile again and leave so that David can live. In these verses David also identifies with his ancestors in the faith who had the same type of struggles with God. Jacob literally wrestled with God and came away with a limp. All of the patriarchs sinned and were disciplined for it (Joseph is the only exception there). But here David identifies not as a child of God but as a foreigner, a stranger in a foreign land, ignorant of the language and customs, out of place and homesick for the familiar. At one moment he begs God to hear his cries and see his tears and the next he tells God to stop looking at him and leave. Which is it David? This seems to be a classic expression of grief and the mixed emotions that we experience when we want God to act and then are angry when he doesn’t. Our suffering makes us feel that we are no longer a member of God’s family, that he is not behaving as a “good, good father,” and the thought that God has the power to fix things but chooses not to leaves us bitter and faithless. The psalm ends on such a negative note and a really huge question mark. Why is God silent before our prayers? Why does he seem to ignore our tears? Why does he fail to act when any decent person with his power would? Why would he allow his children to feel so estranged from their father? The answer: this is only for a season. Read the next psalm.