5 You have made my days no longer than a hand's measure; and my years are nothing in your eyes; truly, every man is but a breath. (Selah.)
Truly men of low birth are nothing, and men of high position are not what they seem; if they are put in the scales together they are less than a breath.
See how short my time is; why have you made all men for no purpose?
And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.
My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope.
As for man, the son of woman, his days are short and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower, and is cut down: he goes in flight like a shade, and is never seen again.
By the weight of your wrath against man's sin, the glory of his form is wasted away; truly every man is but a breath. (Selah.)
For all our days have gone by in your wrath; our years come to an end like a breath. The measure of our life is seventy years; and if through strength it may be eighty years, its pride is only trouble and sorrow, for it comes to an end and we are quickly gone.
All is to no purpose, said the Preacher, all the ways of man are to no purpose.
All the nations are as nothing before him; even less than nothing, a thing of no value.
When you are not certain what will take place tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist, which is seen for a little time and then is gone.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 39
Commentary on Psalms 39 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 39
David seems to have been in a great strait when he penned this psalm, and, upon some account or other, very uneasy; for it is with some difficulty that he conquers his passion, and composes his spirit himself to take that good counsel which he had given to others (Ps. 37) to rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him, without fretting; for it is easier to give the good advice than to give the good example of quietness under affliction. What was the particular trouble which gave occasion for the conflict David was now in does not appear. Perhaps it was the death of some dear friend or relation that was the trial of his patience, and that suggested to him these meditations of morality; and at the same time, it should seem too, he himself was weak and ill, and under some prevailing distemper. His enemies likewise were seeking advantages against him, and watched for his halting, that they might have something to reproach him for. Thus aggrieved,
This is a funeral psalm, and very proper for the occasion; in singing it we should get our hearts duly affected with the brevity, uncertainty, and calamitous state of human life; and those on whose comforts God has, by death, made breaches, will find this psalm of great use to them, in order to their obtaining what we ought much to aim at under such an affliction, which is to get it sanctified to us for our spiritual benefit and to get our hearts reconciled to the holy will of God in it
To the chief musician, even to Jeduthun. A psalm of David.
Psa 39:1-6
David here recollects, and leaves upon record, the workings of his heart under his afflictions; and it is good for us to do so, that what was thought amiss may be amended, and what was well thought of may be improved the next time.
Psa 39:7-13
The psalmist, having meditated on the shortness and uncertainty of life, and the vanity and vexation of spirit that attend all the comforts of life, here, in these verses, turns his eyes and heart heaven-ward. When there is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature it is to be found in God, and in communion with him; and to him we should be driven by our disappointments in the world. David here expresses,