Psalms 39:12

King James Version (KJV)

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Hear my prayer - Therefore, O Lord, show that mercy upon me which I so much need, and without which I must perish everlastingly.

I am a stranger with thee - I have not made this earth my home; I have not trusted in any arm but thine. Though I have sinned, I have never denied thee, and never cast thy words behind my back. I knew that here I had no continuing city. Like my fathers, I looked for a city that has permanent foundations, in a better state of being.

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Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry - That is, in view of my affliction and my sins; in view, also, of the perplexing questions which have agitated my bosom; the troublous thoughts which passed through my soul, which I did not dare to express before man Psalm 39:1-2, but which I have now expressed before thee.

Hold not thy peace - Be not silent. Do not refuse to answer me; to speak peace to me.

At my tears - Or rather, at my weeping; as if God heard the voice of his weeping. Weeping, if uncomplaining, is of the nature of prayer, for God regards the sorrows of the soul as he sees them. The weeping penitent, the weeping sufferer, is one on whom we may suppose God looks with compassion, even though the sorrows of the soul do not find “words” to give utterance to them. Compare the notes at Job 16:20. See also Romans 8:26,

For I am a stranger - The word used - גר gêr - means properly a sojourner; a foreigner; a man living out of his own country: Genesis 15:13; Exodus 2:22. It refers to a man who has no permanent home in the place or country where he now is; and it is used here as implying that, in the estimation of the psalmist himself, he had no permanent abode on earth. He was in a strange or foreign land. He was passing to a permanent home; and he prays that God would be merciful to him as to a man who has no home - no permanent abiding place - on earth. Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:13; notes at 1 Peter 2:11.

And a sojourner - This word has substantially the same signification. It denotes one living in another country, without the rights of a citizen.

As all my fathers were - All my ancestors. The allusion is doubtless derived from the fact that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob thus lived as men who had no permanent home here - who had no possession of soil in the countries where they sojourned - and whose whole life, therefore, was an illustration of the fact that they were “on a journey” - a journey to another world. 1 Chronicles 29:15 - “for we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:13-15.

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Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary

There is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature; but it is to be found in the Lord, and in communion with him; to him we should be driven by our disappointments. If the world be nothing but vanity, may God deliver us from having or seeking our portion in it. When creature-confidences fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust in. We may see a good God doing all, and ordering all events concerning us; and a good man, for that reason, says nothing against it. He desires the pardoning of his sin, and the preventing of his shame. We must both watch and pray against sin. When under the correcting hand of the Lord, we must look to God himself for relief, not to any other. Our ways and our doings bring us into trouble, and we are beaten with a rod of our own making. What a poor thing is beauty! and what fools are those that are proud of it, when it will certainly, and may quickly, be consumed! The body of man is as a garment to the soul. In this garment sin has lodged a moth, which wears away, first the beauty, then the strength, and finally the substance of its parts. Whoever has watched the progress of a lingering distemper, or the work of time alone, in the human frame, will feel at once the force of this comparison, and that, surely every man is vanity. Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, we may hope that God will hear our prayer. The believer expects weariness and ill treatment on his way to heaven; but he shall not stay here long : walking with God by faith, he goes forward on his journey, not diverted from his course, nor cast down by the difficulties he meets. How blessed it is to sit loose from things here below, that while going home to our Father's house, we may use the world as not abusing it! May we always look for that city, whose Builder and Maker is God.

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