Psalms 39 KJV
The Brevity of Life
About This Psalm
Reflecting on life's brevity. We're just a breath, a shadow. What matters when you realize how short life really is?
1 said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.
2 I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.
3 My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue,
4 LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.
5 Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.
8 Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.
9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.
10 Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
12 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.
13 O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
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Did You Know?
The dedication to Jeduthun, David's appointed temple musician and gatekeeper from 1 Chronicles, implies the psalm was composed for a specific Levitical musical style emphasizing meditative reflection rather than public performance.
Its opening resolve to muzzle the tongue like a bridle before the wicked directly anticipates the New Testament imagery in James 3, yet here the restraint ultimately fails, revealing that silence before humans cannot be maintained before God.
The rare phrase 'every man walketh in a vain shew' employs the Hebrew concept of a fleeting shadow or breath (hebel), linking the psalm not to Greek philosophy but to the patriarchal laments over life's brevity found in Genesis 47.
Positioned between Psalms 38 and 40, it forms a deliberate triptych tracing the progression from penitential suffering through existential silence to renewed trust, a literary structure unique among the Davidic collections.
The final petition to 'spare me' so that strength may return before departing 'and be no more' offers a rare biblical glimpse of mortality without explicit afterlife hope, underscoring raw dependence on the eternal God amid human transience.