A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XXXIX.
_David’s care of his thoughts.—The consideration of the brevity and vanity of life, the reverence of God’s judgments, and prayer, are his bridles of impatience._ To the chief Musician, _even_ to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. I 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. I was dumb with silence: I held my peace, _even_ from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned: _then_ spake I with my tongue, LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it _is_; _that_ I may know how frail I _am_. 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. 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. And now, LORD, what wait I for? my hope _is_ in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst _it_. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
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. 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_. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more. This is a consolatory Psalm, containing also a prayer of the prophet, in which he prays that his mouth may be bridled, that he might not break out into blasphemy and murmuring when he sees the wicked to prosper in the world, and most proudly to despise God and his word, and to think of nothing but amassing riches, &c.; and when he sees, on the contrary, that the godly are afflicted with various temptations without and within, and conflicting both with the world and with the devil. Rather (says he) teach me, O Lord, to know mine end; that is, that there will be an end to my life at length; that is, teach me to magnify the future, which does not yet appear. Guard me from that perilous security of the wicked in which they give themselves up wholly to this world, and devote themselves to coveting the things thereof, and to pride and ambition, as if they should live here for ever. For it is often a great vexation to the godly, and indeed the prophets themselves complain of it,—that the wicked and the evil abound in every kind of luxury, wallow in all the pleasures of wine and feasting, and live their whole lives in security, strangers to trouble and affliction, while the godly are afflicted, and tempted, and distressed both from without and from within.
But the end shows that the godly are happy; and the wicked, with all their perishable happiness, truly miserable. Hence the prophet saith, “And now, Lord, what is my expectation, (or what wait I for?)” As if he had said, shall I be always thus afflicted! Shall I be utterly overwhelmed? Will these temptations continue to return upon us for ever? No! (says he) the Lord is my expectation: that is, I shall find in the end, after all these temptations and death, an eternal life, a reconciled God, the pardon of all my sins, and even in this world, I shall not be forsaken. But the wicked, after their short life, will find nothing but death,—death eternal!
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.