Psalms 39:12

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.

Psalms 39:12 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 39:12

Hear my prayer, O Lord
Which was, that he would remove the affliction from him that lay so hard and heavy upon him;

and give ear unto my cry;
which shows the distress he was in, and the vehemency with which he put up his petition to the Lord;

hold not thy peace at my tears;
which were shed in great plenty, through the violence of the affliction, and in his fervent prayers to God; see ( Hebrews 5:7 ) ;

for I [am] a stranger with thee;
not to God, to Christ, to the Spirit, to the saints, to himself, and the plague of his own heart, or to the devices of Satan; but in the world, and to the men of it; being unknown to them, and behaving as a stranger among them; all which was known to God, and may be the meaning of the phrase "with thee"; or reference may be had to the land of Canaan, in which David dwelt, and which was the Lord's, and in which the Israelites dwelt as strangers and sojourners with him, ( Leviticus 25:23 ) ; as it follows here;

[and] a sojourner, as all my fathers [were];
meaning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their posterity; see ( Genesis 23:4 ) ( 35:27 ) ( Psalms 105:23 ) ; as are all the people of God in this world: this is not their native place; they belong to another and better country; their citizenship is in heaven; their Father's house is there, and there is their inheritance, which they have a right unto, and a meetness for: they have no settlement here; nor is their rest and satisfaction in the things of this world: they reckon themselves, while here, as not at home, but in a foreign land; and this the psalmist mentions, to engage the Lord to regard his prayers, since he has so often expressed a concern for the strangers and sojourners in the land of Israel.

Psalms 39:12 In-Context

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.