Psalms 39:4 - Exposition

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days. This is not exactly the request of Job, who desired to be at once cut off ( Job 6:9 ; Job 7:15 ; Job 14:13 ), but it is a request conceived in the same spirit. The psalmist is weary of life, expects nothing from it, feels that it is "altogether vanity." He asks, therefore, not exactly for death, hut that it may be told him how long he will have to endure the wretched life that he is leading. He anticipates no relief except in death, and feels, at any rate for the time, that he would welcome death as a deliverer . That I may know how frail I am. So most moderns; but Hengstenberg denies that חדל can ever mean "frail," and falls back upon the old rendering, "that I may know when I shall cease [to be]," which certainly gives a very good sense.