Psalms 39:12-13

12, 13. The concluding verses are a prayer for restoration, urged by the shortness and frailty of life.

Prayer… cry… tears “Prayer,” here, must be understood of prostrate pleading; “cry,” or outcry, as lamentable wailing; and “tears” alone could climax the earnestness of his devotions. “When the gates of prayer seem to be closed, the gates of tears still remain unclosed.” Delitzsch.

Stranger… sojourner A glance at the primitive nomadic life of his ancestors, Genesis 23:4; Genesis 47:9; compare Hebrews 11:9; Hebrews 11:13. A “stranger” is a traveller, one passing through a country with no fixed abode; a “sojourner” is one dwelling in a country for a time, and holding property by legal sufferance, but not a citizen: both transient.

Oh spare me Literally, look away from me; that is, turn away thy threatening look and avenging hand.

That I may recover strength Hebrew, and 1 will be joyful. Bishop Alexander reads: “That I may smile again.”

Before I go hence The verb simply means to depart, but is sometimes used to signify departing by death, dying, as Genesis 15:2, “I go childless,” I die, or depart, childless.

And be no more Literally, and am not; exist no longer with living men upon earth, death being represented as it affects our relation to earthly life. On this verse see Job 7:8; Job 7:19-21; Job 10:20-21; Job 14:6; to which the metaphors and sentiments correspond. The phrase “ I go,” or, depart, is grounded in the belief that the “I,” or ego, is different from and independent of the body.