Psalm 39:12
‘Remove Your stroke from me! I am consumed by the blow of Your hand! When You with rebukes…correct man…, You make his beauty to consume away like a moth!… O Lord…, I am a stranger with You, and a sojourner!… O spare me, so that I may recover strength — before I go hence, and be (here) no more!’ Psalm 39:10-13.
Calvin comments David means “that God would mitigate the punishment (of the ‘stroke’) which He had inflicted upon him…. For ‘I have fainted by the blow of Your hand’…. If God should begin to deal with us according to the…demands of the Law…, all would perish….
“By the term ‘rebukes’ — David means severe punishments…. When God makes this rigour to be felt, there is no man who does not forthwith consume or pine away…. Just as the moth…wastes by its secret gnawing a piece of cloth or wood” (cf. Isaiah 1:9).
“He alludes to the ‘excellency’ (or ‘beauty’) of man, which He says is destroyed…by corruption when God is offended, even as the moth destroys the most precious cloths…. We are overcome by the power of God and…humbled in the dust!…
“‘Hear my prayer, O Jehovah!’ David gradually increases his vehemence in prayer. He speaks first of ‘prayer’; in the second place, of ‘crying’; and in the third place, of ‘tears’…. David bewailed his condition sincerely, and from the bottom of his heart…. When he calls himself a ‘stranger’ and a ‘sojourner’ — he again shows how miserable his condition was…. He formerly said: ‘My days are before You like nothing!’ (Psalm 39:5)…. God…knows…that men have only a short journey to perform in the world, the end of which is soon reached….
“David entreats God to grant him a little relaxation from his trouble. So that he might recover strength…before he departs from this world…. To ask that — at least time might be granted to him to die…. There is no hope of his being restored to health….
“‘Lord, as it will not be possible for me to endure Your stroke any longer, but I must indeed miserably perish if You continue to afflict me severely — at least grant me relief for a little season, so that in calmness and peace I may commit my soul into Your hands before I depart and be no more…. Not that David could regard death as the entire annihilation of man — or that, renouncing all hope of his salvation, he resigned himself to destruction!”
Calvin also adds in his Institutes II:10:15: “The value he (David) put upon his earthly habitation, is attested by these words: ‘I am a stranger with You, and a sojourner!’… Every man at his best estate, is altogether vanity. Surely every man walks in a vain show. And now, Lord, what am I waiting for? My hope is in You!’ (Psalm 39:5-7,12). (‘Spare me…, before I go hence and be no more!’) He who confesses that there is nothing solid or stable on the Earth, and yet firmly retains his hope in God — undoubtedly contemplates a happiness reserved for him elsewhere!” To be ‘no more’ on Earth. But elsewhere, in Heaven! Lord, hear the prayer of a sojourner here on Earth!
