Commentary on Psalms Volume 2 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 2 them. Whenever, therefore, the flesh shall put forth its efforts, and shall kindle up a fire in our hearts, let us know that we are exercised with the same kind of temptation which occasioned so much pain and trouble to David. In the end of the verse he acknowledges that the severity of the affliction with which he was visited had at length overcome him, and that he allowed foolish and unadvised words to pass from his lips. In his own person he sets before us a mirror of human infirmity, that, being warned by the danger to which we are exposed, we may learn betimes to seek protection under the shadow of God's wings. When he says that he spake with his tongue, it is not a superfluous mode of expression, but a true and fuller confession of his sin, in that he had not only given way to sinful murmuring, but had even uttered loud complaints.
Psalm 39:4-6
4. O Jehovah! cause me to know my end, and the number of my days, that I may understand how long I may live. 64 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth, and mine age as if it were nothing before thee: truly every man, while he standeth, is wholly vanity. Selah. 6. Surely man walketh in a shadow; surely he disquieteth himself in vain: they heap together [riches, 65 ] and know not who shall gather them.
4. O Jehovah! cause me to know my end. It appears from this, that David was transported by an improper and sinful excess of passion, seeing he finds fault with God. This will appear still more clearly from the following verses. It is true, indeed, that in what follows he introduces pious and becoming prayers, but here he complains, that, being a mortal man, whose life is frail and transitory, he is not treated more mildly by God. Of this, and similar complaints, the discourses of Job are almost full. It is, therefore, not without anger and resentment that David speaks in this manner: "O God, since thou art acting with so much severity towards me, at least make me to know how long thou hast appointed me to live. But is it so, that my life is but a moment, why then dost thou act with so great rigour? and why dost thou accumulate upon my head such a load of miseries, as if I had yet many ages to live? What does it profit me to have been born, if I must pass the period of my existence, which is so brief, in misery, and oppressed with a continued succession of calamities?"
Or, as Horsley reads, "how brief I am."
The word riches is a supplement; there being no word for it in Calvin's version, nor in the Hebrew text; but the meaning evidently is, "they heap up, accumulate, or amass riches." Horsley reads, "His accumulated riches — he knoweth not who shall gather them."
JOHN CALVIN
Accordingly, this verse should be read in connection with the following one. Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth. A hand-breadth is the measure of four fingers, and is here taken for a very small measure; as if it had been said, the life of man flies swiftly away, and the end of it, as it were, touches the beginning. Hence the Psalmist concludes that all men are only vanity before God. As to the meaning of the words, he does not ask that the brevity of human life should be shown to him, as if he knew it not. There is in this language a kind of irony, as if he had said, Let us count the number of the years which still remain to me on earth, and will they be a sufficient recompense for the miseries which I endure? Some render the word,חדלchedel, mundane; and others temporal, that is to say, that which endures only for a time. But the latter rendering is not appropriate in this place: for David does not as yet expressly declare the shortness of his life, but continues to speak on that subject ambiguously. If the word mundane is adopted, the sense will be, Show me whether thou wilt prolong my life to the end of the world. But in my judgment, the translation which I have followed is much more appropriate; and, besides, there may have been a transposition of the letters,דdaleth, and,לlamed, making the word chedel for cheled. It may, however, very properly be taken for an age or period of life. 66 When he says that his age is, as it were, nothing before God, in order to excite God so much the more to pity and compassion, he appeals to him as a witness of his frailty, intimating, that it is not a thing unknown to him how transitory and passing the life of man is. The expression, wholly or altogether vanity, 67 implies that among the whole human race there is nothing but vanity. He declares this of men, even whilst they are standing; 68 that is to say, when, being in the prime and vigor of life, they wish to be held in estimation, and seem to themselves to be men possessed of considerable influence and power. It was the pangs of sorrow which forced
"Mine age, i.e., the whole extent of my life." — Cresswell.
The word,הבלhebel, rendered vanity, according to some, means the mirage, that deceptive appearance of a collection of waters in the distance, which the traveler, through the Arabian deserts, imagines he sees before him, and from which he fondly hopes to quench his thirst; but which, upon his coming up to it, he finds to be only burning sands, to which the reflection of the light of the sun had given the appearance of a lake of water. According to others, vanity means a vapor, as the breath of one's mouth, which speedily vanishes; to which the apostle refers in James 4:14. "I take the word in its proper sense," [vapor,] says Bishop Mant, "as more poetical and energetic than the derivative one of 'vanity.'" See Simonis and Parkhurst on.הבלAbel gave to his second son the name of Hebel, vanity, and here David declares thatכל-אדםcol-adam, all adam, every man is hebel, vanity.
This word here rendered standeth "is well paraphrased by Dathe, 'Dum firmissime constitutus videatur.'" — Rogers' Psalms in Heb., volume2, p. 200.