Psalm 39:2-4 New English Translation
2 I was stone silent;[a]
I held back the urge to speak.[b]
My frustration grew;[c]
3 my anxiety intensified.[d]
As I thought about it, I became impatient.[e]
Finally I spoke these words:[f]
4 “O Lord, help me understand my mortality
and the brevity of life.[g]
Let me realize how quickly my life will pass.[h]
Footnotes
- Psalm 39:2 tn Heb “I was mute [with] silence.”
- Psalm 39:2 tn Heb “I was quiet from good.” He kept quiet, resisting the urge to find emotional release and satisfaction by voicing his lament.sn I held back the urge to speak. For a helpful discussion of the relationship (and tension) between silence and complaint in ancient Israelite lamentation, see E. S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I (FOTL), 166-67.
- Psalm 39:2 tn Heb “and my pain was stirred up.” Emotional pain is in view here.
- Psalm 39:3 tn Heb “my heart was hot within me.”
- Psalm 39:3 tn Heb “In my reflection fire burned.” The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite (past tense) or an imperfect being used in a past progressive or customary sense (“fire was burning”).
- Psalm 39:3 tn Heb “I spoke with my tongue.” The phrase “these words” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
- Psalm 39:4 tn Heb “Cause me to know, O Lord, my end; and the measure of my days, what it is!”
- Psalm 39:4 tn Heb “Let me know how transient I am.”
New English Translation (NET)
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