Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley, [1754-65], at sacred-texts.com
Psalms 39:1
psa 39:1
I said - I fully resolved. Take heed - To order all my actions right, and particularly to govern my tongue.
Psalms 39:2
psa 39:2
Dumb - Two words put together, expressing the same thing, to aggravate or increase it. I held - I forbear to speak, what I justly might, lest I should break forth into some indecent expressions. Stirred - My silence did not assuage my grief, but increase it.
Psalms 39:4
psa 39:4
My end - Make me sensible of the shortness and uncertainly of life, and the near approach of death.
Psalms 39:5
psa 39:5
Before thee - If compared with thee, and with thy everlasting duration.
Psalms 39:6
psa 39:6
Vain shew - Heb. in a shadow or image; in an imaginary rather than a real life: in the pursuit of vain imaginations, in which there is nothing solid or satisfactory: man in and his life, and all his happiness in this world, are rather appearances and dreams, than truths and realities. Disquieted - Heb. They make a noise, bustling, or tumult, with unwearied industry seeking for riches, and troubling and vexing both themselves and others in the pursuit of them.
Psalms 39:7
psa 39:7
Mow Lord - Seeing this life and all its enjoyments are so vain and short. My hope - I will seek for happiness no where but in God.
Psalms 39:10
psa 39:10
Remove - Take off the judgment which thou hast inflicted upon me. I am - Help me before I am utterly lost.
Psalms 39:11
psa 39:11
Beauty - His comeliness and all his excellencies or felicities. Moth - As a moth consumeth a garment, to which God compares himself and his judgments, secretly and insensibly consuming a people, Isa 51:8.
Psalms 39:12
psa 39:12
A stranger - I am only in my journey or passage to my real home, which is in the other world.
Psalms 39:13
psa 39:13
No more - Among the living, or in this world.
