¹tn Heb “I said.”
²tn Heb “I will watch my ways, from sinning with my tongue.”
³sn The psalmist wanted to voice a lament to the Lord (see vv. 4-6), but he hesitated to do so in the presence of evil men, for such words might be sinful if they gave the wicked an occasion to insult God. See C. A. Briggs, Psalms, 1:345.
⁴tn Heb “I was mute [with] silence.”
⁵tn 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. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I, 166-67.
⁶tn Heb “and my pain was stirred up.” Emotional pain is in view here.
⁷tn Heb “my heart was hot within me.”
⁸tn 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”).
⁹tn Heb “I spoke with my tongue.” The phrase “these words” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
¹⁰tn Heb “Cause me to know, O Lord, my end; and the measure of my days, what it is!”
¹¹tn Heb “Let me know how transient I am!”
¹²tn Heb “Look, handbreadths you make my days.” The “handbreadth” (equivalent to the width of four fingers) was one of the smallest measures used by ancient Israelites. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 309.
¹³tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”
¹⁴tn Heb “surely, all vapor [is] all mankind, standing firm.” Another option is to translate, “Surely, all mankind, though seemingly secure, is nothing but a vapor.”
¹⁵tn Heb “surely, as an image man walks about.” The preposition prefixed to “image” indicates identity here.
sn People go through life (Heb “man walks about”). “Walking” is here used as a metaphor for living. The point is that human beings are here today, gone tomorrow. They have no lasting substance and are comparable to mere images or ghosts.
¹⁶tc Heb “Surely [in] vain they strive, he accumulates and does not know who gathers them.” The MT as it stands is syntactically awkward. The verb forms switch from singular (“walks about”) to plural (“they strive”) and then back to singular (“accumulates and does not know”), even though the subject (generic “man”) remains the same. Furthermore there is no object for the verb “accumulates” and no plural antecedent for the plural pronoun (“them”) attached to “gathers.” These problems can be removed if one emends the text from /wymhy lbh (“[in] vain they strive”) to /wmh ylbh (“vain things of wealth.” This assumes a misdivision in the MT and a virtual dittography of vav between the mem and nun of /wmh. The present translation follows this emendation.
¹⁷tn Heb “my hope, for you it [is].”
¹⁸tn Heb “because you acted.” The psalmist has in mind God’s disciplinary measures (see vv. 10-13).
¹⁹tn Heb “remove from upon me your wound.”
²⁰tn Heb “from the hostility of your hand I have come to an end.”
²¹tn “with punishments on account of sin you discipline a man.”
²²tc Heb “you cause to dissolve, like a moth, his desired [thing].” The translation assumes an emendation of wdwmj (“his desirable [thing]”) to wdmj (“his loveliness” [or “beauty”]; see HALOT 325), a reading that is supported by a few medieval Hebrew mss.
²³tn Heb “do not be deaf to my tears.”
²⁴tn Heb “For a resident alien [am] I with you, a sojourner like all my fathers.”
sn Resident aliens were dependent on the mercy and goodwill of others. The Lord was concerned that resident aliens be treated properly. See Deut 24:17-22, Ps 146:9.
²⁵tn Heb “Gaze away from me and I will smile before I go and am not.” The precise identification of the initial verb form, uvh, is uncertain. It could be from the root uuv (“smear”), but “your eyes” would be the expected object in this case (see Isa 6:10). The verb may be an otherwise unattested Hiphil form of huv (“to gaze”) meaning “cause your gaze to be.” Some prefer to emend the form to the Qal huv (“gaze”; see Job 14:6). If one does read a form of the verb “to gaze,” the angry divine “gaze” of discipline would seem to be in view (see vv. 10-11). For a similar expression of this sentiment see Job 10:20-21.
²⁶sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).