Psalm 39 is like a psychological psalm, in which the speaker expresses his feelings and beliefs about himself in various ways, yet in all of this he always acknowledges the Lord as his help and his teacher. Much of it is about patient submission to the Lord’s will for us. The psalm ends with the words, “Remove your gaze from me, that I may regain strength, before I go away and am no more.”

The spiritual meaning of this psalm seems to be our need to be attentive to the way we handle and deal with whatever thoughts and states come to us, and to see this in connection with our trust that the Lord is always leading us. The opening words speak well to this idea. “I said, ‘I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue. I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are before me.’ ”

A key idea in this psalm is that of silence or staying mute. This should not be seen as passive or weak, but as a definite choice not to speak out with anger or complaint when thoughts come to our mind which bring anguish and despair. In staying silent and keeping mute there is a victory over evil that is seeking to break us and fill us with its own negativity. In verse 2 it says, ‘I was mute with silence, I held my peace even from good.’ and in verse 9, ‘I was mute, I did not open my mouth, because it was You who did it.’ (Arcana Caelestia 8176)

Verses 4 to 6 develop the general idea of the emptiness and nothingness of all that a person does of himself. It will inevitably be tainted by his proprium, his sense of self-worth. The references in these verses to times and measures of days is not about length or passage of time, but about the various states we pass through which can be short or long in duration. (Apocalypse Explained 629)

In verses 5 and 11, in some translations the word ‘vapour’ is used to describe the relative emptiness of mere man. Other versions use the word ‘vanity’ which catches more of the true spiritual idea of a man’s wasted efforts to show his own worth and prowess.

Balancing all of this emptiness of man is to have assurance in the Lord. Verse 7 puts it, ‘And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You.’ This then takes us into the work of the Lord with us in his aim of bringing us into awareness of the Lord, and our need to be checked and corrected. It is only an appearance that the Lord seems to deal harshly with us; it is more that we find it difficult to trust the Lord rather than be self-sufficient.

The word in the original which is used for ‘to correct’ is not just being admonished for being wrong; it equally involves the idea of being instructed in a different way. (Heaven and Hell 512). This helps to explain the next phrase about our beauty melting away like a moth. Our ‘beauty’ is our self-conceit or pride which needs to be dispelled. A ‘moth’ is a flying nocturnal insect which can damage things. Spiritually it corresponds to some false belief we hold. And this is summarised, ‘Surely, every man is vapour.’ The word for vapour or vanity is the word for breath, suggesting the fleeting insubstantial nature of so many of our natural desires. (Divine Providence 218)

The last two verses of the psalm are very personal: a plea to the Lord to hear our supplication and not be silent to us; then, a confession that we are as a stranger before the Lord, one from another land. In our feeling unworthy we ask the Lord to turn his face away which seems to us to accuse us, so that we may gain in strength ‘before I go away and am no more’. This ending is not about physical death, but about spiritual death in which we would perish.