Psalms 39:12
Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
The verse belongs to the first book of the Psalms, Psalms 1 to 41. Like many psalms it begins with a sense of great need and moves toward triumph and confidence in God, speaking to every phase of human experience to help in discouragement, strengthen in trial, comfort in grief, expose the dangers of sin and warn of transgression, and point to a God who is able and willing and anxious to save. It is an inspired expression of prayer that pours out the soul to God and teaches believers how to commune with him. In it David prays with tears, asking God to hear him and not remain silent, with meditation stirring deep feeling that joins his tears to his prayer. It shows David pleading with God to hear his cry and attend to his tears, expressing the heart-deep distress that makes prayer fervent, presenting tears and cries as pleas that God hears, with such earnest prayer moving faith toward confidence.
The verse shows David praying to the Lord with tears while recognizing that he and all his ancestors were strangers and sojourners with God, pilgrims who lived in the land only temporarily rather than possessing it as an enduring inheritance. Even at Israel's height of prosperity David regarded himself and his ancestors as strangers and sojourners before God, not as people who had permanently possessed the promised land. That temporary status proves the inheritance promised to Abraham and his descendants had not been received in their earthly lives and will be obtained through the resurrection. God's earthly children are strangers and sojourners in the present world, as their fathers were, and they will inherit the earth only after present conditions end.
The verse is a prophetic word-picture of Christ's inward experience, its prayer of crying to God in suffering, with tears, as one living among strangers and sojourners revealing how he felt during his life-and-death struggles with the enemy. It teaches that life on earth is a temporary sojourn, with David and his fathers as strangers with God rather than permanently settled in this world, so that this world is a training ground for preparing for a better, heavenly country, not the object of affection. God's people are strangers and sojourners on earth, as their fathers were, and are not yet at home or at rest, a picture that applies to the Christian pilgrim whose longing for an eternal home keeps the eyes fixed on a better land. David lived as a stranger and sojourner on earth, holding this world as fleeting and uncertain and not his home, and with that outlook he looked for the approaching end and foretold the time when the God of glory shall appear in flaming fire.