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Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 39

What St Athanasius said to pray when you guard yourself and the pull grows stronger, in a letter from the 300s.

  • 13Verses
  • 1Situation

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. This is what he gave this one for.

You resolved to keep watch over yourself, and the pull has come at you harder ever since.

When you have resolved to keep watch over yourself and you see the enemy attacking, since that is when he rises up most against people like you, and you want to brace yourself against him, sing Psalm 39.

Letter to Marcellinus

Psalm 39:7

Where it turns

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.

13 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 39

Its own heading For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.

  1. 1I said, “I will watch my ways so that I will not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are present.”
  2. 2I was speechless and still; I remained silent, even from speaking good, and my sorrow was stirred.
  3. 3My heart grew hot within me; as I mused, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue:
  4. 4“Show me, O LORD, my end and the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting my life is.
  5. 5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
  6. 6Surely every man goes about like a phantom; surely he bustles in vain; he heaps up riches not knowing who will haul them away.
  7. 7And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
  8. 8Deliver me from all my transgressions; do not make me the reproach of fools.
  9. 9I have become mute; I do not open my mouth because of what You have done.
  10. 10Remove Your scourge from me; I am perishing by the force of Your hand.
  11. 11You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah
  12. 12Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.
  13. 13Turn Your gaze away from me, that I may again be cheered before I depart and am no more.”

Psalm 39 is 38 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

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Which Psalm are you living right now?

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.