Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 39:12

"Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, and give ear unto my cry; Hold not thy peace at my tears: For I am a stranger with thee, A sojourner, as all my fathers were." — Psalms 39:12 (ASV)

Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry - That is, in view of my affliction and my sins; in view, also, of the perplexing questions which have agitated my heart; the troubling thoughts which passed through my soul, which I did not dare to express before man (Psalms 39:1–2), but which I have now expressed before you.

Hold not thy peace - Do not be silent. Do not refuse to answer me; to speak peace to me.

At my tears - Or rather, at my weeping; as if God heard the voice of his weeping. Weeping, if uncomplaining, is of the nature of prayer, for God regards the sorrows of the soul as he sees them. The weeping penitent, the weeping sufferer, is one on whom we may suppose God looks with compassion, even though the sorrows of the soul do not find "words" to give them utterance. Compare the notes at Job 16:20. See also Romans 8:26.

For I am a stranger - The word used - גר gēr - properly means a sojourner, a foreigner, a man living out of his own country (Genesis 15:13; Exodus 2:22).

It refers to a man who has no permanent home in the place or country where he currently is. It is used here as implying that, in the psalmist's own estimation, he had no permanent abode on earth.

He was in a strange or foreign land. He was passing to a permanent home, and he prays that God would be merciful to him as to a man who has no home - no permanent abiding place - on earth. Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:13; notes at 1 Peter 2:11.

And a sojourner - This word has substantially the same meaning. It denotes one living in another country, without the rights of a citizen.

As all my fathers were - All my ancestors.

The allusion is undoubtedly derived from the fact that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob thus lived as men who had no permanent home here - who had no possession of land in the countries where they sojourned - and whose whole life, therefore, was an illustration of the fact that they were on a journey - a journey to another world.

(1 Chronicles 29:15) - for we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:13-15.