(10) Stroke.--See Note to Psalm 38:11.

Blow.--Margin, "conflict." A word only found here; from a root meaning rough. LXX. and Vulg. have "strength."

Calvin's last words are said to have been a reminiscence of this verse.

Verse 10. - Remove thy stroke away from me (camp. Psalm 38:11). I am consumed by the blow of thine hand; literally, by the quarrel of thine hand. But our version gives the true meaning. The "quarrel" has led the "hand" to deal the "stroke" by which the sufferer is "consumed" or "wasted away" (Kay).

39:7-13 There is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature; but it is to be found in the Lord, and in communion with him; to him we should be driven by our disappointments. If the world be nothing but vanity, may God deliver us from having or seeking our portion in it. When creature-confidences fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust in. We may see a good God doing all, and ordering all events concerning us; and a good man, for that reason, says nothing against it. He desires the pardoning of his sin, and the preventing of his shame. We must both watch and pray against sin. When under the correcting hand of the Lord, we must look to God himself for relief, not to any other. Our ways and our doings bring us into trouble, and we are beaten with a rod of our own making. What a poor thing is beauty! and what fools are those that are proud of it, when it will certainly, and may quickly, be consumed! The body of man is as a garment to the soul. In this garment sin has lodged a moth, which wears away, first the beauty, then the strength, and finally the substance of its parts. Whoever has watched the progress of a lingering distemper, or the work of time alone, in the human frame, will feel at once the force of this comparison, and that, surely every man is vanity. Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, we may hope that God will hear our prayer. The believer expects weariness and ill treatment on his way to heaven; but he shall not stay here long : walking with God by faith, he goes forward on his journey, not diverted from his course, nor cast down by the difficulties he meets. How blessed it is to sit loose from things here below, that while going home to our Father's house, we may use the world as not abusing it! May we always look for that city, whose Builder and Maker is God.Remove thy stroke away from me,.... The psalmist still considers his affliction as coming from the hand of God, as his stroke upon him, and which lay as a heavy burden on him, and which God only could remove; and to him he applies for the removal of it, who is to be sought unto by his people to do such things for them; nor is such an application any ways contrary to that silence and patience before expressed;

I am consumed by the blow of thine hand; meaning either that his flesh was consumed by his affliction, which came from the hand of God, or he should be consumed if he did not remove it: he could not bear up under it, but must sink and die; if he continued to strive and contend with him, his spirit would fail before him, and the soul that he had made; and therefore he entreats he would remember he was but dust, and remove his hand from him; for this is a reason enforcing the preceding petition.