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Psalm 39:12
“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
10Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
11When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.” Selah.
12“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
13Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go away and exist no more.”
Notice
“Don’t be silent at my tears” names the fear of going unheard by God in a life as brief and unsettled as the fathers’ lives.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What would you want God to hear in the tears you cannot explain?
Write on thisHow does “a stranger with you” describe, or challenge, your sense of life with God?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Psalm 56:8You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?Both bring tears before God: Psalm 39 asks him to respond, while Psalm 56 speaks of him keeping account of them.
2 Kings 20:5“Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, ‘The LORD, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. …Prayer and tears appear in both passages; the psalm asks God to hear, and God tells Hezekiah he has heard and seen.
1 Peter 2:11Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,Both describe people as foreigners, though Peter uses that status to urge resistance to fleshly lusts rather than to plead for relief.
Psalm 119:19I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.Both speakers call themselves strangers and ask God for help: one seeks a hearing, the other access to God's commandments.
Hebrews 11:13These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and …Both use the language of strangers to describe human life, with the lives of earlier generations in view.
Leviticus 25:23“‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.Both describe people as strangers and foreigners with God; Leviticus grounds that status in God's ownership of the land.
Genesis 47:9Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not …Both speakers understand their brief lives through the lives of their fathers, using the language of pilgrimage or being a stranger.
Psalm 116:3The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.Both passages speak from distress; Psalm 39 pleads through tears, while Psalm 116 names trouble and sorrow near death.
1 Chronicles 29:15For we are strangers before you and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.Both describe people as strangers and foreigners before God, sharing the same transient condition as their fathers.
Hebrews 5:7He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been …Both join prayer with crying and tears; Psalm 39 asks to be heard, while Hebrews describes a prayer that was heard.
1 Peter 1:17If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your living as foreigners here in reverent …Both connect addressing God with living as foreigners; Peter adds that this life is to be spent in reverent fear.
Genesis 26:3Live in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For I will give to you, and to your offspring, all these lands, and I will establish the oath …Both speak of life with God, though the psalm pleads for attention and Genesis promises presence and land.
Where this verse fits
Grief. feeling distant from God. death and what comes after.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Your tears need no polished speech before God. Here, a frail person asks YHWH to hear, and the prayer remains a plea for God's attention.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).