Mazmur 39:3-4

39:3 my anxiety intensified. ¹ 

As I thought about it, I became impatient. ² 

Finally I spoke these words: ³ 

39:4 “O Lord, help me understand my mortality

and the brevity of life! ⁴ 

Let me realize how quickly my life will pass! ⁵ 

Mazmur 90:9

90:9 Yes, ⁶  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ⁷ 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ⁸ 

[39:3]  ¹ tn Heb “my heart was hot within me.”

[39:3]  ² tn Heb “In my reflection fire burned.” The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite (past tense) or an imperfect being used in a past progressive or customary sense (“fire was burning”).

[39:3]  ³ tn Heb “I spoke with my tongue.” The phrase “these words” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[39:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Cause me to know, O Lord, my end; and the measure of my days, what it is!”

[39:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Let me know how transient I am!”

[90:9]  ⁶ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”