Psalms 39:2. I was dumb with silence,
Ah, me! How often we do wrong even when we try to do right! He tried not to sin with his tongue, so he was silent, but silence itself may be a sin of the tongue. God forgive our idle silence, and silence our idle words! I do not think we often sin this way; but silence may sometimes be more wicked than speech even though at other times speech is silvern and silence is golden. If silence is sometimes better than speech, it may also be worse. So poor David, like a pendulum, swings first this way and then the other way. Yet he went too far in the silent direction.
Psalms 39:2. I held my peace, even from good;
Which he should not have done. A dumb sorrow is a heavy sorrow.
Psalms 39:2. And my sorrow was stirred.
Or "troubled." Water, while it is quiet, may look clear, the sediment lies still at the bottom; but if you stir it, you see all there is in it. So is it with sorrow; when it is stirred, you find its bitterness.
Psalms 39:2. I was dumb with silence,
Ah, me! How often we do wrong even when we try to do right! He tried not to sin with his tongue, so he was silent, but silence itself may be a sin of the tongue. God forgive our idle silence, and silence our idle words! I do not think we often sin this way; but silence may sometimes be more wicked than speech even though at other times speech is silvern and silence is golden. If silence is sometimes better than speech, it may also be worse. So poor David, like a pendulum, swings first this way and then the other way. Yet he went too far in the silent direction.
Psalms 39:2. I held my peace, even from good;
Which he should not have done. A dumb sorrow is a heavy sorrow.
Psalms 39:2. And my sorrow was stirred.
Or "troubled." Water, while it is quiet, may look clear, the sediment lies still at the bottom; but if you stir it, you see all there is in it. So is it with sorrow; when it is stirred, you find its bitterness.