“Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool! I am mute; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it. Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand. When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah” -Psalm 39:8–11
This is, perhaps, the most poignant passage in this Psalm. The psalmist, acknowledging his own sin as the cause of his suffering, seeks forgiveness: “Deliver me from all my transgressions” and “remove your stroke from me.”
His suffering is a just chastisement but he is “spent by the hostility” of God’s hand. In the old days, it was said that when a son “messed up,” his father would take him behind the woodshed and “wear him out.” All that is dear to him according to this world’s desires has been “consumed” the way a moth consumes the precious heirlooms left stored too long in a closet unattended. So God has worn him out and he knows it was deserved.
This time he refrains from speaking, but not by the effort of his will as he attempted in the earlier verses. Now, his heart has changed and it was the work of God in his life that accomplished the change. David experienced what the author of Hebrews teaches us all God’s children (Hebrews 12:7-8) will also experience at some time or other: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” -Hebrews 12:11