Psalms 39:12

Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Hear my prayer, O Lord ... hold not thy peace at my tears - the petition. The ground on which it rests follows.

For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Tears move us instinctively to speak to the weeping one: much more do they move the compassion of Yahweh; as when "the Lord saw"' the widow of Nain in tears, "He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not." Compare also John 20:13. God puts His people's tears in His bottle, and writes them in His book (Psalms 56:8), and will at last wipe them all away (Isaiah 25:8). The Psalmist's absolute dependence, as man, like his fathers before him, on the compassion of God, on whose earth he lives as a mere 'stranger and sojourner,' is his plea that his prayer may be heard. So Abraham to the sons of Heth (Genesis 23:4). Compare Genesis 47:9 as to Jacob. God declared to Israel, "The land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Leviticus 25:33), to which David refers here. Yahweh was Lord of the manor, and the Israelites were but sojourners, permitted to stay with Him and enjoy the fruits, which were His, so long only as He pleased. There is an undesigned coincidence between the words attributed to David in the history in a different connection (1 Chronicles 29:15), and his words here in the psalm.