O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
Psalms 39 through 41 close the first book of the Psalms. The verse is a plea for God to spare the speaker and give relief and restored strength before death. Going hence and being no more means going away and departing from this life.
Death here is being no more rather than passage into heaven and endless joy. This supports the belief that death ends conscious life, for the dead do not remember or praise God. David does not expect to ascend immediately to heaven to praise God. To read his request for a little more comfort before death as a request to go to heaven at death distorts its meaning.
Read with the other prophetic psalms of Christ's experience, the verse gives a glimpse of his inmost feelings in struggle and suffering. It is a wonderful song of human experience, to be brought by faith into personal experience for strength in daily tasks and trials. It is echoed as a plea for time and strength to become fruitful and faithful before departing this life. The longing is to use remaining time in knowledge, faith, and obedience in order to be gathered by God at the harvest into eternal joy, accepting even a humble place among his gathered people and asking only to be received by him.
Psalms 39 through 41 close the first book of the Psalms. The verse is a plea for God to spare the speaker and give relief and restored strength before death. Going hence and being no more means going away and departing from this life.
Death here is being no more rather than passage into heaven and endless joy. This supports the belief that death ends conscious life, for the dead do not remember or praise God. David does not expect to ascend immediately to heaven to praise God. To read his request for a little more comfort before death as a request to go to heaven at death distorts its meaning.
Read with the other prophetic psalms of Christ's experience, the verse gives a glimpse of his inmost feelings in struggle and suffering. It is a wonderful song of human experience, to be brought by faith into personal experience for strength in daily tasks and trials. It is echoed as a plea for time and strength to become fruitful and faithful before departing this life. The longing is to use remaining time in knowledge, faith, and obedience in order to be gathered by God at the harvest into eternal joy, accepting even a humble place among his gathered people and asking only to be received by him.