Peter, in his ethical admonitions to his readers, reminds them that they are “strangers and pilgrims” in this world (1 Pet 2:11; cf. Ps 39:13). But above all, it is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews who develops the theme. In developing the great catalogue of men of faith, he says of them: “they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth” (Heb 11:13), again employing the words of Ps 39. In the psalm, the perspective is developed as one appropriate for living this life; in the NT, it is broadened to incorporate the life beyond as well. But it is healthy to begin with the psalm; in this life, our permanence is not to be found in the world as such, but in God who granted us life in the world. To combine an awareness of the transitory nature of human life as a whole, with the wisdom that “sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” is a starting point in achieving the sanity of a pilgrim in an otherwise mad world.

PETER C. CRAIGIE AND MARVIN TATE, PSALMS 1-50, VOLUME 19: SECOND EDITION (WORD BIBLICAL COMMENTARY), 311.