This Psalm is likely designated in your Bible as "For Jeduthun." You'll remember (or maybe you won't...its ok) Jeduthun was one of three Levites designated by David for musical duty back in 1 Chronicles 25. I wonder if David wrote this, and then Jeduthun led the singing of it.
This Psalm isn't the most happy-go-lucky Psalm in the book, and when I think about it, very few are. David deals a lot with fear and guilt and the need for deliverance and restoration from suffering. The 39th Psalm, at least in my opinion, bemoans the temporary nature of life. A couple times it is said here that a man's life is "but a breath." Extremely short in comparison to the eternal God, and extremely inconsequential in the universal scheme of things. And the thought of this is troubling. It's a discomforting thought to consider one's own mortality as it is. So where would one seek comfort? The almighty God. It seems a lot like a child who would go to his father with painful questions in need of comforting answers.
So that question then, considering man's phantom life, is "What's the point?" To store up treasures is an exercise in futility. There is no certainty in wealth, because it will eventually be lost...useless. Verse 13 gives a bit of a clue. The writer wants to rejoice before he departs and is no more. That is what seems to be lasting. That is what goes beyond life, the rejoicing and the relationship with God.
Another thrust of this Psalm is that because of the shortness of life, going through it at odds with the creator is no life at all. Discipline happens, faltering happens, but this Psalm encourages one to be like David...to restore that relationship with God, to be saved from sin, so that there is something more than a phantom life.
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