Psalm 102:23

He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) In the way—i.e., in the course of life. Others render, “by reason of the way,” but the meaning is the same. The clause is exactly parallel to “shortened my days.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 102:23. He — Namely, God, whom he considered as bringing these calamities upon them for their sins, and to whom therefore he applies for relief; weakened my strength in the way — That is, soon impaired the prosperity and flourishing condition of our church and commonwealth, in the course of our affairs. “They were for many ages,” says Henry, “in the way to the performance of the great promise made to their fathers, concerning the Messiah, longing as much for it as ever a traveller did to be at his journey’s end; the legal institutions led them in the way; but when the ten tribes were lost in Assyria, and the two almost lost in Babylon, the strength of that nation was weakened, and, in all appearances, its days shortened, for they said, Our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts, Ezekiel 37:11.” “The prophet,” says Dr. Horne, “in the person of captive Zion, having, from Psalm 102:13-22, expressed his faith and hope in the promised redemption, now returns to his mournful complaints as at Psalm 102:11. Israel doubts not of God’s veracity, but fears lest his heavy hand should crush the generation then in being, before they should behold the expiration of their troubles. They were in the way, but their strength was so weakened, and their days shortened, that they almost despaired of holding out to their journey’s end.” Bishop Patrick, however, supposes that the psalmist spake of himself personally, and interprets the passage thus: “I had hopes to have lived to see this blessed time, (namely, of the redemption from Babylon, and the accession of the Gentile nations to the church of God, spoken of in the preceding verses,) “and thought I had been in the way to it, Ezra 3:8. But he hath stopped our vigorous beginnings, Ezra 4:4, and thereby so sorely afflicted me, that I feel I am like to fall short of my expectations.” Dr. Dodd understands the words nearly in the same sense, observing, “The connection is this: ‘Notwithstanding these glorious hopes of being speedily restored to my native country, I find that through continual affliction God hath weakened my strength, even while I thought I was in the way to that happiness; and that, on account of the short remainder of my life, I shall not be able to attain it.’” This interpretation of the words connects well with the following verse.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

102:23-28 Bodily distempers soon weaken our strength, then what can we expect but that our months should be cut off in the midst; and what should we do but provide accordingly? We must own God's hand in it; and must reconcile this to his love, for often those that have used their strength well, have it weakened; and those who, as we think, can very ill be spared, have their days shortened. It is very comfortable, in reference to all the changes and dangers of the church, to remember that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in reference to the death of our bodies, and the removal of friends, to remember that God is an everlasting God. Do not let us overlook the assurance this psalm contains of a happy end to all the believer's trials. Though all things are changing, dying, perishing, like a vesture folding up and hastening to decay, yet Jesus lives, and thus all is secure, for he hath said, Because I live ye shall live also.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He weakened my strength in the way - Margin, as in Hebrew, "afflicted." The idea is, that God had taken his strength away; he had weakened him - humbled him - brought him low by sorrow. The word "way" refers to the course which he was pursuing. In his journey of life God had thus afflicted - humbled - prostrated him. The psalmist here turns from the exulting view which he had of the future Psalm 102:21-22, and resumes his complaint - the remembrance of his troubles and sorrows Psalm 102:3-11. He speaks, doubtless, in the name of his people, and describes troubles which were common to them all. Perhaps the allusion to his troubles here may be designed, as such a recollection should do, to heighten his sense of the goodness and mercy of God in the anticipated blessings of the future.

He shortened my days - Compare Job 21:21; Psalm 89:45. That is, He seemed to be about to cut me off from life, and to bring me to the grave. The psalmist felt so confident that he would die - that he could not endure these troubles, but must sink under them, that he spoke as if it were already done. Compare Psalm 6:4-5.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23-28. The writer, speaking for the Church, finds encouragement in the midst of all his distresses. God's eternal existence is a pledge of faithfulness to His promises.

in the way—of providence.

weakened—literally, "afflicted," and made fearful of a premature end, a figure of the apprehensions of the Church, lest God might not perform His promise, drawn from those of a person in view of the dangers of early death (compare Ps 89:47). Paul (Heb 1:10) quotes Ps 102:26-28 as addressed to Christ in His divine nature. The scope of the Psalm, as already seen, so far from opposing, favors this view, especially by the sentiments of Ps 102:12-15 (compare Isa 60:1). The association of the Messiah with a day of future glory to the Church was very intimate in the minds of Old Testament writers; and with correct views of His nature it is very consistent that He should be addressed as the Lord and Head of His Church, who would bring about that glorious future on which they ever dwelt with fond delightful anticipations.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He, to wit, God, to whom he ascribes these calamities, Psalm 102:10; to whom therefore he addresseth himself for relief.

In the way; either,

1. In the midst of our expectations. Whilst we are expecting the accomplishment of thy promise, either of bringing us out of Babylon, or of sending the Messias, we faint, and one of us perish after another, and our hope is like the giving up of the ghost. Or rather,

2. In the midst of the course of our lives; which sense is confirmed,

1. From the following clause; which, after the manner, explains the former,

he shortened my days; as also from the next verse, where he begs relief from God against this misery in these words, take me not away in the midst of my days.

2. From the use of this word way, which is used for the course of a man’s life, Psalm 2:12, and (which comes to the same thing) for the course of a journey, as it is opposed to the end of the journey, Genesis 24:27 Exodus 23:20, and elsewhere; the life of man being oft compared to a journeying or travelling, and death to his journey’s end. And the psalmist here speaks (as other sacred writers do elsewhere, and as all sorts of writers frequently do) of the whole commonwealth as of one man, and of its continuance as of the life of one man. And so this seems to be the matter of his complaint and humble expostulation with God: O Lord, thou didst choose us out of all the world to be thy peculiar people, and didst plant us in Canaan, and cause a glorious temple to be built to thy name, to be the only place of thy public and solemn worship in the world, and didst make great and glorious promises, that thine eyes and heart should be upon it perpetually, 1 Kings 9:3, and that thy people should be planted in thy land, so as not to be moved any more or afflicted, as they had been in the days of the judges, 2 Samuel 7:10,11; from whence we promised to ourselves a long and settled prosperity. But, alas, how soon were our hopes blasted! not long after the beginning of our settlement, in Rehoboam’s time, and so successively in the course of our affairs under the following kings, till at last thou didst give us up to ruin and desolation, as at this day. And this he doth not allege to accuse God, or excuse himself or his people, but only that he might move the Divine Majesty to show them some pity, considering the shortness of their days, and his own eternity, as he pursues the argument in the following verses. My days; the days of my life, or of my prosperous state, as above, Psalm 102:1; for adversity is a kind of death, and is frequently so called.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He weakened my strength in the way,.... The psalmist here returns to his complaint of his afflictions, weakness, and frailty, which ended Psalm 102:11, after which some hints are given of the latter day glory, which though he despaired of seeing, by reason of his frailty and mortality, yet comforts himself with the eternity and immutability of Christ, and that there would be a succession of the church, a seed of true believers, who would see and enjoy it: as for himself, he says that God (for he is that "He", and not the enemy, as some) had "weakened" his "strength in the way", by afflictions, as the word (e) signifies; which weakens the strength and vigour of the mind, and discourages and dispirits it, and enfeebles the body: many are the afflictions which the people of God meet with in the course of their life, in their way to heaven, which have such an effect upon them; through many tribulations they pass to enter the kingdom, as the Israelites in their way to Canaan, and Christ to glory: some think the psalmist represents the Jews in their return from the Babylonish captivity, meeting with difficulties and discouragements in the way; rather the church of God, in the expectation of the Messiah, who, because his coming was delayed, grew feeble in their faith and hope, had weak hands and feeble knees, which needed strengthening by fresh promises: though it may be, best of all, the people of God, waiting for latter day glory, enfeebled by the persecutions of antichrist, or grown weak in the exercises of their grace, faith, hope, and love; which will be their case before these glorious times, and now is, see Revelation 3:2,

he shortened my days; which he thought he should live, and expected he would; and which, according to the course of nature, and the common term of man's life, he might, in all human appearance, have lived; otherwise, with respect to the decree of God, which has fixed the bounds of man's days, they cannot be shorter or longer than they are, Job 14:5.

(e) "afflixit", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Musculus, Piscator, Gejerus, Schmidt; so Ainsworth.

Geneva Study Bible

He {q} weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

(q) The church lament that they see not the time of Christ, which was promised, but have but few years and short days.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23, 24. He hath brought down my strength in the way;

He hath shortened my days.

I will say, O my God &c.

Life has been a toilsome journey for him; he is prematurely old; but he deprecates an untimely death. He would fain survive to see with his own eyes the glory which he knows is to be revealed. Cp. Psalm 89:47, note. The contrast of God’s eternal years adds pathos to the thought of the brevity of his own life, yet at the same time that eternity is the guarantee for His faithfulness to His people.

My strength is the traditional reading (Q’rç), which is supported by most of the Versions. The written text (K’thîbh) has his strength, which must be rendered, He hath afflicted me with his strength; or, His strength hath brought me down. But the Q’rç gives a better sense.

23–28. From the contemplation of the glorious future the Psalmist returns to the present, and takes up the thought of Psalm 102:11.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 23-28. - The third strophe begins with an acknowledgment of weakness - a sort of "renewed complaint" (Hengstenberg). But from this there is an ascent to a higher confidence than any displayed previously - a confidence that God, who is everlasting (vers. 24-27), will perpetually protect his people, and, whatever becomes of the existing generation, will establish their seed before him forever (ver. 28). Verse 23. - He weakened my strength in the way. The reading "my strength" (כחי) is greatly to be preferred to that of "his strength" (כחו), which cannot be made to yield a tolerable meaning. It is judiciously adopted by Professor Cheyne, who translates, "He has brought down my strength in the way," and explains "the way" as "the journey of life." So also Rosenmuller and Hengstenberg. He shortened my days; i.e. "made me grow old prematurely" (comp. ver.] 1). Psalm 102:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On the way (ב as in Psalm 110:7) - not "by means of the way" (ב as in Psalm 105:18), in connection with which one would expect of find some attributive minuter definition of the way - God hath bowed down his strength (cf. Deuteronomy 8:2); it was therefore a troublous, toilsome way which he has been led, together with his people. He has shortened his days, so that he only drags on wearily, and has only a short distance still before him before he is entirely overcome. The Chethb כחו (lxx ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ) may be understood of God's irresistible might, as in Job 23:6; Job 30:18, but in connection with it the designation of the object is felt to be wanting. The introductory אמר (cf. Job 10:2), which announces a definite moulding of the utterance, serves to give prominence to the petition that follows. In the expression אל־תּעלני life is conceived of as a line the length of which accords with nature; to die before one's time is a being taken up out of this course, so that the second half of the line is not lived through (Psalm 55:24, Isaiah 38:10). The prayer not to sweep him away before his time, the poet supports not by the eternity of God in itself, but by the work of the rejuvenation of the world and of the restoration of Israel that is to be looked for, which He can and will bring to an accomplishment, because He is the ever-living One. The longing to see this new time is the final ground of the poet's prayer for the prolonging of his life. The confession of God the Creator in Psalm 102:26 reminds one in its form of Isaiah 48:13, cf. Psalm 44:24. המּה in Psalm 102:27 refers to the two great divisions of the universe. The fact that God will create heaven and earth anew is a revelation that is indicated even in Isaiah 34:4, but is first of all expressed more fully and in many ways in the second part of the Book of Isaiah, viz., Isaiah 51:6, Isaiah 51:16; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22. It is clear from the agreement in the figure of the garment (Isaiah 51:6, cf. Psalm 50:9) and in the expression (עמד, perstare, as in Isaiah 66:22) that the poet has gained this knowledge from the prophet. The expressive אתּה הוּא, Thou art He, i.e., unalterably the same One, is also taken from the mouth of the prophet, Isaiah 41:4; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 46:4; Isaiah 48:12; הוּא is a predicate, and denotes the identity (sameness) of Jahve (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 63). In v. 29 also, in which the prayer for a lengthening of life tapers off to a point, we hear Isaiah 65:2; Isaiah 66:22 re-echoed. And from the fact that in the mind of the poet as of the prophet the post-exilic Jerusalem and the final new Jerusalem upon the new earth under a new heaven blend together, it is evident that not merely in the time of Hezekiah or of Manasseh (assuming that Isaiah 40:1 are by the old Isaiah), but also even in the second half of the Exile, such a perspectively foreshortened view was possible. When, moreover, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews at once refers Psalm 102:26-28 to Christ, this is justified by the fact that the God whom the poet confesses as the unchangeable One is Jahve who is to come.