Psalm 109:24

My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(24) Faileth of fatness.—Literally, has failed me from fat, i.e., has dwindled away.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 109:24-25. My knees are weak through fasting — Either through forced fasting for want of food, when he was persecuted, or for want of appetite when he was sick, or through voluntary fasting, which the frequency and long continuance of his sufferings induced him to use. I became also a reproach unto them — Instead of that pity, which either religion or humanity should have taught them to exercise toward a person in extreme misery, they loaded me with reproaches and scorns. They shaked their heads — By way of contempt and derision. In all this David was a type of Christ, who, in his humiliation, was thus wounded, thus weakened, thus reproached, and at whom they thus shook their heads, saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. He was also a type of the church, which is often afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

109:21-31 The psalmist takes God's comforts to himself, but in a very humble manner. He was troubled in mind. His body was wasted, and almost worn away. But it is better to have leanness in the body, while the soul prospers and is in health, than to have leanness in the soul, while the body is feasted. He was ridiculed and reproached by his enemies. But if God bless us, we need not care who curses us; for how can they curse whom God has not cursed; nay, whom he has blessed? He pleads God's glory, and the honour of his name. Save me, not according to my merit, for I pretend to none, but according to thy-mercy. He concludes with the joy of faith, in assurance that his present conflicts would end in triumphs. Let all that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him. Jesus, unjustly put to death, and now risen again, is an Advocate and Intercessor for his people, ever ready to appear on their behalf against a corrupt world, and the great accuser.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My knees are weak through fasting - Hunger; want of food. Strength to stand is connected with firmness in the knee-joints, and hence, weakness and feebleness are denoted by the giving way of the knees. Compare Hebrews 12:12.

And my flesh faileth of fatness - I am lean and weak. There is not the proper supply for my strength. The idea seems to have been that fatness (Hebrew, oil) was necessary to strength.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24, 25. Taunts and reproaches aggravate his afflicted and feeble state (Ps 22:6, 7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Through fasting; either with voluntary fasts, to which the frequency and long continuance of my calamities obliged me; or with forced fasts, sometimes through want of necessary provisions, but most commonly from that loathing of meat, which was occasioned by his excessive sorrows and terrors. See Poole "Psalm 58:8".

Of fatness; or, for want of fatness. See the like Hebrew phrases Genesis 18:26 Jeremiah 48:45 Lamentations 4:9.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My knees are weak through fasting,..... Either voluntary or forced, through want of food or refreshment; this was verified in Christ, when he kneeled and prayed, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground; see Psalm 69:10.

And my flesh faileth of fatness; or "for want of oil" (k); the radical moisture of his flesh being dried up like a potsherd, Psalm 22:15.

(k) , Sept. "propter oleum", V. L. "propter defectum olei", Eth. Arab.

Geneva Study Bible

My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh {n} faileth of fatness.

(n) For hunger that came from sorrow, he was lean and his natural moisture failed him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

24. faileth of fatness] Hath grown lean and lost fatness may be the meaning. But more probably, is shrunken for want of oil. In his distress he had no appetite for food (Psalm 102:4), and like a mourner (2 Samuel 14:2) abstained from the use of oil.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - My knees are weak through fasting. I have brought myself down to extreme weakness by penitential fasting for my sins (comp. Psalm 35:13; Psalm 69:10). And my flesh faileth of fatness; literally, of oil. In my state of mourning and penitence I have abstained from anointing myself (2 Samuel 14:2), which has still further weakened me. Psalm 109:24

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The thunder and lightning are now as it were followed by a shower of tears of deep sorrowful complaint. Psalm 109 here just as strikingly accords with Psalm 69, as Psalm 69 does with Psalm 22 in the last strophe but one. The twofold name Jahve Adonaj (vid., Symbolae, p. 16) corresponds to the deep-breathed complaint. עשׂה אתּי, deal with me, i.e., succouring me, does not greatly differ from לי in 1 Samuel 14:6. The confirmation, Psalm 109:21, runs like Psalm 69:17 : Thy loving-kindness is טּוב, absolutely good, the ground of everything that is good and the end of all evil. Hitzig conjectures, as in Psalm 69:17, חסדך כּטוב, "according to the goodness of Thy loving-kindness;" but this formula is without example: "for Thy loving-kindness is good" is a statement of the motive placed first and corresponding to the "for thy Name's sake." In Psalm 109:22 (a variation of Psalm 55:5) חלל, not חלל, is traditional; this חלל, as being verb. denom. from חלל, signifies to be pierced, and is therefore equivalent to חולל (cf. Luke 2:35). The metaphor of the shadow in Psalm 109:23 is as in Psalm 102:12. When the day declines, the shadow lengthens, it becomes longer and longer (Virgil, majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae), till it vanishes in the universal darkness. Thus does the life of the sufferer pass away. The poet intentionally uses the Niph. נהלכתּי (another reading is נהלכתּי); it is a power rushing upon him from without that drives him away thus after the manner of a shadow into the night. The locust or grasshopper (apart from the plague of the locusts) is proverbial as being a defenceless, inoffensive little creature that is soon driven away, Job 39:20. ננער, to be shaken out or off (cf. Arabic na‛ûra, a water-wheel that fills its clay-vessels in the river and empties them out above, and הנּער, Zechariah 11:16, where Hitzig wishes to read הנּער, dispulsio equals dispulsi). The fasting in Psalm 109:24 is the result of the loathing of all food which sets in with deep grief. כּחשׁ משּׁמן signifies to waste away so that there is no more fat left.

(Note: The verbal group כחשׁ, כחד, Arab. ḥajda, kaḥuṭa, etc. has the primary signification of withdrawal and taking away or decrease; to deny is the same as to withdraw from agreement, and he becomes thin from whom the fat withdraws, goes away. Saadia compares on this passage (פרה) בהמה כחושׁה, a lean cow, Berachoth 32a. In like manner Targum II renders Genesis 41:27 תּורתא כהישׁתא, the lean kine.)

In Psalm 109:25 אני is designedly rendered prominent: in this the form of his affliction he is the butt of their reproaching, and they shake their heads doubtfully, looking upon him as one who is punished of God beyond all hope, and giving him up for lost. It is to be interpreted thus after Psalm 69:11.