Psalm 102:23-25
He weakened my strength in the way;
He shortened my days.
24
I said, “O my God,
Do not take me away in the midst of my days;
Your years are throughout all generations.
25
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Spurgeon
“He weakened my strength in the way.” Here the psalmist comes down again to the mournful string and pours forth his personal complaint. His sorrow had cast down his spirit, and even caused weakness in his bodily frame so that he was like a pilgrim who limped along the road and was ready to lie down and die.
“He shortened my days.” Though he had bright hopes for Jerusalem, he feared that he should have departed this life long before those visions had become realities; he felt that he was pining away and would be a short-lived man. Perhaps this may be our lot, and it will materially help us to be content with it if we are persuaded that the grandest of all interests is safe, and the good old cause secure in the hands of the Lord.
“I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.” He betook himself to prayer. What better remedy is there for heart sickness and depression? We may lawfully ask for recovery from sickness and may hope to be heard. Good men should not dread death, but they are not forbidden to love life: for many reasons, the man who has the best hope of heaven may nevertheless think it desirable to continue here a little longer, for the sake of his family, his work, the church of God, and even the glory of God itself. Some read the passage, “Take me not up,” let me not ascend like disappearing smoke, do not whirl me away like Elijah in a chariot of fire, for as yet I have only seen half my days, and that a sorrowful half; give me to live till the blustering morning shall have softened into a bright afternoon of happier existence.
“Thy years are throughout all generations.” Thou livest, Lord; let me live also. A fulness of existence is with thee, let me partake therein. Note the contrast between himself pining and ready to expire, and his God living on in the fullness of strength for ever and ever; this contrast is full of consolatory power to the man whose heart is stayed upon the Lord.
“Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth.” Creation is no new work with God, and therefore to “create Jerusalem a praise in the earth” will not be difficult to him. Long ere the holy city was laid in ruins the Lord made a world out of nothing, and it will be no labor to him to raise the walls from their heaps and replace the stones in their courses. We can neither continue our own existence nor give being to others, but the Lord not only is, but he is the Maker of all things that are; hence, when our affairs are at the very lowest ebb we are not at all despairing, because the Almighty and Eternal Lord can yet restore us.
“And the heavens are the work of thine hands.” Thou canst therefore not merely lay the foundations of Zion, but complete its roof, even as thou hast arched in the world with its ceiling of blue; the loftiest stories of thine earthly palace shall be piled on high without difficulty when thou dost undertake the building thereof, since thou art architect of the stars, and the spheres in which they move. When a great labor is to be performed it is eminently reassuring to contemplate the power of him who has undertaken to accomplish it, and when our own strength is exhausted it is supremely cheering to see the unfailing energy which is still engaged on our behalf.
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Enduring Word
He weakened my strength in the way: The psalmist began this song by recognizing his own weakness (Psalm 102:1-11). Then he praised God for His deliverance and ultimate victory (Psalm 102:12-22). Now in the last section of this psalm, he confessed once again his weakness and frailty (shortened my days). (Guzik)
He weakened…He shortened: In addition, the psalmist recognized that it was God who either caused or allowed his weakness and frailty. Here the psalmist wrote with a point much like that of the much later Apostle Paul, who saw God’s plan and even glory in his present weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). (Guzik)
O my God, do not take me away: Overwhelmed by both his sense of great weakness in affliction, and by the awareness of God’s greatness and ultimate victory, the psalmist did the right thing. He cried out in prayer, pleading for God’s merciful help. (Guzik)
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth: Psalm 102:25-27 is quoted in Hebrews 1:10-12 as the words of God the Father unto God the Son, the Messiah. (Guzik)
i. In the Hebrew text of Psalm 102:25-27, the psalmist says this to Yahweh, but the idea that God Himself speaks these words is more clear in the Greek translation of the Hebrew (the Septuagint), which the author of Hebrews quoted. (Guzik)
ii. “The epistle opens our eyes to what would otherwise be brought out only by the Septuagint of verses 23f.…namely that the Father is here replying to the Son, ‘through whom all things were made’.” (Kidner)
iii. “The writer of the Epistle is not asserting that the psalmist consciously spoke of the Messiah, but he is declaring that his words, read in the light of history, point to Jesus as the crowning manifestation of the redeeming, and therefore necessarily of the creating, God.” (Maclaren)
iv. “When the psalmist wrote these words he was thinking of God the Father, as he has been throughout the psalm. There is very little intimation of the Trinity or the person of the Son of God in the Old Testament. Still, the author of Hebrews is right when he views these words as spoken by the Father to Jesus Christ.” (Boice)
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Barnes
Verse 24
I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days – This was the burden of my prayer, for this I earnestly pleaded. See Psalms 30:9; Isaiah 38:1-3, Isaiah 38:9-18. The word used here means “to cause to ascend or go up” and the expression might have been translated, “Cause me not to ascend.” The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render it, “Call me not away.” Dr. Horsley,” Carry me not off.” In the word there may be an allusion – an obscure one, it is to be admitted – to the idea that the soul ascends to God when the body dies. The common idea in the Old Testament is that it would descend to the regions of the departed spirits – to Sheol. It is plain, however, that there was another idea – that the soul would ascend at once to God when death occurred. Compare Ecclesiastes 3:21; Ecclesiastes 12:7. The word rendered “in the midst” means properly in the half; as if life were divided into two portions. Compare Psalms 55:23.
Thy years are throughout all generations – Thou dost not die; thou art ever the same, though the generations of people are cut off. This seems to have been said here for two reasons:
(1) As a ground of consolation, that God was ever the same; that whatever might happen to people, to the psalmist himself, or to any other man, God was unchanged, and that his great plans would be carried forward and accomplished;
(2) As a reason for the prayer. God was eternal. He had an immortal existence. He could not die. He knew, in its perfection, the blessedness of “life” – life as such; life continued; life unending. The psalmist appeals to what God himself enjoyed – as a reason why life – so great a blessing – should be granted to him a little longer. By all that there was of blessedness in the life of God, the psalmist prays that that which was in itself – even in the case of God – so valuable, might yet a little longer be continued to “him.”
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Henry
I. The imminent danger that the Jewish church was in of being quite extirpated and cut off by the captivity in Babylon (v. 23): He weakened my strength in the way. They were for many ages 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 appearance, its day shortened; for they said, Our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts, Eze. 37:11. And then what becomes of the promise that Shiloh should arise out of Judah, the star out of Jacob, and the Messiah out of the family of David? If these fail, the promise fails. This the psalmist speaks of as in his own person, and it is very applicable to two of the common afflictions of this time:-
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- 1. To be sickly. Bodily distempers soon weaken our strength in the way, make the keepers of the house to tremble and the strong men to bow themselves.
- 2. To be short-lived. Where the former is felt, this is feared; when in the midst of our days, according to a course of nature, our strength is weakened, what can we expect but that the number of 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 (for in his hand our strength and time are), and must reconcile it to his love, for it has often been the lot of those that have used their strength well to have it weakened, and of those that could very ill be spared to have their days shortened.
II. A prayer for the continuance of it (v. 24): “O my God! take me not away in the midst of my days; let not this poor church be cut off in the midst of the days assigned it by the promise; let it not be cut off till the Messiah shall come. Destroy it not, for that blessing is in it,” Isa. 65:8. She is a criminal, but, for the sake of that blessing which is in her, she pleads for a reprieve. This is a prayer for the afflicted, and which, with submission to the will of God, we may in faith put up, that God would not take us away in the midst of our days, but that, if it be his will, he would spare us to do him further service and to be made riper for heaven.
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Geneva Bible 1560
Psalm 102:23-25
23 He q abated my strength in the way, and shortened my days.
24 And I said, O my God, take me not away in the middes of my daies: thy yeres endure from generation to generation.
25 Thou hast aforetime laied the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands.
q The Church lament that they see not the time of Christ, which was promised, but have but few years and short days.
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“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”
Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV
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