Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 71:9
Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
9. Cast me not of ] Or, cast me not away, from Thy presence (Psa 51:11), though for the time the nation as a whole is so cast out (Deu 29:28; Jer 7:15).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
9 13. Repeated deprecations and prayers.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Cast me not off in the time of old age – When old age comes with its infirmities; its weaknesses; its trials. When my strength fails me; when my eyes grow dim; when my knees totter; when my friends have died; when I am no longer able to labor for my support; when the buoyant feelings of earlier years are no more; when my old companions and associates are gone, and I am left alone. Thou who didst watch over me in infancy; who didst guard me in childhood and youth; who hast defended me in manhood; who hast upheld me in the days of sickness, danger, bereavement, trouble – do thou not leave me when, in advanced years, I have special need of thy care; when I have reason to apprehend that there may come upon me, in that season of my life, troubles that I have never known before; when I shall not have the strength, the buoyancy, the elasticity, the ardor, the animal spirits of other years, to enable me to meet those troubles; and when I shall have none of the friends to cheer me whom I had in the earlier periods of my course. It is not unnatural or improper for a man who sees old age coming upon him to pray for special grace, and special strength, to enable him to meet what he cannot ward off, and what he cannot but dread; for who can look upon the infirmities of old age as coming upon himself but with sad and pensive feelings? Who would wish to be an old man? Who can look upon a man tottering with years, and broken down with infirmities – a man whose sight and hearing are gone – a man who is alone amidst the graves of all the friends that he had in early life – a man who is a burden to himself and to the world, a man who has reached the last scene of all, that ends the strange eventful history, that scene of
Second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything, –
That scene when one can say,
I have lived long enough; my way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have,
Who can think of all this, and not pray for special grace for himself should he live to see those days of infirmity and weakness? And who, in view of such infirmities, can fail to see the propriety of seeking the favor of God in early years? Compare Ecc 12:1-6.
Forsake me not when my strength faileth – As I may expect it to do, when I grow old. A man can lay up nothing better for the infirmities of old age than the favor of God sought, by earnest prayer, in the days of his youth and his maturer years.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 71:9
Cast me not off in the time of old age: forsake me not when my strength faileth.
The cry of the aged
This is the cry of trembling, tottering age to man as well as God. Among the very saddest of human experiences is the decay which is the harbinger of death. If death were always a swift, sudden translation, like that of Enoch or Elijah, we could understand it better. The long act of dying is the darkest part of death.
I. The phenomenon of human decay. At both ends of life man is the weakest and most helpless of creatures. The noblest of created beings and the most Godlike is cast more utterly, in birth and death, on the care of his fellows, than the weakest of the creatures which God made to be his satellites. Alas for the old and weary among the great mass of mankind; how utterly sad their lot, not only the body but the mind failing also.
II. Why is this? Partly–
1. To drive home the lessons God is ever teaching us about sin.
2. To develop the noblest qualities of the human spirit by the ministries which sickness, suffering and decay call forth.
3. That He may strengthen faith and hope in immortality. Death is terrible that life may be beautiful. By faith and hope in Christ we can transmute death into blessing and the germ of everlasting joy.
III. The duties which spring out of these facts.
1. The tender care of the aged.
2. The pressing on them with double earnestness the Gospel which brings to light life and immortality. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)
To the aged
Old men do not always put up this petition. If the desires of many were put into words, they would be for money, power, and many other things. Covetousness is peculiarly the sin of old age. But the favour and presence of God should be our supreme desire. For–
I. There are some peculiar circumstances of old age which render this blessing necessary.
1. There is little natural enjoyment (2Sa 19:35).
2. The troubles of life often increase. Poverty. Misery of our children, or their evil courses. Loss of friends. Results of the evil training of our children. See Davids sorrow.
3. And as troubles increase we are less able to bear them. Jacob could bear the Padan-Aram hardships–he was young; but not the loss of Rachel when he was old.
4. Old age is not always treated with due respect, but often with neglect.
5. Death and eternity are near.
II. When may we hope for this blessing? Not all old men enjoy it. Oh, the misery of a wicked old age! But if we have been Gods servants from our youth, or have become so since we were old, or if now we cast ourselves upon the Lord, then this prayer shall be fulfilled. (Andrew Fuller.)
The time of old age
The time of old age is–
I. Specially the time for prayer.
1. On account of personal need. The text is an appeal to the Divine compassion. This the heavenly Father always welcomes and honours. It is in the supreme distinction of His nature. How He proclaims it! The Lord God merciful and gracious. It is a frequent title in the Psalms, full of compassion. To what else can weakness turn so hopefully, so trustfully, so joyfully? Human life is compared to a journey. Men grow tired after long walking. All pilgrims find it so. But to come in then with timely help is altogether Divine. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity.
2. By reason of past memories. The psalmist calls to mind what God had done for him: Thou hast taught me from my youth. Well, he makes that a ground of expectation that God would carry on and complete what He had begun. That is the logic of the heart. A child can understand it.
II. The time of harvest. If youth is passed in listless frivolity, old age will be childish or idiotic; but if it be passed in careful research and thoughtful study, it will be ripe in knowledge and understanding. If youth is passed in storing the false, the foul, the malicious, old age will be like the land of Egypt, hideous and loathsome, with its frogs and gadfly; but if it be passed in fellowship with the true, the pure, the loving, old age will be like Eden, with warbling songs and fragrant flowers, and ruddy and pulpy fruits. If in youth the passions are unbridled and burning, they will grow into tormenting fiends. If ruled and hallowed by the life of Christ, they will grow into bright angels with heavenly music.
III. The time of fixedness. In earlier days men prepare the facilities and the forces of later days. How absurd it would be to send people to apprenticeship at seventy years of age! They could not learn. So in every event of life the same rule will be found to apply. When men get old their passions cool; but their affections grow firmer, and their will grows stubborn. That sapling may be easily trained. That grown tree must be cut down. The old man will often see a better way, and sigh to enter it; but Nature cries: Too late! too late! In everything the law is imperative and irrevocable. If Wisdom speak, it is by this rule: They that seek me early shall find me. In Grace, as in Nature, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. The Lord meets every one at the threshold and says: My son, my daughter, give Me thy heart.
IV. The time of testimony. Those to whom we refer have had discipline and experience. They ought to have knowledge and conviction, and they ought to bear testimony of this for the honour of the Most High, and for the advantage of those with whom they have to do. It was so with the psalmist. He acted on this rule as every one ought to act. In his day the trial of faith was this–it was a dispensation of temporal rewards and punishments; yet they saw sometimes the wicked man prospering and the godly man seeming to suffer. Still he bore his testimony and said: I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. The trial of faith in these days would rather seem to be in the pride and prevalence of unbelief. I own that it does not move me. You ask me why. Well, the work of the Good Spirit in every mans own heart must for that man be the most personal and perfect and abiding ground of confidence. Yet, apart from that, this fixes and satisfies me–that the Gospel in itself, in its teaching, and in its effects is only goodness. There is none good but one, that is God; and goodness can come from Him and from Him alone.
V. The time of farewell and welcome, giving up and getting. I say it is the time of farewell. There is one expression used by the Apostle Paul: Though our outward man perish. Then it does perish: all biography tells us that. The inward man is renewed day by day. Yes–the flesh decays; the spirit lives. The senses grow dull; but thought grows clearer and convictions grow stronger. Dreary memories lose their bitterness; holy ones get lighted up with a heavenly gladness. The simplest things in Nature shine with a heavenly light. The bloom and freshness and vigour seem an image of the untainted land. Earth Ceases to distract and to dazzle. Strength declines but ambitions die, and the soul is even as a weaned child. The hectic has gone from the cheek, but the fever has gone from the heart. The days work is well nigh done, but then home is near, and homes rest and safety and gladness and love. (J. Aldis.)
Remorseful reflection on growing old
John Foster, he who sprang into celebrity from one essay, Popular Ignorance, had a diseased feeling against growing old, which seems to us to be very prevalent. He was sorry to lose every parting hour. I have seen a fearful sight to-day, he would say–I have seen a buttercup. To others the sight would only give visions of the coming spring and future summer; to him it told of the past year, the last Christmas, the days which would never come again–the so many days nearer the grave. Thackeray continually expressed the same feeling. He reverts to the merry old time when George III. was king. He looks back with a regretful mind to his own youth. The black care constantly rides behind his chariot. Ah, my friends, he says, how beautiful was youth! We are growing old. Springtime and summer are past. We near the winter of our days. We shall never feel as we have felt. We approach the inevitable grave. Few men, indeed, know how to grow old gracefully, as Mme. de Stael very truly observed.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. Cast me not off in the time of old age] The original might be translated and paraphrased thus: “Thou wilt not cast me off till the time of old age; and according to the failure of my flesh, thou wilt not forsake me.” My expectation of rest and happiness will not be deferred till the time that I shall be an aged man, Thou wilt not withdraw thy presence from me as my flesh decays, and as my natural strength abates; but, on the contrary, as my outward man decays, my inward man shall be renewed day by day. It was in David’s old age that the rebellion of Absalom took place.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When I am most feeble, and most need thy help, and one who is grown old in thy service.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Cast me not off in the time of old age,…. The Lord never casts off nor casts away his people, whom he foreknew; they are near unto him; they are on his heart, and are engraven on the palms of his hands; and they shall never be removed from his heart’s love, nor out of his arms, nor out of his covenant, and shall always be the objects of his care: he bears and carries them to old age, and even to hoary hairs: the Lord had been the guide of David’s youth, and his trust then, Ps 71:5; and now he desires he would be the staff of his old age; at which age he was when Absalom rebelled against him;
forsake me not when my strength faileth: as it does when old age comes on; then the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and especially at death, when flesh and heart fail; but God will never forsake his people, neither in youth nor in old age, neither in life nor at death.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
9. Cast me not off in the time of my old age. David having just now declared that God had been the protector of his life at his birth, and afterwards his foster-father in his childhood, and the guardian of his welfare during the whole course of his past existence; being now worn out with age, casts himself anew into the fatherly bosom of God. In proportion as our strength fails us — and then necessity itself impels us to seek God — in the same proportion should our hope in the willingness and readiness of God to succor us become strong. David’s prayer, in short, amounts to this: “Do thou, O Lord, who hast sustained me vigorous and strong in the flower of my youth, not forsake me now, when I am decayed and almost withered, but the more I stand in need of thy help, let the decrepitude and infirmities of age move thee to compassionate me the more.” From this verse expositors, not without good reason, conclude that the conspiracy of Absalom is the subject treated of in this psalm. And certainly it was a horrible and tragical spectacle, which tended to lead, not only the common people, but also those who excelled in authority, to turn away their eyes from him, as they would from a detestable monster, when the son, having driven his father from the kingdom, pursued him even through the very deserts to put him to death.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9-11) This piece may be compared with Psa. 41:6-8. The formal saying (Psa. 71:11), introducing a quotation, is an indication of a late date, the early literature employing no signs of quotation. (See, e.g., Psa. 68:12; Psa. 68:26.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. In the time of old age According to Usher, David was now sixty-two years old; according to Hale, sixty-four years; and such a life as his had been must have already made its mark upon his physical frame. He died at the age of seventy. The word does not necessarily denote extreme old age, but he had entered the period of old age. “He is already an old man, though only just at the beginning of old age.” Delitzsch. That he had still before him a hopeful future appears from Psa 71:18
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 71:9 Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
Ver. 9. Cast me not off in the time of old age ] For now I have most need of thee. The white rose is soonest cankered, so is the white head soonest corrupted.
Saepe nigrum cor est, caput album –
Satan maketh a prey of old Solomon, Asa, Lot, others; whom when young he could never so deceive. The heathens, therefore, well warn us to look well to our old age, as that which cometh not alone, but is infested with many diseases both of body and mind. This David knew, and therefore prayed, as here, “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.” He is a rare old man that can say with Caleb, Jos 14:10-11 . Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque.
Psa 71:9-12
Psa 71:9-12
A SPECIAL PLEA IN A TIME OF OLD AGE
“Cast me not off in the time of old age;
Forsake me not when my strength faileth.
For mine enemies speak concerning me;
And they that watch for my soul take counsel together,
Saying, God hath forsaken him;
Pursue and take him; for there is none to deliver.
O God, be not far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me.”
Old age is a time when strength is abated, when eyesight dims,, when hearing becomes difficult, and when teeth and the sense of smell either diminish or disappear altogether. The inabilities, infirmities, helplessness and sorrows of the aged are exposed daily in the newspapers. And for those fortunate enough to be permitted to grow old, what should they do? Let them do what the psalmist does here: pour out their hearts to God in prayer; plead for his help and support; and trust God for his salvation and protection.
When John Wesley approached old age, he said, “What I would be afraid of if I took any thought for tomorrow, is that my body might weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness through the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness by the increase of bodily infirmities; but, `Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God.’
Brother C. E. Barrick, a noted Texas educator, for whom one of the Houston public school buildings was named, was approaching old age; and he said to this writer, “Brother Coffman, I pray more than anything else that I may be spared the humiliation of senility. That prayer was graciously answered by the Father.
“Mine enemies speak concerning me … take counsel together, saying, God has forsaken him … Pursue him … take him … there is none to deliver” (Psa 71:10-11). The proposal of Ahithophel to Absalom (2Sa 17:1-4) is hardly anything else except what is written here.
“O God, be not far from me” (Psa 71:12). This is another striking bit of evidence of Davidic authorship of this psalm. David often felt that God was far away from him and pleaded for Him to be near. Psa 22:1; Psa 22:11; Psa 22:19; Psa 35:22 exhibit four examples of this. Furthermore, there is not only a verbal likeness in these passages, but there is also a correspondence in the thought patterns.
“Make haste to help me” (Psa 71:12). Another Davidic characteristic is that of praying for God to help him “in haste,” or “speedily.” Psa 38:22; Psa 40:13; Psa 70:2 have three other instances of this same appeal.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 71:9. This verse is merely another earnest plea for help against the enemy. Age has no original as a seperate word. It is drived from the word for old. And that word is used in a comparative sense, for David was not “aged” as we commonly use that term, being only 70 when he died. (2Sa 5:4.) The meaning of the prayer is that he wished God to be with him to the end of his life.
Psa 71:10. Take counsel together is the significant item in the case. A man may not have much difficulty in, combatting a single foe, but a confederation of them acting in secret increases the hardship. The secret nature of the conspiracy is indicated by the words lay wait.
Psa 71:11. God allows his servants to be subject to trials to test their faith. Such a situation is often mistaken by the enemy for indifference on the part of the Lord. They will declare that the servant of God has been cast off, and they will seek to take advantage of it in the hopes of overcoming that servant.
Psa 71:12. Because of the condition described in the preceding verse, David called upon God to help him.
Cast: Psa 71:18, Psa 92:13-15, Isa 46:4, 2Ti 1:12, 2Ti 4:18
old age: This determines the period when this Psalm was composed; for it was in David’s old age that the rebellion of Absalom took place.
when: Psa 73:26, Psa 90:10, 2Sa 19:35, 2Sa 21:15-17, Ecc 12:1-7
Reciprocal: 2Sa 19:7 – all the evil 2Ki 18:30 – make you Psa 31:10 – strength Psa 37:25 – I have Psa 43:2 – why dost Psa 51:11 – Cast Psa 86:17 – that they Pro 3:16 – Length Isa 36:15 – General Phm 1:9 – Paul
71:9 Cast me not off in the time of {g} old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
(g) You who helped me in my youth when I had more strength, help me now even more in my old age and weakness.
The writer appealed specifically to the Lord not to forsake him in his old age, especially since his adversaries were claiming that God had abandoned him. He had no other defender and cried out to God to do what was right.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)