Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 38:12

"My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me as a shepherd`s tent: I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life; he will cut me off from the loom: From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me." — Isaiah 38:12 (ASV)

My age - The word used here (דור dôr) properly means the revolving period or circle of human life. However, the parallelism seems to demand that it be used in the sense of dwelling or habitation, to correspond with ‘the shepherd’s tent.’

Accordingly, Lowth and Noyes render it, ‘Habitation.’ Gesenius and Rosenmuller also render it this way. The Arabic word has this meaning, and the Hebrew verb דור dûr also means “to dwell, to remain,” as in the Chaldee. Here the word means a dwelling or habitation—that is, a tent, as the habitations of the Orientals were mostly tents.

Is departed - (נסע nı̂ssa‛). The idea here is that his dwelling was to be transferred from one place to another, as when a tent or encampment is broken up; that is, he was about to cease dwelling on the earth and to dwell in the land of silence, or among the dead.

From me as a shepherd’s tent - As suddenly as the tent of a shepherd is taken down, folded up, and transferred to another place. There is undoubtedly the idea here that he would continue to exist, but in another place, just as the shepherd would pitch his tent or dwell in another place.

He was to be cut off from the earth, but he expected to dwell among the dead. The whole passage conveys the idea that he expected to dwell in another state—just as the shepherd dwells in another place when he strikes his tent and it is removed.

I have cut off like a weaver my life - This is another image designed to express substantially the same idea. The sense is that, just as a weaver takes his web from the loom by cutting the warp (the threads that bind it to the beam), thus loosening and removing it, so his life was to be cut off.

When it says, ‘I cut off’ (קפדתי qipad e tiy), the idea is undoubtedly that I AM cut off, or my life is cut off. Hezekiah here speaks of himself as the agent because he might have felt that his sins and unworthiness were the cause. Life is often described as a web that is woven, because an advance is constantly made in filling it, and because it is soon finished and then cut off.

He will cut me off - God was about to cut me off.

With pining sickness - Margin, ‘From the thrum.’ Lowth, ‘From the loom.’ The word דלה dalâh properly means something hanging down or pendulous, anything pliant or slender.

Hence, it denotes hair or locks (Song of Solomon 7:6). Here it seems to denote the threads or thrums that tied the web to the weaver’s beam. The image here denotes the cutting off of life as the weaver cuts his web out of the loom, or as he cuts off thrums. The word never means sickness.

From day even to night - That is, in the space of a single day, or between morning and night—as a weaver with a short web accomplishes it in a single day. The disease of Hezekiah was undoubtedly the pestilence, and the idea is that God would cut him off speedily, as it were, in a single day.

Will you make an end of me - Hebrew, ‘Will you perfect’ or ‘finish’ me? That is, will you take my life?