John Calvin Commentary Psalms 102:23

"He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days." — Psalms 102:23 (ASV)

He hath afflicted my strength in the way. Some improperly restrict this complaint to the time when the Jews were subjected to much annoyance after the liberty granted them to return to their own land. We are rather to understand the word journey or way in a metaphorical sense.

As the manifestation of Christ was the goal of the race which God’s ancient people were running, they justly complain that they are afflicted and weakened in the midst of their course. Thus they set before God His promise, telling Him that although they had not run at random, but had confided in His protection, they were nevertheless broken and crushed by His hand in the midst of their journey.

They do not indeed find fault with Him, as if He had disappointed their hope; but fully persuaded that He does not deal deceitfully with those who serve Him, by this complaint they strengthen themselves in the hope of a favorable issue. In the same sense they add that their days were shortened, because they directed their view to the fullness of time, which did not arrive until Christ was revealed.

It accordingly follows (Psalms 102:24): Cut me not off in the midst of my days. They compare the intervening period until Christ should appear to the middle of life; for, as has been already observed, the Church only attained to her perfect age at His coming.

This calamity, no doubt, had been foretold, but the nature of the covenant which God had entered into with His ancient people required that He should take them under His protection and defend them. The captivity, therefore, was, as it were, a violent rupture, on which account the godly prayed with the greater confidence that they might not be prematurely taken away in the midst of their journey.

By speaking in this manner, they did not fix for themselves a certain term of life. As God, in freely adopting them, had given them the commencement of life with the assurance that He would maintain them even to the advent of Christ, they might warrantably bring forward and plead this promise. It was as if they had said, "Lord, You have promised us life, not for a few days, or for a month, or for a few years, but until You should renew the whole world and gather together all nations under the dominion of Your Anointed One."

What then does the prophet mean when he prays, Let us not perish in the midst of our course? The reason stated in the clause immediately following, Thy years are from generation to generation, seems to be quite inapplicable in the present case. Because God is everlasting, does it therefore follow that men will be everlasting too? But on Psalm 90:2, we have shown how we may with propriety bring forward His eternity as a ground of confidence in reference to our salvation. For He desires to be known as eternal, not only in His mysterious and incomprehensible essence, but also in His word, according to the declaration of the Prophet Isaiah:

“All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; but the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:6–8).

Now since God links us to Himself by means of His word, however great the distance of our frail condition from His heavenly glory, our faith should nevertheless penetrate to that blessed state from which He looks down upon our miseries. Although the comparison between His eternal existence and the brief duration of human life is introduced also for another purpose, yet when He sees that men pass away, as it were, in a moment and speedily vanish, it moves Him to compassion, as will be declared at greater length shortly.