to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
God
אֵלִ֗י'e.Li
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
away
תַּ֭עֲלֵנִיTa.'al.ni
H5927
to ascend · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
midst
בַּחֲצִ֣יba.cha.Tzi
H2677
the half or middle · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
days
יָמָ֑יya.Mai
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
years
שְׁנוֹתֶֽיךָshe.no.Tei.kha
H8141
a year (as a revolution of time) · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
all
בְּד֖וֹרbe.Dor
H1755
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
generations
דּוֹרִ֣יםdo.Rim
H1755
properly · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 39:13 O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
Habakkuk 1:12 Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty G…
Psalms 102:12 But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.
Isaiah 38:10-22 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.
Revelation 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Job 36:26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.
Psalms 9:7 But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment.
Psalms 90:1-2 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 102:23–end
We may here observe,
I. The imminent danger that the Jewish church was in of being quite extirpated and cut off by the captivity in Babylon (Psa 102:23): 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…
I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days;.... Which was always reckoned as a judgment, as a token of God's sore displeasure, and as what only befell wicked men, Psalm 55:23, in the Hebrew it is, "cause me not to ascend" (f); either as smoke, which ascends, and vanishes away; or rather it designs the separation of the soul from the body at death, when it ascends upwards to God that gave it; so Aben Ezra compares it with Ecclesiastes 12:7, the Targum is,
"do not take me out of the world in the midst of my days, bring me to the world to come:''
some, who think that Daniel was the penman of this psalm, or some other, about the time of the Babylonish captivity, curiously obser…
Psalm 102:23-28
23. He hath afflicted my strength in the way; and shortened my days. 24. I said, O my God! Cut me not off in the midst of my days: for [155] thy years are from generation to generation. 25. Thou hast aforetime founded the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. 26. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: and all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: 27. But thou art the same, [156] and thy years shall not fail. [157] 28. The children of thy servants shall dwell, and their seed shall be established before thee.
23. He hath afflicted my strength in the way Some improperly restrict this complaint to th…
The Church Fathers
That also is fulfilled in him which was said: "I will call you back thence at the end." For the end is set down as the perfection of things and the consummation of the virtues. On account of this, in short, another of the saints also said: "do not call me back in the midst of my days." And again Scripture bears witness to the great patriarch Abraham, that "Abraham died full of days." This, then, is "I will call you back thence at the end," as though he said: since "you have fought the good fight, you have kept the faith, you have finished the course," I will now call you back from this world to the future blessedness, to the perfection of eternal life, to "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will render at the end of the ages to all who love him."
Let not therefore heretics flatter themselves against me, because I said, "the shortness of my days," as if they would not last down to the end of the world. For what has he added? "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days" [Psalm 102:24]. Deal Thou not with me according as heretics speak. Lead me on unto the end of the world, not only to the middle of my days; and finish my short days, that You may afterwards grant unto me eternal days. Wherefore then have you asked concerning the shortness of your days? Wherefore? Do you wish to hear? "Your years are in the generation of generations." This is why I asked concerning those short days, because although my days should endure unto the end of the world, yet they are short in comparison of Your days. For "Your years are in the generation of generations." Wherefore does he not say, Your years are unto worlds of worlds; for thus rather is eternity usually signified in the holy Scriptures; but he says, "Your years are in the generation of generations"? But what are your years? What, but those which do not come, and then pass away? What, but they which come not, so as to cease again? For every day in this season so comes as to cease again; every hour, every month, every year; nothing of these is stationary; before it has come, it is to be; after it has come, it will not be. Those everlasting years of yours, therefore, those years that are not changed, "are in the generation of generations." There is a "generation of generations;" in that shall your years be. There is one such, and if we acknowledge it aright, we shall be in it, and the years of God shall be in us. How shall they be in us? Just as God Himself shall be in us: whence it is said, "That God may be all in all." [1 Corinthians 15:28] For the years of God, and God Himself, are not different: but the years of God are the eternity of God: eternity is the very substance of God, which has nothing changeable; there nothing is past, as if it were no longer: nothing is future, as if it existed not as yet. There is nothing there but, Is: there is not there, Was, and Will be; because what was, is now no longer: and what will be, is not as yet: but whatever is there, simply Is....Behold this great I Am! What is man's being to this? To this great I Am, what is man, whatever he be? Who can understand that To Be? Who can share it? Who can pant, aspire, presume…
Dictionary and topics
Christ Is God · As the Eternal God and Creator — As the Eternal God and Creator
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
On the way (ב as in Psa 110:7) - not "by means of the way" (ב as in Psa 105:18), in connection with which one would expect of find some attributive minuter definition of the way - God hath bowed down his strength (cf. Deu 8:2); it was therefore a troublous, toilsome way which he has been led, together with his people. He has shortened his days, so that he only drags on wearily, and has only a short distance still before him before he is entirely overcome. The Chethb כחו (lxx ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ) may be understood of God's irresistible might, as in Job 23:6; Job 30:18, but in connection with it the designation of the object is felt to be wanting. The introductory אמר (cf. Job 10:2), which announ…
The psalmist draws a contrast between his days (102:23) and God’s years (cp. 90:4).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 102:24
I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.
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 hcart-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 smo…
