to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
shadow
כְּצֵלke.tzel-
H6738
shade · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
declineth
כִּנְטוֹת֥וֹkin.to.To
H5186
to stretch or spread out · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
down
נִ֝נְעַ֗רְתִּיnin.'Ar.ti
H5287
to tumble about · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
locust
כָּֽאַרְבֶּֽהKa.'ar.Beh
H697
a locust (from its rapid increase) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular 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
Exodus 10:19 And the LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in…
1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
Job 14:2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Psalms 102:10-11 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
Exodus 10:13 And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night;…
Psalms 144:4 Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
Ecclesiastes 6:12 For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what…
Ecclesiastes 8:13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 109:21–end
David, having denounced God's wrath against his enemies, here takes God's comforts to himself, but in a very humble manner, and without boasting.
I. He pours out his complaint before God concerning the low condition he was in, which, probably, gave advantage to his enemies to insult over him: "I am poor and needy, and therefore a proper object of pity, and one that needs and craves thy help." 1. He was troubled in mind (Psa 109:22): My heart is wounded within me, not only broken with outward troubles, which sometimes prostrate and sink the spirits, but wounded with a sense of guilt; and a wounded spirit who can bear? who can heal? 2. He apprehended himself drawing near to his end: I am gone…
I am gone like the shadow when it declineth,.... When the sun is setting, and the shadow is going off; man's life is often compared to a shadow, because fleeting, momentary, and soon gone, 1 Chronicles 29:15 and death is expressed by going the way of all flesh; and by going to the grave, the house for all living, a man's long home, Joshua 23:14 and so is the death of Christ, Luke 22:22, it may be rendered, "I am made to go" (h), denoting the violent death of Christ, who was cut off out of the land of the living, and whose life was taken away from the earth, Isaiah 53:8.
I am tossed up and down as the locust; or "shaken out" (i) by the wind, as the locust is by the east wind, and carried fro…
Psalm 109:21-27
21. And thou, O Jehovah my Lord! undertake for me, for thy name's sake; deliver me, because thy mercy is good; 22. Because I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. 23. I walk about as a shadow when it declineth. [313] I am tossed as the locust. [314] 24. My knees are become feeble through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. 25. But I became a reproach to them; when they see me they shake their head. 26. Help me, O Jehovah my God! save me according to thy mercy: 27. And they shall know that this is thy hand, and that thou, O Jehovah! hast done it.
21 And thou, O Jehovah my Lord! From the pouring out of complaints and imprecations against his enemies, the…
The Church Fathers
"My knees are weak through fasting" (ver. 23). We read, that our Lord Christ underwent a fast of forty days: but had fasting so great power over Him, that His knees were weakened? Or is this more suitably understood of His members, that is, of His saints? "And my flesh is changed because of the oil;" because of spiritual grace, Whence Christ was so called from the Greek word, chrisma, which signifies unction. But the flesh was changed through the oil, not for the worse, but for the better, that is, rising from the dishonour of death to the glory of immortality. ...His flesh was not yet changed. But whether the Holy Spirit be represented by water through the notion of ablution or irrigation, or by oil through that of exultation and the inflaming of charity; It doth not differ from Itself, because Its types are different. For there is a great difference between the lion and the lamb, and yet Christ is represented by both. ...
I am shaken off like locusts. I indeed had come to protect my people, and I said: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often did I wish to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings." I had come like a hen to protect them: but they received me with a most hostile mind. I had come as a mother: and they slew me as if I were their murderer. I am shaken off. What is this? They persecuted me, they cast me out. They persecuted me from Nazareth, I came to Capernaum: they persecuted me from Capernaum, I came to Bethsaida, and from there they persecuted me. I came to Jerusalem, I was unwilling to withdraw from my people; and from there they persecuted me, and so they treated me like locusts. And what did I do? Was I angry, did I defend myself, did I curse them, and abandon them? Not one of these things did I do. But what did I do? I prayed for them.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
The thunder and lightning are now as it were followed by a shower of tears of deep sorrowful complaint. Ps 109 here just as strikingly accords with Ps 69, as Ps 69 does with Ps 22 in the last strophe but one. The twofold name Jahve Adonaj (vid., Symbolae, p. 16) corresponds to the deep-breathed complaint. עשׂה אתּי, deal with me, i.e., succouring me, does not greatly differ from לי in Sa1 14:6. The confirmation, Psa 109:21, runs like Psa 69:17 : Thy loving-kindness is טּוב, absolutely good, the ground of everything that is good and the end of all evil. Hitzig conjectures, as in Psa 69:17, חסדך כּטוב, "according to the goodness of Thy loving-kindness;" but this formula is without example: "fo…
A shadow at dusk suggests a transitory, empty existence (102:11; 144:4); a single locust could easily be brushed off one’s clothing.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 109:23
I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
I am gone like the shadow when it declineth. I am a mere shadow, a shadow at the vanishing point, when it stretches far, but is almost lost in the universal gloom of evening which settles over all, and so obliterates the shadows cast by the setting sun. Lord, there is next to nothing left of me, wilt thou not come in before I am quite gone? I am tossed up and down as the locust, which is the sport of the winds, and must go up or down as the breeze carries it. The psalmist felt as powerless in his distress as a poor insect, which a child may toss up and down at its pleasure. He entreats the divine pity, becau…
