Spiritual Applications Several verses in this psalm reflect the poet’s dread of growing old. It feels to her like being thrown away (v. 9), abandoned before she has finished her life-tasks. Kohelet urges a calmer view of old age: “There is a time to be born and a time to die,” he argues (3: 2), suggesting that God has determined both, and it is futile to argue for more time. What we can do, he says, is to live life fully (2: 24): “There is no good for a person except to eat and drink and be good to himself, for this is from God.” He even suggests (chap. 12) that if one is aware of God during one’s youth then one’s old age may be experienced lyrically— not that one’s teeth fall out and one loses one’s hearing, but that “the maids that grind grow few, with the noise of the hand mill growing fainter” (12: 3).
Something of that is suggested in this psalm as well. The poet admires the grandeur of God’s works (v. 19) and then expresses the hope that God will reveal this divine grandeur through the life of the poet. We can follow this advice: the degree to which we admire the beauties of nature, of good human beings, of culture and society, and see the hand of God in them, praising God for them, the more we too will be uplifted by life, and live not with a haunting dread of death but with a pulsating love for living. To perceive not only the torments of the world, but the working out of God’s justice— and to assist that process by our own acts of justice— is to know, when our own time is nigh, that we have done all we can to further the work of the Creator, and that we are leaving a good and beautiful world to the generations. Good— when there is so much wickedness? Beautiful— when there is so much ugliness? The choice of how to see the world— and how to enhance its grandeur— is ours.
Levy, Rabbi Richard N.. Songs Ascending: The Book of Psalms (Vol. 1) (Kindle Locations 13515-13523). CCAR Press.
1. In You, O LORD, I shelter. / Let me never be shamed. Without superscription, this psalm begins immediately with the formulaic language of the psalms of supplication. But as early as verse 7, the speaker announces that God has been his support, so the theme of thanksgiving takes over.
5. my refuge since youth. A distinctive quasi-autobiographical emphasis begins at this point. The speaker, who evidently is on the brink of old age (verses 9 and 17–18) looks back on his life from its earliest moment, recollects how God has constantly sustained him, and thus declares that he has always been, and will continue to be, devoted to praising God.
6. From my mother’s womb You brought me out. The verb in the Masoretic Text, gozi, is enigmatic. This translation reads goḥi, which would make this whole clause almost identical with Psalm 22:10. Because there are a few verses here that closely echo verses in other psalms, it should be noted that such use of stereotypical phrases and even whole clauses is characteristic of the poetry of psalms and provides no convincing evidence, as some scholars have claimed, that this psalm is merely an assemblage of snippets from other psalms.
7. An example. Some interpreters construe this negatively, in the sense of “byword” or “object of mockery,” but the Hebrew mofet (in other contexts, “portent,” “sign of divine power”) generally has a positive connotation, and the positive meaning is confirmed by the second verset.
14. add to all Your praise. The probable meaning is that the speaker has been praising God all his life and is resolved to continue doing so.
15. for I know not numbers. The Hebrew is as obscure as this English version. Seforot, the noun that is the object of the verb, appears to derive from the root that means to count or number, but the form of the word here is anomalous. Perhaps the sense is “I know not the numbers of Your bounty,” but that is only a guess.
18. Till I tell of Your mighty arm to the next generation. Again and again in Psalms, it is the preeminent calling of humankind to praise God. Here the speaker pleads for strength in old age so that even then he can continue his task of praise. mighty arm. “Mighty” is merely implied in the Hebrew.
20. As You surfeited me with . . . distress, / You will once more give me life. This verse perfectly encapsulates the combination of a plea for help and thankful praise. The speaker has experienced dark hours, but, remembering God’s beneficence to him from childhood on, he is confident that God will once again sustain him.
24. they are shamed. This verse at the very end picks up, in a counterpoint envelope structure, “Let me never be shamed” from the first line of the poem.
Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (p. 2899). W. W. Norton & Company.