Scripture Daily

Context No. 1447 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 71:1-16: in context

1In you, LORD, I take refuge. Never let me be disappointed. 2Deliver me in your righteousness, and rescue me. Turn your ear to me, and save me. 3Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go. Give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. 4Rescue me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. 5For you are my hope, Lord GOD, my confidence from my youth. 6I have relied on you from the womb. You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb. I will always praise you. 7I am a marvel to many, but you are my strong refuge. 8My mouth shall be filled with your praise, with your honor all day long. 9Don’t reject me in my old age. Don’t forsake me when my strength fails. 10For my enemies talk about me. Those who watch for my soul conspire together, 11saying, “God has forsaken him. Pursue and take him, for no one will rescue him.” 12God, don’t be far from me. My God, hurry to help me. 13Let my accusers be disappointed and consumed. Let them be covered with disgrace and scorn who want to harm me. 14But I will always hope, and will add to all of your praise. 15My mouth will tell about your righteousness, and of your salvation all day, though I don’t know its full measure. 16I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord GOD. I will make mention of your righteousness, even of yours alone.

This is the prayer of one growing old. In you, LORD, I take refuge, it begins; be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always come. The psalmist recalls a lifetime of trust: you are my hope from my youth; I have leaned on you from before my birth, you took me from my mother's womb. And now, in age, with enemies watching and saying God has forsaken him, he prays: do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails. Yet he ends in hope: I will hope continually, and will praise you more and more; my mouth will tell of your righteousness all day long.

The heart of this psalm is a lifelong trust reaching into old age and asking God to be faithful to the end. The psalmist can look back over a whole life of relying on God, from the womb, through youth, all the way to now, and on that long history he grounds his plea: do not forsake me now that I am old and my strength is failing. It is one of the tender prayers of scripture, the prayer of someone who feels his powers waning, who sees enemies circling and hears them say he is finished and God has abandoned him, and who turns, as he always has, to the God who has held him from birth. There is real comfort here for the season of declining strength, which comes to us all if we live long enough. The God who took us from the womb, who has been our confidence from youth, does not abandon us when we grow weak and old; the same faithfulness that carried us through the strong years carries us through the failing ones. Age and weakness are not the end of God's care but a further stretch of it, and the psalmist teaches us to pray through them, not to despair but to hope continually, to keep praising, to keep telling of God's righteousness even as the body fails. The one who has leaned on God from before birth can lean on him to the last, sure that the God of a whole lifetime will not cast off the one he has carried all along.

As my strength one day fails and age comes on, can I pray with this psalmist, do not forsake me now, trusting that the God who has held me from the womb will not abandon me in weakness and old age, and will I keep hoping and praising to the end?

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