(23) Shadow when it declineth.--Literally, a lengthened shade. (Comp. Psalm 102:11, and see Note. Song of Solomon 2:17.) When the day declines the shadow lengthens, it becomes longer and longer, till it vanishes in the universal darkness. Thus does the life of the suffering generation pass away.

Tossed up and down.--Better, tossed or shaken out, as from the lap. So LXX. and Vulg. (See Nehemiah 5:13, where the same verb is three times used.) The grasshopper was an emblem of timidity (Job 39:20).

Verse 23. - I am gone like the shadow when it declineth; rather, lille a shodow (comp. Psalm 102:11). When shadows "decline," they are just about to cease and disappear. I am tossed up and down as the locust; or, "I am carried away" - swept off, i.e., or just ready to be swept off, from the face of the earth (see Exodus 10:19; Joel 2:20; Nahum 3:17).

109:21-31 The psalmist takes God's comforts to himself, but in a very humble manner. He was troubled in mind. His body was wasted, and almost worn away. But it is better to have leanness in the body, while the soul prospers and is in health, than to have leanness in the soul, while the body is feasted. He was ridiculed and reproached by his enemies. But if God bless us, we need not care who curses us; for how can they curse whom God has not cursed; nay, whom he has blessed? He pleads God's glory, and the honour of his name. Save me, not according to my merit, for I pretend to none, but according to thy-mercy. He concludes with the joy of faith, in assurance that his present conflicts would end in triumphs. Let all that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him. Jesus, unjustly put to death, and now risen again, is an Advocate and Intercessor for his people, ever ready to appear on their behalf against a corrupt world, and the great accuser.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 from place to place, Exodus 10:13, or when a swarm of them by a strong wind are crowded together and thrown upon one another; or like the grasshopper, which leaps from hedge to hedge, and has no certain abode: and such was the case of Christ here on earth; and especially it may have respect not only to his being sometimes in Judea and sometimes in Galilee, sometimes in the temple and sometimes in the mount of Olives; but to his being tossed about after his apprehension, when he was led to Annas, and then to Caiaphas, then to Pilate, then to Herod, then delivered to the soldiers, and by them led to Calvary, and crucified.

(h) "cogor abire", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "abire factus sum", Gejerus, Michaelis. (i) "excussus sum", Montanus, Vatablus Gejerus, Michaelis; "excutior", Tigurine version, Musculus, Cocceius.