“I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.”
The direct address 'O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days' returns to the urgent petition after the excursion into cosmic vision, now with heightened intensity. The phrase 'in the midst of my days' echoes Hezekiah's lament (Isaiah 38:10) and expresses the terror of interrupted life, of being cut off before one's allotted span. The vocative 'O my God' reasserts the personal relationship despite the vastness of the cosmic affirmations preceding. The petition here is paradoxically for continuation: not for removal (nesu'im, being lifted up) but for life to proceed. This verse illustrates the complexity of biblical prayer, wherein the cosmic and eternal dimensions do not dissolve the personal urgency but rather intensify it by putting the small, threatened human life in relation to the everlasting God. The parallelism with previous verses suggests that this plea has been repeated throughout the psalm, an insistent refrain that resurfaces when cosmic vision recedes.
Church Fathers on Psalms 102:24
1. Behold, one poor man prays, and prays not in silence. We may therefore hear him, and see who he is: whether it be not perchance He, of whom the Apostle says, “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9 If it is He, then, how is He poor? For in what sense He is rich, who sees not? What then is richer than He, by whom riches were made, even those which are not true riches? For through Him we have even…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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