I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
Parallel translations
- WEB I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.
- KJV I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
- ESV I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust.
- NKJV I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust.
- NASB I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like the locust.
- NLT I am fading like a shadow at dusk; I am brushed off like a locust.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David describes his life fading like an evening shadow and being shaken off like a locust. He feels frail and discarded under his suffering.
Overview
The vivid images of a lengthening shadow and a flicked-away locust express human frailty and a sense of being cast aside. Such honest lament is part of faithful prayer, bringing real distress to God. It reflects the suffering of the righteous in a fallen world, ultimately answered in the Christ who shared and conquered such weakness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Exod 10:19And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind that carried off the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained anywhere in Egypt.
- Job 14:2Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- Ps 102:10–11because of Your indignation and wrath, for You have picked me up and cast me aside.
- 1 Chr 29:15For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
- Exod 10:13So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and throughout that day and night the LORD sent an east wind across the land. By morning the east wind had brought the locusts.
- Eccl 6:12For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun?
- Jas 4:14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- Ps 144:4Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
- Eccl 8:13Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 109:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.