I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
Parallel translations
- WEB I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.
- BSB I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a 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 turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt.
- Job 14:2He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
- Ps 102:10–11Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
- 1 Chr 29:15For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
- Exod 10:13And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
- Eccl 6:12For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
- Jas 4:14Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
- Ps 144:4Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
- Eccl 8:13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
Resources, by level
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.