What Does Psalm 102:23 Mean in the King James?
He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verb “shortened” shares its Hebrew root with “reap,” so the line’s reduced days also carry the concrete image of a harvest cut.
THE MEANING
When strength thins along your way, this verse gives the loss its plain name: your strength is weakened and your days are shortened. It does not turn bodily decline or finite time into an abstraction; it lets both stand in the open.
THE ROOT
קִצַּר
qitsar
GROWS FROM
קצר
to be short, cut short, or reap
English gives “shortened” as a measure of duration, but קָצַר (qatsar) also means to reap or harvest. The same root places the cutting of days in the verbal family of cutting a harvest.
ALSO GROWS
qatsar: to reap, harvest
קָצַר
This branch shares the root that gives “shortened,” bringing the cutting of a harvest into the word’s range.
qatsēr: short, brief
קָצֵר
This adjective makes clear the sense of limited length carried by the verb for shortening.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
to tread, step, walk
English “way” can sound like an abstract life-course; דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) grows from the verb for treading. The line places the weakening within actual movement along a path.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: to tread, step
דָּרַךְ
The path is named from the act of placing feet on it, so “in the way” can be heard as bodily movement, not only an abstract season.
derekh: path, road, way
דֶּרֶךְ
The verse locates weakened strength within a walked route, making depletion part of the lived passage.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names failing strength and limited days as lived realities.
Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.Whereas 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.THE THREAD
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.The Hebrew word כֹּחַ (koach, strength or power) names what is weakened here and what is given to the faint in Isaiah. The shared word holds this lament beside a verse where depleted capacity is met with increase, without erasing the exhaustion Psalm 102 names.
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