Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

71:17-21 Care for Me from Youth through Old Age. This stanza returns to the topic of the second stanza: since from my youth you have taught me (i.e., to trust in you, cf. vv. 5-6), so even to old age and gray hairs . . . do not forsake me (cf. v. 9). The song goes on to foster an ideal for a pious person's life, asking God to make it long enough so that the singer might proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come; the life of faith is meant to be passed on to one's descendants. The book of Psalms readily confesses that the believer's life is full of many troubles and calamities and acknowledges that these are under God's control (you who have made me see); and since God governs these troubles, he can also relieve them (hence the confidence of vv. 20-21).