This psalm never names its author, but its content makes an old man’s voice unmistakable — someone who has served God since childhood, watched his own strength begin to fail, and is honestly afraid of what that failing might mean for his standing with God.
A study in Psalm 71 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 11 min read
Thou Art My Trust From My Youth
“In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion… For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth. By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.”
Psalm 71:1, 5-6
The writer traces God’s care all the way back to birth itself — not a relationship that began at some adult moment of decision, but one that, by his own account, has genuinely never had a beginning he can remember being without.
Cast Me Not Off In The Time Of Old Age
“Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.”
Psalm 71:9
This is a specific and honest fear, not a generic complaint — the worry that failing strength itself might somehow change God’s regard, that decline could be read, by God or by others, as some kind of abandonment.
“David marked that although the lives of some while in the strength of manhood had been righteous, as old age came upon them they seemed to lose their self-control… He saw that many of the aged seemed forsaken of God and exposed themselves to the ridicule and reproaches of his enemies. David was deeply moved; he was distressed as he looked forward to the time when he should be aged. He feared that God would leave him and that he would be as unhappy as other aged persons whose course he had noticed, and would be left to the reproach of the enemies of the Lord. With this burden upon him he earnestly prays: ‘Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.’”
Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 423
White explains exactly what prompted this prayer — David watching other godly men lose their self-control and steadiness as they aged, and becoming genuinely afraid the same pattern might overtake him, well before it actually had.
God Hath Forsaken Him
“For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.”
Psalm 71:10-11
The enemies here are attacking a theological claim as much as a person — treating visible weakness as proof of divine abandonment, exactly the false conclusion White’s comment above shows David most feared others might also draw about him.
Until I Have Shewed Thy Strength Unto This Generation
“O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.”
Psalm 71:17-18
The request here is not simply to be spared decline, but to still have work left to do — a fear of old age answered not by asking for youth back, but by asking to remain useful for exactly the task old age is uniquely suited for: passing on what a whole lifetime has taught.
Thou Shalt Quicken Me Again
“Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.”
Psalm 71:20-21
“Great and sore troubles” is not denied or minimized here, even in the middle of confidence — both truths are allowed to stand together, real hardship and real hope, without either one needing to cancel out the other.
“I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed.”
Psalm 71:22-23
The psalm that opened with a fearful request about old age closes with instruments and singing — not a denial that the fear was real, but proof that it did not have the last word in this particular prayer.
