Isaiah 38:12

Mine age is departed... — Better, my home, or habitation ... as in Psalms 49:19, and thus fitting in better with the similitude that follows. The “home” is, of course, the body, as the dwelling-place of the spirit. (Comp. Psalms 52:5, “hurl thee away tentless,” Heb., and Job 21:28, “Is not their tent-cord torn away?” Heb.) The “shepherd’s tent” is the type of a transitory home (2 Corinthians 5:1).

I have cut off like a weaver my life... — The words express the feeling of one who had been weaving the web of his life with varied plans and counsels (comp. Isaiah 30:1), and now had to roll it up, as finished before its time, because Jehovah had taken up the “abhorred shears” to cut it from the thrum, which takes the place of “with pining sickness.” There is, perhaps, a tone of reverence in the impersonal form of the statement. The sufferer will not name Jehovah as the author of his trouble.

From day even to night. — The words speak of the rapidity rather than of the prolongation of suffering. The sick man expects that death will come before the morrow’s dawn.