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11.My days are like the shadow which declineth (146) When the sun is directly over our heads, that is to say, at mid-day, we do not observe such sudden changes of the shadows which his light produces; but when he begins to decline towards the west the shadows vary almost every moment, This is the reason why the sacred writer expressly makes mention of the shadow which declineth What he attributes to the afflicted Church seems indeed to be equally applicable to all men; but he had a special reason for employing this comparison to illustrate the condition of the Church when subjected to the calamity of exile. It is true, that as soon as we advance towards old age, we speedily fall into decay. But the complaint here is, that this befell the people of God in the very flower of their age. By the term days is to be understood the whole course of their life; and the meaning is, that the captivity was to the godly as the setting of the sun, because they quickly failed. In the end of the verse the similitude of withered grass, used a little before, is repeated, to intimate that their life during the captivity was involved in many sorrows which dried up in them the very sap of life. Nor is this wonderful, since to live in that condition would have been worse than a hundred deaths had they not been sustained by the hope of future deliverance. But although they were not altogether overwhelmed by temptation, they must have been in great distress, because they saw themselves abandoned by God.
(146) It is literally, “ days are like a shadow, stretched out.” As the sun descends in the firmament, the shadow of any terrestrial object gradually lengthens, and grows fainter as it becomes longer, until shooting out to an unmeasurable length, it disappears. The Psalmist complains that his days were like a shadow nearly stretched to its utmost length, and at the point of being lost in total darkness. He felt that he had far passed his meridian, that the sun of life was about to set, and the dark night of death to fall down upon him” — See Psa_109:23.