I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread (Psalm 37:25).
My understanding of this verse has deepened as I have gotten older. First because at one time I could not identify with "I have been young, and now I am old". I think most of us feel when we are young that we have all the time in the world. But, much more rapidly than we think, if God lets us live, we find ourselves on the other side of this verse--old! They say you are as old as you feel, and that may be true, but sometimes I feel about 30, and sometimes I feel about 100!
(This photo is me at about 40 years old).
King David, the human writer of this Psalm, evidently only lived to be 70 and 1/2 years old. "David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years" (2Samuel 5:4). That once would have seemed a long time to me, but it doesn't sound like so many years to me now at age 66.
One thing for sure, I have not seen the righteous forsaken. The Hebrew can mean the just; the lawful, in other words he who does right. No man is absolutely righteous in the eyes of God, yet may be considered so in the eyes of men.Paul tells us in Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one".
As to the truth of this verse, it is the word of God -- we can, and must, believe it! Methodist theologian Adam Clarke writing on this verse in his commentary published in 1831,"I have been young, and now am old - I believe this to be literally true in all cases. I am now grey-headed myself; I have traveled in different countries, and have had many opportunities of seeing and conversing with religious people in all situations in life; and I have not, to my knowledge, seen one instance to the contrary. I have seen no righteous man forsaken, nor any children of the righteous begging their bread. God puts this honor upon all that fear him; and thus careful is he of them, and of their posterity".
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