Old Age and Faith in Psalm 71: An Exegetical Study in Dialogue with Developmental Psychology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69668/juita.v3i2.234Keywords:
Psalm 71, old age, Hebrew exegesis, religious coping, generativityAbstract
Psalm 71 is the clearest psalm in which the petitioner prays explicitly in view of old age, yet its exegetical contribution to a biblical theology of aging remains underexplored. This study aims to interpret Psalm 71 exegetically and to bring its findings into dialogue with the psychology of aging. It employs a qualitative exegetical method based on the Masoretic Text (BHS), analysing structure, parallelism, key terms and verbal forms, and then relates the results heuristically to Erikson's theory, religious coping and spiritual resilience. The analysis shows that the psalm moves from refuge (vv. 1–8) through lament over old age (vv. 9–13) to hope and proclamation (vv. 14–18) and praise (vv. 19–24), bound together by the motifs of lifelong trust (minnĕʿûrāy, “from my youth”) and divine righteousness (ṣĕdāqâ). The study contributes a text-grounded model of aging faith in which memory, petition and generational witness form the basis of resilience.
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