Psalms 73:26

“My flesh and my heart faileth, etc.] Either through vehement desires of communion with God deferred, (see <198402>Psalm 84:2) or through afflictive dispensations of Providence, being smitten and chastened continually, (<197314>Psalm 73:14), or through inward trials and exercises, by reason of indwelling sin, temptations, and desertions: or rather the words are expressive of the body being emaciated by sickness and diseases; and the heart fainting through fear of death, or rather failing at it, being at the point of death; the heart being, as philosophers say, the first that lives, and the last that dies: but God is the strength of my heart, or “the rock of my heart” f1044; when overwhelmed…”

“My flesh and my heart faileth - Flesh and heart here seem to refer to the whole man, body and soul; and the idea is, that his powers of body and mind failed; were spent; were exhausted. This seems to have been said in an “ideal” sense, or by anticipation. He does not mean to say that his strength then had actually failed, but he seems to have placed himself by imagination in the situation where his strength “would” be all gone - in sickness, in weakness, in sorrow, on the bed of death. He asks himself now what would be his strength then - what would be the object of chief interest and love - on what he would rely; and he answers without hesitation, and with entire confidence, that he could…”

“flesh: Psa 63:1, Psa 84:2, Psa 119:81, Psa 119:82; Job 13:15; Co2 4:8-10, Co2 4:16-18; Phi 1:21; Ti2 4:6-8; Pe2 1:14 but: Psa 18:2, Psa 27:14, Psa 138:3; Isa 40:29-31; Co2 12:9, Co2 12:10 strength: Heb. rock portion: Psa 16:5, Psa 16:6, Psa 119:57, Psa 142:5; Lam 3:24; Rev 21:3, Rev 21:4, Rev 21:7 Psalms 73:27”