Psalm 71 is a noble psalm with no stated author (although verses 1 to 3 are very similar to part of psalm 31, a psalm of David). It has the themes of giving our trust to the Lord at all times, and of the passage through our life, from birth through to being elderly and grey-haired. The Lord is described as our rock and our fortress.

It brings out the well-founded truth that in old age, having lived for many years and having gone through all kinds of different experiences, there is often a coming into wisdom which is not present in earlier life.

This is also a psalm expressing the certainty of being able to depend on the Lord, that when we turn to Him to bring us back from whatever false or apparent thoughts, fears, and sensations we're having. Words and phrases such as ‘never’, ‘continually’, ‘all the day’, ‘on every side’ ring through the psalm. (Arcana Caelestia 8066-8067)

The speaker is keenly aware of his adversaries, yet he declares ‘I have become a wonder to many’. This ‘wonder’ could be due to the sheer number of attacks on him, or to his resilience when attacked. It gives us some sense of the inner state of Jesus during his life in the world, too, where no one would have been able to know his full state but could only marvel. He saw all his states portrayed throughout the psalms. (Arcana Caelestia 1690)

The psalm begins with an acknowledgement of the Lord’s power to bring us from dark into light, from fear into security and strength. The words, “You have given the commandment to save me” are not an absolute decree of our salvation, because that would transgress our spiritual freedom. It is the divine promise of salvation when we will it and act to receive it. (Divine Providence 325)

This theme continues, declaring the experience of deliverance, hope, trust and being upheld by God. This is from ‘birth’ and ‘from out of my mother’s womb’. These physical images stand for the first states of our regeneration of our spiritual birth, and being born and delivered from our first natural states of our proprium and selfhood. (Arcana Caelestia 4918.2)

Next comes the idea of our “old age”. This is linked with the onslaught of evil which, on seeing frailty, seeks to undermine and destroy. “Old age”, understood spiritually, means the end of a previous state and the start of a new state, a further period in our regeneration. (Arcana Caelestia 3492) The references to enemies, adversaries and ‘those who lie in wait for my life’ stand for the experience of temptation – especially the Lord in his temptation – that we have no power to withstand on our own, but are frail.

Verses 12 to 16 are a series of short, sharp affirmations of certainty of the Lord’s help and our hope. Spiritual hope is to put ourselves fully in the Lord’s providence and care while we yet determine to live according to his commands. It is not a resignation, but a firming up. (Arcana Caelestia 3913)

Then we come back to the idea of our youth and our old age being the remembrance of the Lord’s guidance and leading all through our life. And, as before, we have the prayer to be upheld so that the coming generations – which are our future states – will come to be from our present love and faith in the Lord. (True Christian Religion 584)

From verse 19 to the end there is a eulogy of praise to the Lord, first for what He has done and always will do for us, and then our response, pictured by playing the lute and the harp, and by singing and speaking all the day long. Stringed musical instruments stand for our acknowledgement of and affection for spiritual truths, while singing and speaking refer more to our desire to live these truths. (Apocalypse Explained 323)

30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.

[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.

[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.