Cosmas Indicopleustes : I said in the noontide of my days I shall go, as if he said, I always cherished this thought in my heart, saying to myself, that I shall live always and never die. For by his saying: In the noontide of my days I shall go, he indicated that his days would never be shortened; and as if some one, while he was silent, had asked: while you were absorbed in these meditations what happened to you? he continues and says: At the gates of the grave I shall leave the residue of my years; meaning, while I was thus meditating, I was all at once seized with a dreadful sickness, and could no longer cling to my former notion, but thought I should spend the rest of my years in the grave — The Christian Topography, Book 8 Jerome : (Verse 10) I said in the middle of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I have sought the remainder of my years. He narrates what he silently thought during the time of pressing distress and imminent weakness; I said, he says, in my heart, in the midst of my days, or as Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion have interpreted, in the weakness and silence of my days, for which the LXX have interpreted it as 'exalted' due to the similarity of the letters, reading 'Rame' instead of 'Dame': although some have turned it into 'Dame', so that the sense is 'In the blood of my days', when my blood, my destruction, was eagerly awaited. Therefore, in despair, I said: I will go to the gates of hell, either by the common law of nature, or those gates about which the Psalmist sings that he has been freed: 'You raised me up from the gates of death, that I may proclaim all your praises at the gates of the daughter of Zion' (Psalms 9:15). I believe these are the gates of hell, which do not prevail against Peter (Matthew 16), for he slept in the fullness of his days. The saints fulfill their days, as was the case with Abraham, who died full of days in old age (Genesis 25). But the sinners and the wicked die in the midst of their days, of whom the Psalmist also speaks: Men of blood and deceit will not live out half their days (Ps. 54:25). For they do not fulfill the works of virtue, nor do they strive to repent and amend their sins. Therefore, in the middle of the course of life, and in the darkness of errors, they will be led to Tartarus. I sought, he says, the remaining years of my life, not thinking that I would live any longer. — Commentary on Isaiah