Psalms 102

8. Morning by morning. Day by day will he exercise his work of righteous judgment, purging out all ungodliness from the holy city. He will have a pure state, a pure city, as the writer of the one hundred and fourth Psalm hopes to see a pure earth (v. 35), without spot or stain of sin. P.

A PRAYER OF THE AFFLICTED, WHEN HE IS OVERWHELMED, AND POURETH OUT HIS COMPLAINT BEFORE THE LORD.

1. HEAR my prayer, O LORD, And let my cry come unto thee. 2 Hide not thy face from me in the day of my distress: Incline thine ear unto me; In the day when I call answer me speedily. 3 For my days consume away like smoke, And my bones are burned as a firebrand. 4 My heart is smitten like grass, and withered; For I forget to eat my bread. 5 By reason of the voice of my groaning My bones cleave to my flesh. 6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as an owl of the waste places. 7 I watch, and am become Like a sparrow that is alone upon the house top. 8 Mine enemies reproach me all the day; They that are mad against me do curse by me. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping. 10 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: For thou hast taken me up, and cast me away. 11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; And I am withered like grass. 12 But thou, O LORD, shalt abide for ever;

And thy memorial unto all generations. 13 Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: For it is time to have pity upon her, yea, the set time is come. 14 For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And have pity upon her dust. 15 So the nations shall fear the name of the LORD, And all the kings of the earth thy glory: 16 For the LORD hath built up Zion, He hath appeared in his glory; 17 He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, And hath not despised their prayer. 18 This shall be written for the generation to come: And a people which shall be created shall praise the LORD. 19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; From heaven did the LORD behold the earth; 20 To hear the sighing of the prisoner; To loose those that are appointed to death; 21 That men may declare the name of the LORD in Zion, And his praise in Jerusalem, 22 When the peoples are gathered together, And the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.

23. He weakened my strength in the way ; He shortened my days. 24 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days : Thy years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. 26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure :

Yea, all of them shall wax old like a gar- ment ; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed :

27. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end. 28 The children of thy servants shall continue, And their seed shall be established before thee.

THIS Psalm must have been written by one of the exiles in Babylon, probably toward the close of the captivity, when the hope of a re- turn seemed no longer doubtful. In mournful strains he describes his bitter lot. Sorrow and pain had been very busy with him. But when he looks away from his sorrow, a prospect so bright and so glorious opens before him, that in the thought of it all else is swallowed up and forgotten. Zion’s deliverance is at hand. Her God has not forsaken her. The grounds on which his hope rests are broad and manifold ; for Jehovah is the everlasting King (v. 12) ; the time fixed in His counsels is come (v. 13) ; the hearts of her children are moved with a more passionate longing for her restoration (v. 14) ; the prayer of His suffering people has prevailed, the sighing of the prisoner has en- tered into His ears (vs. 17, 19, 20). A new na- tion shall be born in Zion, and other nations and kingdoms shall be gathered into her to praise Jehovah (vs. 18, 21, 22). Once again, as for a moment, the sadness of the exile and the sufferer prevails. His life is ebbing away, his heart and his flesh fail. Shall he be permitted to look upon that glory with the thought of which he has been comforting himself, the vision of which has been passing before his eyes ? " Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days !" is the natural and touching petition which breaks from his lips, as he fears lest his eyes should be closed in death before that glory appears. And then suddenly, as if every cloud of apprehension were dispelled, he triumphs in the thought that there is One who changeth not ; that though the solid frame of the universe itself should crumble into dissolution, yet he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," the one hope and stay of His children now and in all generations to come.

On the Messianic character of the Psalm, and the quotation made from it in the Epistle to the Hebrews, see the remarks at the end on vs. 25-27. It is strange that this quotation should have been passed over without any notice, not only by commentators like De Wette and Hupfeld, but even by Calvin, Tholuck, and Hengs- tenberg. This Psalm is clearly individual, not national ; and must have been intended for private rather than liturgical use, as the in- scription seems designed to inform us. This inscription is peculiar ; it stands quite alone among the titles prefixed to the Psalms ; for it describes the character of the Psalm, and marks the circumstances under which it should be used. In all other instances the inscriptions are either musical or historical. Besides the pro- logue (vs. 1, 2), and the epilogue (vs. 23-28), the Psalm consists of two main divisions—the complaint (vs. 3-11), and the consolation (vs. 12-22). P.

2. In the day when I call answer me speedily. We may ask to have answers to prayer as soon as possible, but we may not complain of the Lord if He should think it more wise to delay. We have permission to request and to use im- portunity, but no right to dictate or to be petu- lant. If it be important that the deliverance should arrive at once, we are quite right in making an early time a point of our entreaty, for God is as willing to grant us a favor now as to-morrow, and He is not slack concerning His promise. S.

6. I resemble a pelican of the wilderness ; I am become like an owl (haunting) ruins. The simple idea conveyed by these figures is that of extreme loneliness and desolation. Beyond the fact that they inhabit solitudes, the natural his- tory of the birds mentioned is of no exegetical importance. 7. I have watched, and have been like a sparrow dwelling alone upon a house-top. A.—These birds are chosen to represent his case because they frequent old ruins, the most desolate localities, and in the night. This afflicted one is a desolate, dreary mourner, sleep- less and lonely. C.

Alone. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth ; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gal- lery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love. The Latin adage meet- eth it a little ; " magna civitas, magno solitudo ;"

because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods; but we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. Bacon.—See the reason why people in trouble love solitariness. They are full of sorrow; and sorrow, if it have taken deep root, is naturally reserved and flies all conversation. Grief is a thing that is very silent and private. Those people that are very talkative and clamorous in their sorrows are never very sorrowful. T. Rogers.

10. The acknowledgment is the same as in Psalm 90:7-9. It is sin which has thus provoked God’s displeasure; the two nouns, “indignation” and “wrath,” are in the Hebrew the strongest which the language possesses. D.

11. “A shadow that declineth” is literally a shadow stretched out, as shadows lengthen rapidly just when they are taking their flight. Wasting grief, perhaps sickness, is cutting short his days. C.—My days (my term of life) are as the lengthened shade, the lengthening shade of evening, that shows the near approach of night. The comparison, though not strictly expressed, is beautifully suggestive of the thought intended. Conant.—Seneca well says, that “though death is before the old man’s face, yet he may be as near the young man’s back.” Man’s life is the shadow of smoke, the dream of a shadow. One doubts whether to call it a dying life or a living death. T. Brooks.

Withered like grass. Heart break has a marvellously withering influence over our entire system; our flesh at its best is but as grass, and when it is wounded with sharp sorrows, its beauty fades, and it becomes a shrivelled, dried, uncomely thing. S.

12. BUT THOU. This is the great consolatory thought by which he rises above his sorrow. He, the individual, may perish, but Zion’s hopes rest on her eternal King. And yet this might seem, as Calvin remarks, a far-fetched consolation. What is it to us that God changeth not, that He sitteth King forever, if meanwhile our own condition is so frail and feeble that we cannot continue for a moment in one stay? His unchangeable peace and blessedness do but make our life seem the more complete mockery. But the Psalmist recalls God’s promises to His Church, especially that great covenant promise, “I will dwell in the midst of you” (Ex. 25:8). Resting on this, he feels sure that God’s children, however miserable their state, shall have their share in that heavenly glory wherein God dwelleth. Because God changes not, His promise and covenant change not, and therefore we may ever lift our eyes to His throne in heaven, from which He will surely stretch forth His hand to us. P.—This is my comfort—nay more, my joy—that my God lives, and will live forever. “Thy memorial name.” Hebrew usage favors this sense. The meaning then would be that the faithfulness and love expressed in that memorial name (Jehovah) shall endure through all generations. God not only lives forever, but will be forever the same faithful, loving God, the everlasting hope and joy of His trustful people. C.

Our days are as a shadow that declineth; but faith exclaims, “Thou shalt abide forever.” Unchangeable as God’s being is also His covenant; and of all the promises which He has made to the soul that seeks salvation, not one shall ever be withdrawn. Yea, the work of His grace does not share in the sentence of decay, wherefore we bow the head in adoration. God’s work in our heart does not wither like the grass, but ever blossoms fairer; and that which He has done for His name and kingdom, through our means, survives the feeble instrument, and is carried on by others. Van O.

13,14. Nothing is more certain than that God will rise for mercy to Zion when His appointed time shall have come, which time is in the Divine plan and cannot fail. So also the set time will surely have come when God’s servants shall manifest their sympathy with her ruined stones and give themselves with all their souls to her rebuilding. God’s set time will be indicated by the hearts of His people. Let it not be overlooked that this faith in God’s returning to rebuild Zion lifts the load of grief from this smitten sufferer’s heart. Inspired by such faith and hope he can bear anything; he practically knows no more any sorrow. The logical relations of thought in the passage are also richly instructive. God will arise to restore Zion, for the thing is fixed in His mind; will thus arise when this time shall have come; and it will have come, you may know, when His servants give the love of their heart to Zion and the power of their hand to her work. Plainly the writer lived at a point where he saw, present, or in the near prospect, the desolation of Zion, and in the certain future, her glorious restoration. C.

14. Jerusalem itself affords at this day a touching illustration of this passage. There is reason to believe that a considerable portion of the lower part of the walls which enclose the present mosque of Omar, which occupies the site of the ancient Jewish temple, are the same, or at least the southern, western, and eastern sides are the same as those of Solomon’s temple. At one part where the remains of this old wall are the most considerable and of the most massive character—where two courses of masonry, composed of massive blocks of stone, rising to the height of thirty feet—is what is called the Wailing Place of the Jews. “Here,” says Dr. Olin, “at the foot of the wall, is an open place paved with flags, where the Jews assemble every Friday, and in small numbers on other days, for the purpose of praying and bewailing the desolations of their holy places. Neither the Jews nor Christians are allowed to enter the Haram, which is consecrated to Mohammedan worship, and this part of the wall is the nearest approach they can make to what they regard as the precise spot within the forbidden enclosure upon which the ancient temple stood. They keep the pavement swept with great care, and take off their shoes, as on holy ground. Standing or kneeling with their faces toward the ancient wall, they gaze in silence upon its venerable stones, or pour forth their complaints in half-suppressed, though audible tones. This, to me, was always a most affecting sight, and I repeated my visit to this interesting spot to enjoy and sympathize with the melancholy yet pleasing spectacle.” Kitto.

16. The Lord in His glory.** The sun is ever glorious in the most cloudy day, but appears not so till it hath scattered the clouds that muffle it up from the sight of the lower world; God is glorious when the world sees Him not, but His declarative glory then appears when the glory of His mercy, truth, and faithfulness break forth in His people’s salvation. Gurnall.

17. He has turned unto the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. This verse continues to assign the reason why the nations and their kings will be struck with awe—viz., because this great and glorious God has turned round, as it were, and listened to the prayer of the destitute and granted their petition. The word translated destitute occurs only here and in Jer. 17:6; but from its etymological affinities and its intensive form, appears to mean naked, and then figuratively, stripped of everything, impoverished, entirely destitute. A.

“The prayer of the destitute”—in Hebrew, the naked one, the most utterly destitute and helpless. When His people have this feeling and come before God in conscious want and conscious weakness, yet taking hold of His strength as their legitimate hope, God will never despise their prayer. C.—The heart often prays most fervently when the lips are dumb or wholly inaudible. It is not the eloquent tongue that we want, but the humble and anxious heart. If we have deep wants felt within, the heart will speak should the lips be dumb. And God hears heart-prayer; He is not dependent upon its outward and eloquent expression. In His ear the publican’s first cry, the thief’s word, rose with infinite and perfect acceptance, and brought down an answer exceeding abundant above all that they could ask or think. Cumming.

18. The written record of God’s merciful purpose. Written in this Psalm, as well as in the foregoing Scriptures. For the after age. This refers to the future unto its remotest ages. A people created (Isa. 43:7). This has its grand fulfilment in the Christian Church. M.—The Gospel of the saving deeds wrought by God shall be committed to writing for the generations to come, and a created people, i.e., a new people coming into existence, the Church of the future, shall praise God the Redeemer for it. D.

20. To hear the groaning of the prisoner. God takes notice not only of the prayers of His afflicted people, which are the language of grace; but even of their groans, which are the language of nature. H.

23-27. Again he returns to the contrast between his own weakness and the brevity of human life, on the one hand, and the eternity and unchangeableness of God on the other (see above, vs. 11, 12), finding in this his perfect satisfaction and rest. P.—The sentiment is grand. Human life is too short for man to form and execute great plans; for how often is his strength cut off in the midst of his work? But God’s years roll on forever. The sun and the stars will fade out, but His strength remains unwasted forevermore! “Thou art the same,” literally, Thou art He—an expressive affirmation of God’s changeless being—forevermore Thou art He—all there is in God remaining forever the same. It is remarkable that the writer to the Hebrews (1:10-12) assumes that this passage ascribes Creatorship to the Son of God. This obviously implies that God as revealed to His people under the name Jehovah, the great “I Am,” was really the eternal Son. C.

24. The abrupt transition in this verse is full of pathetic beauty. The prayer that his life may not be prematurely cut short seems to spring in this instance not merely from a natural clinging to life (as in Hezekiah’s case), but from the intense desire to see God’s glory manifested in Israel’s restoration. Then, having uttered that prayer, without waiting for the answer, he magnifies God’s eternity and unchangeableness. He finds in these his strength in weakness; he feels that he can rest on the everlasting arms. He draws his highest consolation from the thought that though he himself may perish, cut off in the midst of his days; though the heavens and the earth may be changed, and wax old as a garment; yet He who created them is ever the same, that His purposes cannot be frustrated, that His Church, the children of His servants, shall abide, the witness and the monument of His love. P.

My God. The pronoun my is as much worth to the soul as the boundless portion. Luther saith, Much religion lieth in pronouns. All our consolation, indeed, consisteth in this pronoun. It is the cup which holdeth all our cordial waters. This pronoun is the door at which the King of saints entereth into our hearts, with His whole train of delights and comforts. Swinnock.

Take me not away in the midst of my days. This is an earnest, impassioned prayer, a prayer against death; and the fact which gives it its earnestness and impassioned energy is that he who offers it is in “the midst of his days.” Men in middle life are very apt to look upon death as an improbable event so far as they are concerned, and to make their calculations and shape their course accordingly. Hence it is that they, of all men, are least prepared to die. In them, too, the legitimate effects of the Gospel are rarely seen for the first time. E. Mason.

This is a prayer which, with submission to the will of God, we may in faith put up, that God would not take us away in the midst of our days, but that, if it be His will, He would spare us to do Him further service, and to be made riper for heaven. H.—We may lawfully ask for recovery from sickness and may hope to be heard. Good men should not dread death, but they are not forbidden to love life; for many reasons the man who has the best hope of heaven, may nevertheless think it desirable to continue here a little longer, for the sake of his family, his work, the Church of God, and even the glory of God itself. S.

The prayer is a request for a complete life. The wish is submitted to the will of God; for the man is a believer, and is ready to accept life in the form in which God orders it. He feels that there can be no real life without God, but that with Him it is certain to have a perfect and happy issue. A complete life has in it the doing some service to God and His world. We are here not merely to find God’s favor, but to do God’s work. So there are degrees of completeness even in Christian lives. They all reach the haven, but some with fuller sail and richer freight. In the Psalmist’s contrast of his days with God’s years, there is deep pathos; a sense of his own frailty and evanescence, and yet in the heart of it there is faith and hope. The eternal life of God suggests the thought of His power to grant, and of His immutability to secure, this request. Ker.

25-27. In Heb. 1: 10-12 addressed to Christ, and form part of the writer’s proof from the Old Testament. The quotation stands between two others, one from the forty-fifth, the other from the one hundred and tenth Psalm, bearing on the same argument. But these are both of them Messianic Psalms, and the principle on which the quotation rests is sufficiently obvious. It is by no means so easy to understand why the words of this Psalm should have been quoted, as it does not seem at first sight to be a Messianic Psalm. It may be observed, however: First, that it is in this sense Messianic, that it looks forward to Israel’s redemption from captivity, and the future glory of Zion; second, that there are two great lines of Messianic hope running through the Psalms, the one human, the other Divine; the one of which the reign of the Son of David, the other of which the advent of Jehovah, is the great end and object. Here the Psalmist is occupied with the latter, the appearing of Jehovah in His glory. Third, this identification of the Jesus of the New Testament with the Jehovah of the Old is what we find elsewhere; compare John 12: 41 with Isa. 6 (Isaiah sees the glory of Jehovah; John tells us it was the glory of Christ), and John 19: 37, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced,” which in Zech. 12: 10 is language used directly of Jehovah. P.

25. Earth. Heavens.** He names here the most stable parts of the world and the most beautiful parts of the creation, those that are freest from corruptibility and change, to illustrate thereby the immutability of God, that though the heavens and earth have a prerogative of fixedness above other parts of the world, and the creatures that reside below, the heavens remain the same as they were created, and the centre of the earth retains its fixedness, and are as beautiful and fresh in their age as they were in their youth many years ago, notwithstanding the change of the elements. Yet this firmness of the earth and heavens is not to be regarded in comparison of the unmovableness and fixedness of the being of God. As their beauty comes short of the glory of His being, so doth their firmness come short of His stability. Charnock.

26. Wax old like a garment, as a vesture shall thou change them. A garment shows the man, and he is known by it; but also it hides him, that he is not perfectly or fully seen. So are the works of creation unto God, He so far makes them His garment or clothing as in them to give out some instances of His power and wisdom; but He is also hid in them, in that by them no creature can come to the full and perfect knowledge of Him. Now, when this work shall cease, and God shall unclothe or unveil all His glory to His saints, and they shall know Him perfectly, see Him as He is, so far as a created nature is capable of that comprehension, then will He lay them aside and fold them up, at least as to that use, as easily as a man lays aside a garment that he will wear or use no more. This lies in the metaphor. Owen.—The frame of nature, yea, the universe itself, is but as a loom for the weaving and unrolling of truth revealing God; and when it shall have answered its present purpose, then it shall be laid aside, just as a loom is taken to pieces when nothing more is to be done with it. It exalts the importance of the material universe, and gives it a grandeur even beyond its own immeasurable wealth of the Divine intelligence revealed in its principles and laws for our study, when we regard it thus as God’s loom, the framework for higher designs and a more infinite glory. Cheever.

There is no mistaking these scriptural analogies of the past and the future. Earth shall be rehabilitated; nature shall put on her new robe; there shall be a new creative day, a new firmament, a new glory in the sun and stars, a new Adam, Prince of a new life, a new human kind over whom death shall reign no more, a new Eden-world, “Wherein dwelleth righteousness.” T. Lewis.

27. Thou art the same.** Everywhere else we meet with change; the grass springs up and withers; flowers bloom and fade; trees grow and decay. Man in the pride of his glory is swept away. The seasons change, the mountains crumble, the very heavens grow old. The best of men forget their promises or change their purposes. But God is unchangeable. “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.” M. Simpson.

The being of creatures is successive; the being of God is permanent, and remains entire, with all its perfections unchanged in an infinite duration. All His perfections are most perfect in Him every moment, before all ages, after all ages. Of a creature it may be said, he was, or he is, or he shall be. Of God it cannot be said but only He is; He is what He always was, and He is what He always will be. Of man it may be said, he is a succession of parts; but he is not the same that he was, and will not be the same that he is. But God is the same without any succession of parts, and of time; of Him it may be said, He is; He is no more now than He was, and He shall be no more hereafter than He is. Charnock.

28. God’s servants individually may be cut short of life and die; but their generations shall endure; their children shall rise up to fill their places, and then their children’s children, so that God’s covenant shall stand and the seed of the righteous be established before God. So the Church has a sort of earthly immortality; God’s earthly kingdom shall not end while the world shall stand. C.