Psalms 102

Psalms 102:1-11

Some think David penned this psalm at the time of Absalom’s rebellion; others, that Daniel, Nehemiah, or some other prophet, penned it for the use of the church, during their captivity in Sialolan: but it is clear, from the application of ver. 25, 26. to Christ, Heb. i. 11, 12. that the psalm has reference to the days of the Messiah, and speaks either of his afflictions, or the afflictions of his church for his sake. In it we have, 1. A sorrowful complaint made of great and grievous afflictions, ver. 1—11. 2. Sustainable comfort fetched in against these grievances, (1.) From the eternity of God, ver. 12, 23, 27. (2.) From a believing prospect of the deliverance which God would in due time work for his afflicted church, ver. 13—22. and the continuance of it in the world, ver. 28.

¶ 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. ‘Hule not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble, incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call, answer me speedily. 3. For my days are conformed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as an heart, 4. My heart is tinnitus, and withered like grais, so that I forget to eat my bread. 5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my § skin. 6. I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the deters. 7. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top. 8. Mine enemies reproach me all the day: and they that are mad against me, are sworn against 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 lifted me up, and call me down.

down. Psalm CII:

clown. 11. My days are like a shadow that declineth: and I am withered like grafs.

The title of this psalm is observable; it is a prayer of the afflicted, and such are all the people of God at times, from a sense of their sins, the opposition of their enemies (spiritual and temporal), and from the burden of their in-bred corruptions, when he is overwhelmed; and so sunk they sometimes are under the head of their trials, that they are ready to despair; yet, when he pounds out his complaint before the Lord, as he is invited freely to do, assured that his compassionate boilers can be touched with the feeling of our infirmates, he will bear his cry, and will help him; and this inestimable privilege the child of God fails not to improve, and lodges all his complaints with the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation. This the afflicted psalmist did, and in his own cafe directs us how to act when under the like pressure.

1. He directs his prayer to God, entreating kind regard, the return of the light of God’s countenance, and a speedy answer, because his necessities were urgent, v. 1, 2. Note, (1.) Outward troubles are made light, when God comforts the soul with internal consolations; but when inward disheds is joined with outward afflictions, the cafe is peculiarly grievous. (2.) If God suffers his people to be reduced very low, it is with a delight to exercise their faith, and excite their more importunate prayers.

2. He spreads his particular complaints before the Lord. His body, through disease or trouble, is so emaciated, that his bones above to his skin, v. 5. and form ready to burst through it, enfeebled, and unable to support him, as if burnt with fire, v. 3. His anguish bitter and continual; his groans piercing; his days confessed like insides, so transient; or in insides, in darkness, trouble, and vexation, v. 3. His spirits quite exhausted; his heart sunk in dejection; like the unaltered grafs, scorched up with inward torment; and his appetite half, v. 4. Like the poison and evil he shunned the light, and conversed of men, and pined away in melancholy solitude. No balmy sleep closed up his eyes, but petting on his forrows, alone he fat, as a gherman as the body-top, deserted by all his friends, or avoiding their company, v. 7. His enemies, pleased to behold his griefs, inflicted him, as if his religion was vain, or his professions hypocritical, since God had forsaken him; and, and in their rage against him, united, and bound themselves by an oath to feast this opportunity of his distress in order to destroy him, v. 8. But what above all his sufferings lay the heaviest upon him, was the sense of God’s indignation, and the fear of his wrath, who, from the height of prosperity to which he had been advanced, had cast him thus into the depths of adversity, v. 10. This was the gall in his cup, that embittered every pang, made his bread like aphes, and and filled his cup with tears, v. 9. The shadows of death seemed stretching over him, his fun of life fast declining, and like the grafs, cut down, dried up, and withered, he saw himself dropping into the grave. Such were his complaints: we may not count it strange, if we are brought into circumstances where they may be our own. Disease may walk our bodies, trouble prey on our spirits, friends prove faithless, enemies inveterate; our fears of guilt be strong, and death at our door, but whilst there is life, there is hope, and whilst there is a God of all grace, we may not despair: He can still hear and help, when all other help and hope shall fall us: trust therefore in the Lord for ever, and pray without ceasing.

3. But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever, and thy remembrance unto all generations. 13. Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. 14. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the duly thereof. 15. So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD: and all the kings of the earth say glory. 16. When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. 17. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. 18. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the 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 groaning of the prisoner, to look of those that are appointed to death; 21. To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem: 22. When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms to serve the LORD.

Psalms 102:12-22

Many and great are the troubles of the righteous, but out of all the Lord delivereth them: and hence the psalms express his own confidence, and that of all the redeemed in Zion.

1. The Lord Jesus is an everlasting Saviour; for to him are the words addressed, (See Heb. i. 10.) Thus, Lord, shall endure for ever. However long continued the afflictions of his church

and people, because he endureth for ever, they shall outlive and overcome them. The propensity of his mechanical kingdom, and his fidelity in the constant discharge of his trust, as our ceaseless advocate, unchangeable friend, and almighty King, ensures us the victory at last: and thy remembrance to all generations; seeing he shall be exalted to eternity in the praises of his redeemed, for all the great salvation begins, continued, and completed by him, for them, and in them.

2. There is an appointed time fixed in his decrees for the continuance and removal of the afflictions of Zion, v. 13. and faith, that knows it certain, brings it near. The time it came, because the deliverance is as firm, as if it were already accomplished: and this may have repaid to the seventy years of the Babylonish captivity, or to the period of the church’s calamity under the perfections of Antichrist; or more generally to the cafe of every suffering faint of God, who is called to trust and wait in patient hope for the salvation of God; for it is fixed unalterably, and sure eternally.

3. This will allue to the glory of God, and the great comfort of his people. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the duly thereof. Though in ruins the temple lay, the faithful Jews loved the place, and respected the very dull: and how great must their delight them be, to see these stones revived from the rubbish, and growing into an holy temple? And then the ministers of the gospel, in all the despotations of the church, long for the glorious day of restitution; and whenever the Lord puts it into the hearts of his people to pass for, and labour to serve, the interests of his Zion, it is a genuine sign that the promised mercy is at hand. Hence also God will be abundantly glorified; his saints will admire and adore him for the grace manifested in that great day, v. 16. and the heathen, struck with reverence at the sight of God’s interposition in behalf of his people, shall be converted unto him, and the kings of the earth behold his glory, and yield themselves up to his service.

4. The prayers of the faithful shall be answered, v. 17. They are destitute of human help and comfort, and in their own spirits forlorn and despised, but not the left dear to him: he will not despise those whom man despiseth, but as the contrate heart is his delight, they shall be accepted by him, and receive from him a rich supply of every want.

5. The record of this mercy shews to Zion at the humble prayer of God’s people, will encourage the faith, and excite the praises of succeeding generations of the faithful, created anew in Christ Jesus, v. 18. Note, (1.) The past experience of God’s care of his people should ever encourage our confidence of the like protection. (2.) Our fathers’ mercies, as well as our own, deserve the grateful return of praise.

6. Even the groans of the poor prisoners, doomed to death, he hears, rescues them from ruin, and magnifies thereby his mercy. He hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary: from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, and all that was done under the sun, with an eye of especial regard to his people, particularly when suffering for his name’s sake, under the power of oppressors. To hear the groaning of the prisoner, bound for the testimony of God, and the faith of Jesus, as multitudes have been, and still continue under the power of the antichristian tyranny, and tortured in their inquisitorial diagnosis. To help those that are appointed to death; either to rescue them from the death of the body, or to save the souls of those who were tied and bound with the chain of their sins, and in their own fears apprehended themselves exposed to the eternal death of body and soul in hell, but under deep conviction of their full estate, groaning in bitterness, cry and are heard, pardoned through the blood of Jesus, and saved by forerough grace. To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; as the captives released from Babylon did, and as the church of the redeemed, delivered from the wake of Antichrist, will do; and which is now daily done by every poor sinner rescued from the bondage of corruption, and the Jews of hell, whose heart, big with thankfulness, adores the wonders of redeeming love, and sacrifices the praise of all to Jesus his Lord. When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms to serve the Lord, which will be most eminently the cafe, when the Lord Jesus in the latter day shall take to himself his great power and reign, and those who are the subjects of his happy government, shall with exultation rejoice in his kingdom and glory.

7. He ye weakened my strength in the way; he shorted 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 ye endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vulture, shall 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.

Psalms 102:23-28

Though reduced to deepest distress, the church of God, and every faithful soul, shall rise superior to their foes, and triumph at the last. We have here,

1. The low estate to which the church was reduced. He weakened my strength in the way. In our journey to the heavenly Canaan every believer meets with many a discouragement from the length and difficulties of the road, and mental strength is ready often to fail; and the church itself, as when Israel was led captive to Babylon, is threatened frequently with extirpation, and her name to be had no more in remembrance; whilst God seems to have withdrawn his protection: and he shortened my days, such was his apprehension under the impending danger; and thus also the faithful soul under the preflame of sickness, with Heraclask may be apt to conclude, that ere he hath complicated half the years of man’s appointed time, he shall go down to the grave.

2. The psalmist, in the name of the faithful, prays for a respite, v. 24. for though death is diverted of its terrors by the Lord Jesus, and every child of God may count it their mercy to have the days which might have been occupied in the labours of time, employed in the triumphs of eternity; yet there are reasons why even good men, as Paul, may wish to abide in the flesh. Or, if it be applied to the church, it is a prayer founded on the promise, that the shall never fail, whilst the eternal God endures, whose years are throughout all generations. Jesus, (to whom these words belong, see Heb. i. 10-12.) is the everlasting and ever-loving Saviour of his redeemed: the worlds which he hath made, shall perish; and the heavens his hands expanded, he changed as a verity, v. 26, 27. but he, unchangeably the same, v. 27. shall be the everlasting portion of his people. They may safely trust him with all their concerns in time and eternity, and, when they do so, shall experience, to their unspeakable comfort, his power, grace, and love, constantly and uniformly exerted to bless, preserve, and keep them to his everlasting kingdom. And this,

3. The psalmist confidently expects. The children of thy servant shall continue; a succession of faithful people shall arise in every age; and their soul shall be established before thee. To the lastest authority, amidst the severest provocations, and the strongest efforts of sin and Satan, the church shall be preserved, till her militant days on earth being compleated, the shall reign triumphant for ever in heaven with her exalted head.