Psalms 102

HEar my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.

Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble, encline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call, answer me speedily.

For my days are consumed like smoke Which passeth away in obscurity and swiftly and irrecoverably. Or, into smoke, as Wood or any combustible matter put into the fire wasteth away in smoke and ashes.: and my bones The most strong and solid parts of my body which seemed safest from the fire. are burnt as an hearth Either as an Hearth is heated or burnt up by the Coals which are laid upon it: or as the Hearth being so heated burns up that which is put upon it..

My heart is smitten, and withered like grass Which is smitten and withered by the heat of the Sun either whilst it stands, or after it is cut down.; so that I forget to eat my bread Because my mind is wholly swallowed up with the contemplation of my own miseries..

By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin My flesh being quite consumed with excessive sorrows..

I am like a pelican Or, bittern, as the same word is translated, Isa. 34. 11. Zeph 2. 14. It is a solitary and mournful Bird, as also the Owl here following is. in the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

I watch, and am as a sparrow Which has lost its Mate, and then is very sad and solitary, as some report; although that be uncertain and improbable. But this Hebrew word does not only signifie a Sparrow, but in general any Bird, as Levit 14. 4. Deut. 14. 11. Dan. 4. 9, 11, 30. And so it may here design any one or more sort of Birds, which used to sit alone watching and mourning upon house-tops. alone upon the house-top.

Mine enemies reproach me all the day: and they that are mad against me, are sworn against me Or, and being mad or enraged at or against me they sweat against me, they swear they will do me yet more mischief: or, they swear by me, they make use of my name and misery in their forms of swearing and imprecation; as when they would express their malicious and mischievous intentions against another, they swear that they will use him or make him as miserable as a Jew. See the like expressions Numb. 5 21. Isai. 61. 15. Ier. 29. 22..

For So this Verse gives a reason either of his great sadness expressed v. 6, 7. or why they swore by him in the sense last given. Or, Surely, as this Particle is oft used. Or, Therefore, because of those bitter reproaches last mentioned. I have eaten ashes like bread The sense is, Dust and ashes are as constant and familiar to me as the eating of my Bread, I cover my head with them, I sit, yea lye down and roll my self in them, as Mourners oft did, 2 Sam. 13. 19. Iob 2. 8, 12. and 16. 15. Isai. 47. 1. Mich. 1. 10. by which means the ashes might easily be mingled with their meat, as tears were with their drink in the next Clause., and mingled my drink with weeping He alludes to the custom of mingling their Wine with Water..

Because of thine indignation and thy wrath Because I do not only conflict with men, but with the Almighty God, and with his anger.: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down As a man lifts up a person or thing as high as he can that he may cast it down to the ground with greater force. Or he aggravates his present reproach and misery by the consideration of that great honour and happiness to which God had formerly advanced him, as Iob did, ch. 29. & 30. and the Church, Lam. 1. 7..

My days Our hopes and comforts and happiness; days being oft put for happy days or an happy state, as Psal. 37. 18. Lament. 5. 21. as elsewhere they are put more generally for the events which happen in those days: in both which cases it is a Metonymy of the Adjunct. are like a shadow that declineth Or, that is extended or stretched out to its ulmost length, as it is when the Sun is setting, when it speedily and totally vanisheth. And just so the hopes of our restitution, which sometimes we have, are quickly cut off and disappointed.: and I am withered like grass.

But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever But this is my comfort, although we dye and our hopes vanish, yet our God is everlasting and unchangeable, and therefore invincible by all his and our enemies, constant in his counsels and purposes of mercy to his Church, stedfast and faithful in the performance of all his promises; and therefore he both can and will deliver his people., and thy remembrance Either 1. the fame and memory of thy wonderful works. Or rather 2. thy name, Iehovah, mentioned in the former clause, which is called by this very word, Gods remembrance or memorial, and that unto all generations, Exod. 3. 15. Thus this clause exactly answers to the former; and both of them describe the Eternity of Gods existence, whereby the Psalmist relieves and supports himself under the consideration of his own and his peoples frailty and vanity. unto all generations.

Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion Upon Ierusalem, or thy Church and People.: for the time to favour her, yea the set time The end of those 70. Years which thou hast fixed: of which see Ier. 25. 12. and 29. 10. Dan. 9. 2. is come.

For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof Thy people value the dust and rubbish of the holy City more than all the Palaces of the Earth, and passionately desire that it may be rebuilt..

So the Heathen shall fear the name of the LORD: and all the kings of the earth thy glory Which was in some sort fulfilled when the rebuilding of the Temple and City of God was carried on and finished through so many and great difficulties and oppositions, to the admiration, envy and terrour of their Enemies, as we read Nehem. 6. 16. Compare Psal. 126. 2. but much more truly and fully in building of the spiritual Ierusalem by Christ, unto whom the Gentiles were gathered, and the Princes of the World paid their acknowledgments..

When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory His glorious power and wisdom and goodness shall be manifested to all the World..

He will regard the prayer of the destitute i. e. Of his poor forsaken despised people in Babylon., and not despise i. e. Will accept and answer. their prayer.

This shall be written This wonderful deliverance shall not be lost nor forgotten but carefully recorded by thy people. for the generation to come For the instruction and incouragement of all succeeding Generations. The singular number put for the plural, as is ordinary.: and the people which shall be created Which may be understood either 1. of the Jews which should be restored, who were in a manner dead and buried in the grave, and mere dry bones, Isa. 26. 19. Ezek. 37. and therefore their restauration might well be called a Creation, or, as it is elsewhere, a resurrection. Or 2. of the Gentiles who should be converted, whose conversion is frequently and might very justly be called a second Creation. See 43. 1, 7, 15. and 65. 18. Eph. 2. 10, 15. shall praise the LORD.

For he has looked down To wit, upon us not like an idle Spectator, but with an eye of pity and relief, as the next Verse declares from the height of his sanctuary From his higher or upper Sanctuary, to wit, Heaven, as the next Clause explains it, which is called Gods high and holy place, Isa. 57. 15.: from Heaven did the LORD behold the earth.

To hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death To release his poor Captives out of Babylon, and, which is more, from the Chains and Fetters of Sin and Satan, and from eternal destruction..

To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem That they being delivered might publish and celebrate the name and praises of God in his Church..

When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms to praise the LORD When the Gentiles shall gather themselves to the Jews, and join with them in the praise and worship of the true God, and of the Messias. This Verse seems to be added to intimate that although the Psalmist in this Psalm respects the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, yet he had a further design and a principal respect unto that greater and more general deliverance of his Church and People by the Messias..

He To wit, God, to whom he ascribes these Calamities, v. 10. to whom therefore he addresseth himself for relief. weakned my strength in the way Either 1. in the midst of our expectations. Whilest we are expecting the accomplishment of thy promise either of bringing us out of Babylon; or of sending the Messias, we faint and one of us perish after another, and our hope is like the giving up of the Ghost. Or rather 2. in the midst of the course of our lives. Which sense is confirmed, 1. from the following Clause. Which after the manner explains the former, he shortned my days; as also from the next Verse where he begs relief from God against this misery in these words, take me not away in the midst of my days. 2. From the use of this word way, which is used for the course of a mans life, Psal. 2. 12. and (which comes to the same thing) for the course of a journey as it is opposed to the end of the journey, Gen. 24. 27. Exod. 23. 20. and elsewhere; the life of man being oft compared to a journeying or travelling and death to his journeys end. And the Psalmist here speaks (as other sacred Writers do elsewhere, and as all sorts of Writers frequently do) of the whole Commonwealth as of one man, and of its continuance as of the life of one man. And so this seems to be the matter of his complaint and humble expostulation with God, O Lord, thou didst choose us out of all the World to be thy peculiar people, and didst plant us in Ganaan, and cause a glorious Temple to be built to thy name to be the only place of thy publick and solemn worship in the World, and didst make great and glorious promises, that thine eyes and heart should be upon it perpetually, 1 Kings 9. 3. and that thy people should be planted in thy land so as not to be moved any more or afflicted, as they had been in the days of the Judges, 2 Sam. 7. 10, 11. From whence we promised to our selves a long and setled prosperity. But, alas, how soon were our hopes blasted, not long after the beginning of our settlement, in Rehoboams time, and so successively in the course of our affairs under the following Kings, till at last thou didst give us up to ruine and desolation, as at this day. And this he does not alledge to accuse God or excuse himself or his people, but only that he might move the Divine Majesty to show them some pity considering the shortness of their days, and his own Eternity, as he pursues the argument in the following Verses., he shortned my days The days of my life, or of my prosperous state, as above v. 11. for adversity is a kind of death, and is frequently so called.

I said, O my God; take me not away Do not wholly cut off and destroy thy people of Israel. in the midst of my days Before they come to a full age and stature, and to the plenary possession of thy promises, and especially of that great and fundamental promise of the Messiah in and by whom alone their happiness is to be compleated, and until whose coming thy Church is in its nonage; of which see Gal. 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Possibly the Psalmist (whom some learned Interpreters suppose to be Daniel) may have respect to that Prophecy, Dan. 9. 24, 25. which probably was published before this time: for this time was almost precisely the midst of the days between the building of the material Temple by Solomon, and the building of the spiritual Temple or the Church by the Messias; there being about a thousand years distance between those two periods whereof seventy Prophetical Weeks, or four hundred and ninety years were yet to come. And so he prays that God would not root them out in this Babylonish Captivity, but would graciously restore them to their own land and preserve them as a Church and Nation there until the coming of the Messias.: thy years are throughout all generations Though we successively die and perish, yet thou art the everlasting and unchangeable God, and therefore art and wilt ever be able to deliver thy people, and faithful in performing all thy promises; and therefore we beseech thee to pity our frail and languishing state, and give us a more setled and lasting felicity than yet we have enjoyed; and therefore we trust that thy people shall continue and be established before thee, as he says, v. 28. because as thou art the everlasting God, so thou hast made an Everlasting Covenant with them, Psal. 105. 10. Isa. 55. 3. Ier. 32. 40. to be their God for ever; and therefore thou wilt not now forsake or reject us..

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands The Eternity of God looks both backward and forward, it is both without beginning and without end. The former is affirmed and illustrated, v. 24, 26, 27. the latter is clearly implyed in this Verse, Thou hadst a being before the Creation of the World, when there was nothing but Eternity, but the Earth and Heavens had a beginning given them by thy Almighty Power..

They shall perish Either 1. as to the substance of them, which shall be annihilated. Or 2. as to their present nature and use. See Isa. 65. 17. and 66. 22. 2 Pet. 3. 7, 10, 11. The Heavens and the Earth although they be the most permanent of all visible beings, and their continuance is oft mentioned to signifie the stability and immutability of things, yet if compared with thee are as nothing, they had a beginning and shall have an end., but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old i. e. Decay and perish. like a garment Which is worn out and laid aside, and exchanged for another. And so shall this present frame of Heaven and Earth be.; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.

But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

The children of thy servants shall continue Though the Heavens and the Earth perish, and though we thy servants pine away in our iniquities according to thy righteous sentence and threatning, Levit. 26. 39. and die in Captivity, yet by virtue of thy eternal and unchangeable nature and Covenant we rest assured that our Children and their Children after them shall enjoy the promised mercies, an happy restitution to, and settlement in, their own land, and the presence of our and their Messias, whom, being not to come till after 490. years, we shall not live to see. The expression here used is general, not without design, partly to show that this promised blessing belongs to the Jews not upon the account of any carnal relation to Abraham, but as they are and continue to be Gods servants, from whom if they revolt, they lose this and all their other priviledges; and partly to imply that it belongs to all Gods faithful Servants and to their Children, whether they be Jews, or Gentiles, of whose Conversion he spoke, v. 22., and their seed shall be established before thee In the place of thy gracious presence, either here in thy Church, or hereafter in Heaven, from which we are now banished. And this phrase further intimates that their happiness did not consist in the enjoyment of the outward blessings of the land of Canaan, but in the presence and fruition of God there, which he mentions as the top and upshot of all his desires and their felicities..