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Psalm 102

Prayer to the Eternal King for Help

A prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the L ord.

1

Hear my prayer, O L ord;

let my cry come to you.

2

Do not hide your face from me

in the day of my distress.

Incline your ear to me;

answer me speedily in the day when I call.

 

3

For my days pass away like smoke,

and my bones burn like a furnace.

4

My heart is stricken and withered like grass;

I am too wasted to eat my bread.

5

Because of my loud groaning

my bones cling to my skin.

6

I am like an owl of the wilderness,

like a little owl of the waste places.

7

I lie awake;

I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.

8

All day long my enemies taunt me;

those who deride me use my name for a curse.

9

For I eat ashes like bread,

and mingle tears with my drink,

10

because of your indignation and anger;

for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.

11

My days are like an evening shadow;

I wither away like grass.

 

12

But you, O L ord, are enthroned forever;

your name endures to all generations.

13

You will rise up and have compassion on Zion,

for it is time to favor it;

the appointed time has come.

14

For your servants hold its stones dear,

and have pity on its dust.

15

The nations will fear the name of the L ord,

and all the kings of the earth your glory.

16

For the L ord will build up Zion;

he will appear in his glory.

17

He will regard the prayer of the destitute,

and will not despise their prayer.

 

18

Let this be recorded for a generation to come,

so that a people yet unborn may praise the L ord:

19

that he looked down from his holy height,

from heaven the L ord looked at the earth,

20

to hear the groans of the prisoners,

to set free those who were doomed to die;

21

so that the name of the L ord may be declared in Zion,

and his praise in Jerusalem,

22

when peoples gather together,

and kingdoms, to worship the L ord.

 

23

He has broken my strength in midcourse;

he has shortened my days.

24

“O my God,” I say, “do not take me away

at the midpoint of my life,

you whose years endure

throughout all generations.”

 

25

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth,

and the heavens are the work of your hands.

26

They will perish, but you endure;

they will all wear out like a garment.

You change them like clothing, and they pass away;

27

but you are the same, and your years have no end.

28

The children of your servants shall live secure;

their offspring shall be established in your presence.


10. On account of thy anger and thy wrath He now declares that the greatness of his grief proceeded not only from outward troubles and calamities, but from a sense that these were a punishment inflicted upon him by God. And surely there is nothing which ought to wound our hearts more deeply, than when we feel that God is angry with us. The meaning then amounts to this — O Lord! I do not confine my attention to those things which would engage the mind of worldly men; but I rather turn my thoughts to thy wrath; for were it not that thou art angry with us, we would have been still enjoying the inheritance given us by thee, from which we have justly been expelled by thy displeasure. When God then strikes us with his hand, we should not merely groan under the strokes inflicted upon us, as foolish men usually do, but should chiefly look to the cause that we may be truly humbled. This is a lesson which it would be of great advantage to us to learn.

The last clause of the verse, Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down, may be understood in two ways. As we lift up what we intend to throw down with greater violence against the ground, the sentence may denote a violent method of casting down, as if it had been said, Thou hast crushed me more severely by throwing me down headlong from on high, than if I had merely fallen from the station which I occupied. 145145     “What is meant by נשאתני, ‘thou hast lifted me up,’ etc., is to be judged by the immediate antecedents, indignation and wrath; by these is meant vehement displeasure and anger, and in God, in whom anger is not found, effects that bear analogy with those which proceed from angry men. To such it is ordinary to cast to the ground any thing that they are displeased with, and where the displeasure is vehement, to lift it up first as high as they can, that they may cast it down with more violence, and dash it in pieces by the fall. And this is the meaning of the phrase here, and so is a pathetical expression of his present affliction, heightened by the dignity of the public office wherein Nehemiah was at the time of writing this mournful psalm, (Nehemiah 1:1 and 2:1.) The greater his place was at Shushan, the deeper his sorrow for his countrymen and for Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:3) pierced him, whereupon he complains that God, by way of indignation, hath dealt with him, as those that take an earthen vessel and throw it against the pavement, and that they may beat it to pieces the more certainly, lift it up first as high as they can, to throw it down with more violence. This the LXX. have fitly rendered, ἐπάρας κατέρ᾿ῥαξάς με, and the Latin, elevans illisisti me, ‘having lifted me up, thou hast dashed me to pieces.’” — Hammond But this seems to be another amplification of his grief, nothing being more bitter to an individual than to be reduced from a happy condition to extreme misery, the prophet mournfully complains that the chosen people were deprived of the distinguished advantages which God had conferred upon them in time past, so that the very remembrance of his former goodness, which should have afforded consolation to them, embittered their sorrow. Nor was it the effect of ingratitude to turn the consideration of the divine benefits, which they had formerly received, into matter of sadness; since they acknowledged that their being reduced to such a state of wretchedness and degradation was through their own sins. God has no delight in changing, as if, after having given us some taste of his goodness, he intended forthwith to deprive us of it. As his goodness is inexhaustible, so his blessing would flow upon us without intermission, were it not for our sins which break off the course of it. Although, then, the remembrance of God’s benefits ought to assuage our sorrows, yet still it is a great aggravation of our calamity to have fallen from an elevated position, and to find that we have so provoked his anger, as to make him withdraw from us his benignant and bountiful hand. Thus when we consider that the image of God, which distinguished Adam, was the brightness of the celestial glory; and when, on the contrary, we now see the ignominy and degradation to which God has subjected us in token of his wrath, this contrast cannot surely fail of making us feel more deeply the wretchedness of our condition. Whenever, therefore, God, after having stripped us of the blessings which he had conferred upon us, gives us up to reproach, let us learn that we have so much the greater cause to lament, because, through our own fault, we have turned light into darkness.


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