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102. Psalm 102

¹ Hear my prayer, LORD;
   let my cry for help come to you.
² Do not hide your face from me
   when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
   when I call, answer me quickly.

    ³ For my days vanish like smoke;
   my bones burn like glowing embers.
⁴ My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
   I forget to eat my food.
⁵ In my distress I groan aloud
   and am reduced to skin and bones.
⁶ I am like a desert owl,
   like an owl among the ruins.
⁷ I lie awake; I have become
   like a bird alone on a roof.
⁸ All day long my enemies taunt me;
   those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
⁹ For I eat ashes as my food
   and mingle my drink with tears
¹⁰ because of your great wrath,
   for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
¹¹ My days are like the evening shadow;
   I wither away like grass.

    ¹² But you, LORD, sit enthroned forever;
   your renown endures through all generations.
¹³ You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
   for it is time to show favor to her;
   the appointed time has come.
¹⁴ For her stones are dear to your servants;
   her very dust moves them to pity.
¹⁵ The nations will fear the name of the LORD,
   all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
¹⁶ For the LORD will rebuild Zion
   and appear in his glory.
¹⁷ He will respond to the prayer of the destitute;
   he will not despise their plea.

    ¹⁸ Let this be written for a future generation,
   that a people not yet created may praise the LORD:
¹⁹ “The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high,
   from heaven he viewed the earth,
²⁰ to hear the groans of the prisoners
   and release those condemned to death.”
²¹ So the name of the LORD will be declared in Zion
   and his praise in Jerusalem
²² when the peoples and the kingdoms
   assemble to worship the LORD.

    ²³ In the course of my life Or By his power he broke my strength;
   he cut short my days.
²⁴ So I said:
“Do not take me away, my God, in the midst of my days;
   your years go on through all generations.
²⁵ In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
   and the heavens are the work of your hands.
²⁶ They will perish, but you remain;
   they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
   and they will be discarded.
²⁷ But you remain the same,
   and your years will never end.
²⁸ The children of your servants will live in your presence;
   their descendants will be established before you.”

19. For he hath looked down from the high place of his holiness Now the prophet contemplates the deliverance after which he breathes with anxious desire, as if it had been already accomplished. That the malignity of men might not attempt to obscure such a signal blessing of Heaven, he openly and in express terms claims for God his rightful praise; and the people were constrained in many ways to acknowledge therein the divine hand. Long before they were dragged into captivity, this calamity had been foretold, that when it took place the judgment of God might be clearly manifested; and at the same time deliverance had been promised them, and the time specified to be after the lapse of seventy years. The ingratitude of men therefore could not devise or invent any other cause to which to ascribe their return but the mere goodness of God. Accordingly, it is said, that God looked down from heaven, that the Jews might not attribute to the grace and favor of Cyrus the deliverance which evidently proceeded from Heaven. The high place of his holiness or sanctuary is here equivalent to heaven. As the temple, in some parts of Scripture, (Psalm 26:8 and Psalm 76:2) is called “the habitation of God,” in respect of men, so, that we may not imagine that there is any thing earthly in God, he assigns to himself a dwelling-place in heaven, not because he is shut up there, but that we may seek him above the world.