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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.”

What then does the prophet mean when he prays, Let us not perish in the midst of our course? ¹⁶⁰¹⁶⁰ “Possibly the Psalmist (whom some learned interpreters suppose to be Daniel) may have respect to that prophecy, Daniel 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 these 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 of 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.” — Poole’s Annotations. The reason stated in the clause immediately following, Thy years are from generation to generation, seems to be quite inapplicable in the present case. Because God is everlasting, does it therefore follow that men will be everlasting too? But on Psalm 90:2, we have shown how we may with propriety bring forward his eternity, as a ground of confidence in reference to our salvation; for he desires to be known as eternal, not only in his mysterious and incomprehensible essence, but also in his word, according to the declaration of the Prophet Isaiah,

“All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8

Now since God links us to himself by means of his word, however great the distance of our frail condition from his heavenly glory, our faith should nevertheless penetrate to that blessed state from which he looks down upon our miseries. Although the comparison between his eternal existence and the brief duration of human life is introduced also for another purpose, yet when he sees that men pass away as it were in a moment, and speedily evanish, it moves him to compassion, as shall presently be declared at greater length.