Psalms 102 commentary

The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but here, is often elsewhere, the Holy Ghost has put words into our mouths. Here is a prayer put into the hands of the afflicted; let them present it to God. Even good men may be almost overwhelmed with afflictions. It is our duty and interest to pray; and it is comfort to an afflicted spirit to unburden itself, by a humble representation of its griefs. We must say, Blessed be the name of the Lord, who both gives and takes away. The psalmist looked upon himself as a dying man; My days are like a shadow.

We are dying creatures, but God is an everlasting God, the protector of his church; we may be confident that it will not be neglected. When we consider our own vileness, our darkness and deadness, and the manifold defects in our prayers, we have cause to fear that they will not be received in heaven; but we are here assured of the contrary, for we have an Advocate with the Father, and are under grace, not under the law. Redemption is the subject of praise in the Christian church; and that great work is described by the temporal deliverance and restoration of Israel. Look down upon us, Lord Jesus; and bring us into the glorious liberty of thy children, that we may bless and praise thy name.

Bodily distempers soon weaken our strength, then what can we expect but that our months should be cut off in the midst; and what should we do but provide accordingly? We must own God's hand in it; and must reconcile this to his love, for often those that have used their strength well, have it weakened; and those who, as we think, can very ill be spared, have their days shortened. It is very comfortable, in reference to all the changes and dangers of the church, to remember that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in reference to the death of our bodies, and the removal of friends, to remember that God is an everlasting God. Do not let us overlook the assurance this psalm contains of a happy end to all the believer's trials. Though all things are changing, dying, perishing, like a vesture folding up and hastening to decay, yet Jesus lives, and thus all is secure, for he hath said, Because I live ye shall live also.

PSALM 102

This prayer seems to have been dictated to the faithful when they were languishing in captivity in Babylon. Sorrowful and humbled, they first bewail their afflictions. In the next place, they plead with God for the restoration of the holy city and temple. To encourage themselves to come before him in prayer with the greater confidence, they call to remembrance the Divine promises in reference to the happy renovation both of the kingdom and of the priesthood; and they not only assure themselves of deliverance from captivity, but also beseech God to bring kings and nations in subjection to himself. In the close of the psalm, after having interposed a brief complaint concerning their distressing and afflicted condition, they draw consolation from the eternity of God; for, in adopting his servants to a better hope, he has separated them from the common lot of men.

A prayer for the afflicted, when he shall be shut up, and shall pour out his meditation before Jehovah.

Whoever of the prophets composed this psalm, it is certain that he dictated it to the faithful as a form of prayer for the re-establishment of the temple and the city. Some limit it to the time when, after the return of the Jews from Babylon, the building of the temple was hindered by the neighboring nations; but with this I cannot agree. I am rather of opinion that the poem was written before the return of the people, when the time of their promised deliverance was just at hand; for then the prophets began to be more earnest in lifting up the hearts of the godly according to these words of Isaiah, (Isaiah 40:1) “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” “This plaintive poem was written by some pious exile towards the expiration of the seventy years of captivity during which the people of Israel were detained in Babylon. [...] The author of the psalm had most probably been carried away captive in early youth. He had survived nearly to the end of the term, and now, worn with cares and anxieties, he was earnest with God that deliverance might speedily arrive, lest he should sink into the grave without revisiting the delightful scenes by which his imagination was enraptured, without witnessing the fulfillment of the hopes which the prophets of God had excited by the predictions which they had delivered relative to the returning prosperity of his beloved country.” — Walford. Hammond thinks that the psalm was written by Nehemiah, after the return of Ezra with commission for rebuilding the temple. See Nehemiah 1:3, etc. Others ascribe it to Jeremiah or Daniel. The design of the sacred poet was, not only to inspire the people with courage, but also to excite in them greater care about the welfare of the Church. The title of the psalm indicates the end and purpose which it was intended to serve. Those who translate the verbs in the past tense, A prayer for the afflicted, when he was in distress, and poured out his meditation, “Sa plainte.” — Fr. “His complaint.” seem to give an incorrect view of the mind of the prophet. He rather intended to relieve the sorrow of those whose hearts he saw depressed; as if he had said, Although you may be afflicted with anguish and despair, you must not on that account desist from prayer. Some translate the verb עטף, ataph, when he shall hide himself, and conceive that this is a metaphorical expression of the gesture of a man engaged in prayer, when, on account of his grief, unable to lift up his face, he, as it were, hides himself, and keeps his head wrapped up in his bosom. But there appears to me to be an elegant play upon the words, when the distresses of the mind, and its being shut up, are spoken of, on the one hand, and the pouring out of prayers on the other; teaching us that, when we are so shut up by grief as to shun the light and presence of men, the gate is so far from being shut against our prayers, that then in truth is the most proper season for engaging in prayer, for it is a singular alleviation of our sorrows when we have opportunity freely to pour out our hearts before God. The verb שוח, suach, often denotes to pray; but, as it also signifies to meditate, the noun derived from it properly means, in this place, meditation. It is, moreover, to be observed that, by these words, the Psalmist admonishes the Israelites as to the frame of mind with which it became them to use this form of prayer at the throne of grace; as if he had said, that he prescribed it to those only who were distressed on account of the desolate condition of the Church.

Psalm 102:1-2

1. O Jehovah! hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. 2. Hide not thy face from me in the day of my affliction; incline thy ear to me: in the day when I cry make haste, answer me.

1 O Jehovah! hear my prayer This earnestness shows, again, that these words were not dictated to be pronounced by the careless and light-hearted, which could not have been done without grossly insulting God. In speaking thus, the captive Jews bear testimony to the severe and excruciating distress which they endured, and to the ardent desire to obtain some alleviation with which they were inflamed. No person could utter these words with the mouth without profaning the name of God, unless he were, at the same time, actuated by a sincere and earnest affection of heart. We ought particularly to attend to the circumstance already adverted to, that we are thus stirred up by the Holy Spirit to the duty of prayer in behalf of the common welfare of the Church. Whilst each man takes sufficient care of his own individual interests, there is scarcely one in a hundred affected as he ought to be with the calamities of the Church. We have, therefore, the more need of incitements, even as we see the prophet here endeavoring, by an accumulation of words, to correct our coldness and sloth. I admit that the heart ought to move and direct the tongue to prayer; but, as it often flags or performs its duty in a slow and sluggish manner, it requires to be aided by the tongue. There is here a reciprocal influence. As the heart, on the one hand, ought to go before the words, and frame them, so the tongue, on the other, aids and remedies the coldness and torpor of the heart. True believers may indeed often pray not only earnestly but also fervently, while yet not a single word proceeds from the mouth. There is, however, no doubt that by crying the prophet means the vehemence into which grief constrains us to break forth.

PSALM 102

Psa 102:1-28. A Prayer of the afflicted, &c.--The general terms seem to denote the propriety of regarding the Psalm as suitably expressive of the anxieties of any one of David's descendants, piously concerned for the welfare of the Church. It was probably David's composition, and, though specially suggested by some peculiar trials, descriptive of future times. Overwhelmed--(compare Psa 61:2). Poureth out--pouring out the soul--(Psa 62:8). Complaint--(Psa 55:2). The tone of complaint predominates, though in view of God's promises and abiding faithfulness, it is sometimes exchanged for that of confidence and hope.

1-3. The terms used occur in Psa 4:1; 17:1, 6; 18:6; 31:2, 10; 37:20.

4. (Compare Psa 121:6).

so that I forget--or, "have forgotten," that is, in my distress (Psa 107:18), and hence strength fails.

5. voice ... groaning--effect put for cause, my agony emaciates me.

6-7. The figures express extreme loneliness.

8. sworn against me--or literally, "by me," wishing others as miserable as I am (Nu 5:21).

9. ashes--a figure of grief, my bread; weeping or tears, my drink (Psa 80:5).

10. lifted ... cast me down--or, "cast me away" as stubble by a whirlwind (Is 64:6).

11. shadow ... declineth--soon to vanish in the darkness of night.

12. Contrast with man's frailty (compare Psa 90:1-7).

thy remembrance--that by which Thou art remembered, Thy promise.

13-14. Hence it is here adduced.

for--or, "when."

the set time, &c.--the time promised, the indication of which is the interest felt for Zion by the people of God.

15-17. God's favor to the Church will affect her persecutors with fear.

18. people ... created--(compare Psa 22:31), an organized body, as a Church.

19-22. For--or, "That," as introducing the statement of God's condescension. A summary of what shall be written.

to loose ... appointed--or, "deliver" them (Psa 79:11).

23-28. The writer, speaking for the Church, finds encouragement in the midst of all his distresses. God's eternal existence is a pledge of faithfulness to His promises.

in the way--of providence.

weakened--literally, "afflicted," and made fearful of a premature end, a figure of the apprehensions of the Church, lest God might not perform His promise, drawn from those of a person in view of the dangers of early death (compare Psa 89:47). Paul (He 1:10) quotes Psa 102:26-28 as addressed to Christ in His divine nature. The scope of the Psalm, as already seen, so far from opposing, favors this view, especially by the sentiments of Psa 102:12-15 (compare Is 60:1). The association of the Messiah with a day of future glory to the Church was very intimate in the minds of Old Testament writers; and with correct views of His nature it is very consistent that He should be addressed as the Lord and Head of His Church, who would bring about that glorious future on which they ever dwelt with fond delightful anticipations.

Hear my prayer - The chief parts of the Psalm answer well to the title: it is the language of the deepest distress, and well directed to Him from whom alone help can come.

My days are consumed like smoke - He represents himself (for the psalmist speaks in the name of the people) under the notion of a pile of combustible matter, placed upon a fire, which soon consumes it; part flying away in smoke, and the residue lying on the hearth in the form of charred coal and ashes. The Chaldeans were the fire, and the captive Jews the fuel, thus converted into smoke and ashes.

My heart is smitten, and withered like grass - The metaphor here is taken from grass cut down in the meadow. It is first smitten with the scythe, and then withered by the sun. Thus the Jews were smitten with the judgments of God; and they are now withered under the fire of the Chaldeans.

I am like a pelican of the wilderness - It may be the pelican or the bittern. The original, קאת kaath, is mentioned Lev 11:18 (note), and is there described. See the note.

Owl of the desert - כוש cos, some species of owl; probably the night raven. See the notes referred to above.

As a sparrow alone - צפור tsippor, seems to be often used for any small bird, such as the swallow, sparrow, or the like. Bochart supposes the screech owl is intended.

They that are mad against me are sworn against me - The Chaldeans are determined to destroy us; and they have bound themselves by oath to do it. See a similar case related Act 23:12-14, where a number of Jews had bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had slain Paul.

I have eaten ashes like bread - Fearful of what they might do, we all humbled ourselves before thee, and sought thy protection; well knowing that, unless we were supernaturally assisted, we must all have perished; our enemies having sworn our destruction.

For thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down - Thou hast lifted me on high, that thou mightest dash me down with the greater force.

We were exalted in thy favor beyond any people, and now thou hast made us the lowest and most abject of the children of men.

My days are like a shadow that declineth - Or rather, My days decline like the shadow. I have passed my meridian, and the sun of my prosperity is about to set for ever. There may be here an allusion to the declination of the sun towards the south, which, by shortening their days, would greatly lengthen their nights. Similar to the exclamation of a contemporary prophet, Jer 8:20 : "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." There is now scarcely any human hope of our deliverance.

But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever - Our life is a shadow; we can scarcely be called beings when compared with thee, for thou art eternal. Have mercy upon us, creatures of a day, and thy kindness shall be a memorial in all our generations.

Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion - While he is humbled at the footstool of mercy, and earnestly praying for mercy, an answer of peace is given; he is assured, not only that they shall be delivered, but that the time of deliverance is at hand. The set time - the seventy years predicted by Jeremiah, was ended; and God gave him to see that he was ever mindful of his promises.

Thy servants take pleasure in her stones - Though Jerusalem was at this time in a heap of ruins, yet even her rubbish was sacred in the eyes of the pious; for this had been the city of the great King.

So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord - It is granted that after the edict of Cyrus to restore and rebuild Jerusalem which was about four hundred and ninety years before Christ, the name of the true God was more generally known among the heathen; and the translating the Sacred Writings into Greek, by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, about two hundred and eighty-five years before the Christian era, spread a measure of the light of God in the Gentile world which they had not before seen. Add to this the disperson of the Jews into different parts of the Roman empire, after Judea became a Roman province, which took place about sixty years before the advent of our Lord; and we may consider these as so many preparatory steps to the conversion of the heathen by the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And to this last general illumination of the Gentile world the psalmist must allude here, when he speaks of "the heathen fearing God's name, and all the kings of the earth his glory."

When the Lord shall build up Zion - It is such a difficult thing, so wholly improbable, so far out of the reach of human power, that when God does it, he must manifest his power and glory in a most extraordinary manner.

The prayer of the destitute - הערער haarar of him who is laid in utter ruin, who is entirely wasted.

The people which shall be created - "The Gentiles, who shall be brought to the knowledge of salvation by Christ," as the Syriac states in its inscription to this Psalm: how often the conversion of the soul to God is represented as a new creation, no reader of the New Testament need be told. See Eph 2:10; Eph 4:24; 2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15. Even the publication of the Gospel, and its influence among men, is represented under the notion of "creating a new heaven and a new earth," Isa 65:17, Isa 65:18.

For he hath looked down - This, with the three following verses, seems to me to contain a glorious prophecy of the incarnation of Christ, and the gathering in of the Jews and the Gentiles to him. The Lord looks down from heaven, and sees the whole earth groaning and travailing in pain; his eye affects his heart, and he purposes their salvation.

To hear the groaning - By sin, all the inhabitants of the earth are miserable. They have broken the Divine laws, are under the arrest of judgment, and all cast into prison, They have been tried, found guilty, and appointed to die; they groan under their chains, are alarmed at the prospect of death, and implore mercy.

To declare the name of the Lord - To publish that Messenger of the Covenant in whom the name of the Lord is, that Messiah in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt; and to commence at Jerusalem, that the first offers of mercy might be made to the Jews, from whom the word of reconciliation was to go out to all the ends of the earth.

When the people are gathered together - When all the Gentiles are enlightened, and the kings of the earth brought to pay homage to the King of kings.

He weakened my strength in the way - We are brought so low in our captivity by oppression, by every species of hard usage, and by death, that there is now no hope of our restoration by any efforts of our own.

I said, O my God - This and the following verses seem to be the form of prayer which the captives used previously to their deliverance.

Thy years are throughout all generations - This was a frequent argument used to induce God to hear prayer. We are frail and perishing; thou art everlasting: deliver us, and we will glorify thee.

Of old hast thou laid the foundation - None taught of God ever imagined the world to have been eternal. Of old, לפנים lephanim, before there were any faces or appearances, thou didst lay the foundations of the earth. It was created by thee; it did not grow by accretion or aggregation from a pre-existent nucleus. There was nothing; and thou didst produce being - substance or matter. Out of that created matter thou didst make the earth and the heavens.

They shall perish - Nothing can be eternal a parte ante, or a parte post, but thyself. Even that which thou hast created, because not necessarily eternal, must be perishable; necessary duration belongs to God only; and it is by his will and energy alone that universal nature is preserved in existence, and preserved from running into speedy disorder, decay, and ruin.

Yea, all of them shall wax old - Every thing must deteriorate, unless preserved by thy renewing and invigorating energy. Even the heavens and the earth are subject to this law; for that which is not, from the infinite perfection of its own nature, Eternal, must be perishable; therefore the heavens and the earth must necessarily come to an end. They contain the seeds of their own dissolution. It is true that in sublunary things, the vicissitudes of seasons is a sort of check to the principle of dissolution; but it only partially corrects this tendency. Even the productions of the earth wear out or deteriorate. Plant the same seed or grain for several years consecutively, and it degenerates so as at last not to be worth the labor of tillage, however expensively the soil may be manured in which it is planted. I may instance in wheat and in the potatoe, the two grand supporters of life in European countries. All other seeds and plants, as far as they have fallen under my observation, are subject to the same law.

But thou art the same - ואתה הוא veattah Hu, but thou art He, that is, The Eternal; and, consequently, he who only has immortality.

Thy years shall have no end - לא יתמו lo yittammu, "they shall not be completed." Every thing has its revolution - its conception, growth, perfection, decay, dissolution, and death, or corruption. It may be said that regeneration restores all these substances; and so it does in a measure, but not without deterioration. The breed of animals, as well as vegetables, wears out; but God's eternal round has no completion. I repeat it, - what is necessarily eternal is unchangeable and imperishable; all created beings are perishable and mutable, because not eternal. God alone is eternal; therefore God alone is imperishable and immutable.

The children of thy servants shall continue - Thy Church shall be permanent, because founded on thee, it shall live throughout all the revolutions of time. And as thy followers are made partakers of the Divine nature they shall live in union with God in the other world, deriving eternal duration from the inexhaustible Fountain of being. Nothing can be permanent but by God's supporting and renewing influence.

An hearth - An hearth is heated or burnt by the coals which are laid upon it.

Skin - My flesh being quite consumed.

A pelican - Is a solitary and mournful bird.

Bread - The sense is, dust and ashes are as familiar to me as the eating of my bread; I cover my head with them; I sit, yea, lie down in them, as mourners often did.

Lifted me - As a man lifts up a thing as high as he can, that he may cast it to the ground with greater force.

Remembrance - Thy name, Jehovah, which is called by this very word, God's remembrance, or memorial, and that unto all generations, Exod 3:15.

The set time - The end of those seventy years which thou hast fixed.

This - This wonderful deliverance shall be carefully recorded by thy people.

Looked - From heaven.

To loose - To release his poor captives out of Babylon, and from the chains of sin and eternal destruction.

To declare - That they might publish the name and praises of God in his church.

When - When the Gentiles shall gather themselves to the Jews, and join with them in the worship of the true God.

He - God. The way - In the midst of the course of our lives. Some think the psalmist here speaks of the whole commonwealth as of one man, and of its continuance, as of the life of one man.

I said - Do not wholly destroy thy people Israel. In the midst - Before they come to a full possession of thy promises and especially of that fundamental promise of the Messiah. Thy years - Though we die, yet thou art the everlasting God.

Perish - As to their present nature and use.

Continue - Though the heavens and earth perish, yet we rest assured that our children, and their children after them, shall enjoy an happy restitution to, and settlement in their own land.

3 For my days are consumed like smoke : and my bones are burnt as an hearth .

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.

The most strong and solid parts of my body which seemed safest from the fire.

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.

Marginal references: Or, (as some [illegible: 1 word]) into [illegible: 1 word]. Psal. 37. [illegible: 1 word]

4 My heart is smitten, and withered like grass ; so that I forget to eat my bread .

Which is smitten and withered by the heat of the Sun either whilst it stands, or after it is cut down.

Because my mind is wholly swallowed up with the contemplation of my own miseries.

5 By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin .

My flesh being quite consumed with excessive sorrows.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] 19. 20. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]. 8.; Or, [illegible: 1 word].

6 I am like a pelican in the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

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.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] 30. 29.

7 I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.

Which hath lost its Mate, and then is very sad and solitary, as some report; although that be uncertain and improbable. But this Hebrew word doth not onely 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.

8 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.

9 For I have eaten ashes like bread , and mingled my drink with weeping .

So this Verse gives a reason either of his great sadness expressed v. 6, 7. or why they swore by him in the sence last given. Or, Surely, as this Particle is oft used. Or, Therefore, because of those bitter reproaches last mentioned.

The sence 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.

He alludes to the custom of mingling their Wine with Water.

Marginal references: Psal. 42. 3. 8[illegible: 1+ letters] 80. 5.

10 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath : for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down .

Because I do not onely conflict with men, but with the Almighty God, and with his anger.

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.

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

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.

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.

Marginal references: Psal. 109. 23. & 144. 4. Eccl. 6. 12.; Isai. 40. 6. Jam. 1. 10. Psal. 109. 13.

12 But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever , and thy remembrance unto all generations.

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.

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.

Marginal references: Lam. 5. 19.; Psal. 135. [illegible: 1+ letters]3.

13 Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion : for the time to favour her, yea the set time is come.

Upon Ierusalem, or thy Church and People.

The end of those 70. Years which thou hast fixed: of which see Ier. 25. 12. and 29. 10. Dan. 9. 2.

14 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.

15 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.

16 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.

17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute , and not despise their prayer.

i. e. Of his poor forsaken despised people in Babylon.

i. e. Will accept and answer.

18 This shall be written for the generation to come : and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.

This wonderful deliverance shall not be lost nor forgotten but carefully recorded by thy people.

For the instruction and incouragement of all succeeding Generations. The singular number put for the plural, as is ordinary.

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 meer 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.

Marginal references: Psal. 22. 31.

19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary : from Heaven did the LORD behold the earth.

To wit, upon us not like an idle Spectator, but with an eye of pity and relief, as the next Verse declares

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.

20 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.

Marginal references: Psal. 79. 11.; Heb. the children of death.

21 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.

22 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.

23 He weakned my strength in the way , he shortned my days

To wit, God, to whom he ascribes these Calamities, v. 10. to whom therefore he addresseth himself for relief.

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 sence 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 chuse 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 onely 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 doth not alledge to accuse God or excuse himself or his people, but onely that he might move the Divine Majesty to shew them some pity considering the shortness of their days, and his own Eternity, as he pursues the argument in the following Verses.

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.

Marginal references: Heb. afflicted.

24 I said, O my God; take me not away in the midst of my days : thy years are throughout all generations .

Do not wholly cut off and destroy thy people of Israel.

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.

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 saith, 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.

Marginal references: Job 36. 20▪ Heb.

25 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.

Marginal references: Heb. 1. 10.

26 They shall perish , but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.

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.

i. e. Decay and perish.

Which is worn out and laid aside, and exchanged for another. And so shall this present frame of Heaven and Earth be.

Marginal references: Isai. 15. 6.; Heb. stand.

28 The children of thy servants shall continue , and their seed shall be established before thee .

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 vertue 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 shew 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.

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.

Prayer of a Patient Sufferer for Himself and for the Jerusalem That Lies in Ruins

Psa 101:1-8 utters the sigh: When wilt Thou come to me? and Ps 102 with the inscription: Prayer for an afflicted one when he pineth away and poureth forth his complaint before Jahve, prays, Let my prayer come unto Thee. It is to be taken, too, just as personally as it sounds, and the person is not to be construed into a nation. The song of the עני is, however, certainly a national song; the poet is a servant of Jahve, who shares the calamity that has befallen Jerusalem and its homeless people, both in outward circumstances and in the very depth of his soul. עטף signifies to pine away, languish, as in Psa 61:3, Isa 57:16; and שׁפך שׂיחו to pour out one’s thoughts and complaints, one’s anxious care, as in Psa 142:3, cf. 1Sa 1:15.

As in the case already with many of the preceding Psalms, the deutero-Isaianic impression accompanies us in connection with this Psalm also, even to the end; and the further we get in it the more marked does the echo of its prophetical prototype become. The poet also allies himself with earlier Psalms, such as Ps 22, Ps 69, and Psa 79:1-13, although himself capable of lofty poetic flight, in return for which he makes us feel the absence of any safely progressive unfolding of the thoughts.

Psa 102:1-2

The Psalm opens with familiar expressions of prayer, such as rise in the heart and mouth of the praying one without his feeling that they are of foreign origin; cf. more especially Psa 39:13; Psa 18:7; Psa 88:3; and on Psa 102:3 : Psa 27:9 (Hide not Thy face from me); Psa 59:17 (ביום צר לי); Psa 31:3 and frequently (Incline Thine ear unto me); Psa 56:10 (ביום אקוא); Psa 69:8; Psa 143:7 (מהר ענני).

Psa 102:3-5

From this point onward the Psalm becomes original. Concerning the Beth in בעשׁן, vid., on Psa 37:20. The reading כּמו קד (in the Karaite Ben-Jerucham) enriches the lexicon in the same sense with a word which has scarcely had any existence. מוקד (Arabic mauḳid) signifies here, as in other instances, a hearth. נחרוּ is, as in Psa 69:4, Niphal: my bones are heated through with a fever-heat, as a hearth with the smouldering fire that is on it. הוּכּה (cf. יגודּוּ, Psa 94:21) is used exactly as in Hos 9:16, cf. Psa 121:5. The heart is said to dry up when the life’s blood, of which it is the reservoir, fails. The verb שׁכח is followed by מן of dislike. On the cleaving of the bones to the flesh from being baked, i.e., to the skin (Arabic bašar, in accordance with the radical signification, the surface of the body = the skin, from בשׂר, to brush along, rub, scrape, scratch on the surface), cf. Job 19:20; Lam 4:8. ל (אל) with דּבק is used just like בּ. It is unnecessary, with Böttcher, to draw מקּול אנחתי to Psa 102:5. Continuous straining of the voice, especially in connection with persevering prayer arising from inward conflict, does really make the body waste away.

Psa 102:6-8 קאת (construct of קאת or קאת from קאה, vid., Isaiah, at Isa 34:11-12), according to the lxx, is the pelican, and כּוס is the night-raven or the little horned-owl.The lxx renders it: I am like a pelican of the desert, I am become as a night-raven upon a ruined place (οἰκοπέδῳ). In harmony with the lxx, Saadia (as also the Arabic version edited by Erpenius, the Samaritan Arabic, and Abulwalîd) renders קאת by Arab. qûq (here and in Lev 11:18; Deu 14:17; Isa 34:17), and כוס by Arab. bûm; the latter (bum) is an onomatopoetic name of the owl, and the former (k[uk[) does not even signify the owl or horned-owl (although the small horned-owl is called um kuéik in Egypt, and in Africa abu kuéik; vid., the dictionaries of Bocthor and Marcel s.v. chouette), but the pelican, the “long-necked water-bird” (Damiri after the lexicon el - ‛Obâb of Hasan ben-Mohammed el-Saghani). The Graeco-Veneta also renders קאת with πελεκάν, - the Peshito, however, with Syr. qāqā'. What Ephrem on Deu 14:17 and the Physiologus Syrus (ed. Tychsen, p. 13, cf. pp. 110 f). say of Syr. qāqā', viz., that it is a marsh-bird, is very fond of its young ones, dwells in desolate places, and is incessantly noisy, likewise points to the pelican, although the Syrian lexicographers vary. Cf. also Oedmann, Vermischte Sammlungen, Heft 3, Cap. 6. (Fleischer after a communication from Rodiger.) דּמה obtains the signification to be like, equal (aequalem esse), from the radical signification to be flat, even, and to spread out flat (as the Dutch have already recognised). They are both unclean creatures, which are fond of the loneliness of the desert and ruined places. To such a wilderness, that of the exile, is the poet unwillingly transported. He passes the nights without sleep (שׁקד, to watch during the time for sleep), and is therefore like a bird sitting lonesome (בּודד, Syriac erroneously נודד) upon the roof whilst all in the house beneath are sleeping. The Athnach in Psa 102:8 separates that which is come to be from the ground of the “becoming” and the “becoming” itself. His grief is that his enemies reproach him as one forsaken of God. מהולל, part. Poal, is one made or become mad, Ecc 2:2 : my mad ones = those who are mad against me. These swear by him, inasmuch as they say when they want to curse: “God do unto thee as unto this man,” which is to be explained according to Isa 65:15; Jer 29:22.

Psa 102:9-11

Ashes are his bread (cf. Lam 3:16), inasmuch as he, a mourner, sits in ashes, and has thrown ashes all over himself, Job 2:8; Eze 27:30. The infected שׁקּוי has שׁקּוּ = שׁקּוּו for its principal form, instead of which it is שׁקּוּי in Hos 2:7. “That Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down” is to be understood according to Job 30:22. First of all God has taken away the firm ground from under his feet, then from aloft He has cast him to the ground - an emblem of the lot of Israel, which is removed from its fatherland and cast into exile, i.e., into a strange land. In that passage the days of his life are כּצל נטוּי, like a lengthened shadow, which grows longer and longer until it is entirely lost in darkness, Psa 109:23. Another figure follows: he there becomes like an (uprooted) plant which dries up.

Psa 102:12-14

When the church in its individual members dies off on a foreign soil, still its God, the unchangeable One, remains, and therein the promise has the guarantee of its fulfilment. Faith lays hold upon this guarantee as in Ps 90. It becomes clear from Psa 9:8 and Lam 5:19 how תּשׁב is to be understood. The Name which Jahve makes Himself by self-attestation never falls a prey to the dead past, it is His ever-living memorial (זכר, Exo 3:15). Thus, too, will He restore Jerusalem; the limit, or appointed time, to which the promise points is, as his longing tells the poet, now come. מועד, according to Psa 75:3; Hab 2:3, is the juncture, when the redemption by means of the judgment on the enemies of Israel shall dawn. לחננהּ, from the infinitive חנן, has ĕ, flattened from ă, in an entirely closed syllable. רצה seq. acc. signifies to have pleasure in anything, to cling to it with delight; and חנן, according to Pro 14:21, affirms a compassionate, tender love of the object. The servants of God do not feel at home in Babylon, but their loving yearning lingers over the ruins, the stones and the heaps of the rubbish (Neh 4:2), of Jerusalem.

Psa 102:15-17

With וייראוּ we are told what will take place when that which is expected in Psa 102:14 comes to pass, and at the same time the fulfilment of that which is longed for is thereby urged home upon God: Jahve’s own honour depends upon it, since the restoration of Jerusalem will become the means of the conversion of the world - a fundamental thought of Isa 40:1 (cf. more particularly Isa 59:19; Isa 60:2), which is also called to mind in the expression of this strophe. This prophetic prospect (Isa 40:1-5) that the restoration of Jerusalem will take place simultaneously with the glorious parusia of Jahve re-echoes here in a lyric form. כּי, Psa 102:17, states the ground of the reverence, just as Psa 102:20 the ground of the praise. The people of the Exile are called in Psa 102:18 הערער, from ערר, to be naked: homeless, powerless, honourless, and in the eyes of men, prospectless. The lxx renders this word in Jer 17:6 ἀγριομυρίκη, and its plural, formed by an internal change of vowel, ערוער, in Jer 48:6 ὄνος ἄγριος, which are only particularizations of the primary notion of that which is stark naked, neglected, wild. Psa 102:18 is an echo off Psa 22:25. In the mirror of this and of other Psalms written in times of affliction the Israel of the Exile saw itself reflected.

Psa 102:18-22

The poet goes on advancing motives to Jahve for the fulfilment of his desire, by holding up to Him what will take place when He shall have restored Zion. The evangel of God’s redemptive deed will be written down for succeeding generations, and a new, created people, i.e., a people coming into existence, the church of the future, shall praise God the Redeemer for it. דּור אחרון as in Psa 48:14; Psa 78:4. עם נברא like עם נולד Ps 22:32, perhaps with reference to deutero-Isaianic passages like Isa 43:17. On Psa 102:20, cf. Isa 63:15; in Psa 102:21 (cf. Isa 42:7; Isa 61:1) the deutero-Isaianic colouring is very evident. And Psa 102:21 rests still more verbally upon Psa 79:11. The people of the Exile are as it were in prison and chains (אסיר), and are advancing towards their destruction (בּני תמוּתה), if God does not interpose. Those who have returned home are the subject to לספּר. בּ in Psa 102:23 introduces that which takes place simultaneously: with the release of Israel from servitude is united the conversion of the world. נקבּץ occurs in the same connection as in Isa 60:4. After having thus revelled in the glory of the time of redemption the poet comes back to himself and gives form to his prayer on his own behalf.

Psa 102:23-28

On the way (ב as in Psa 110:7) - not “by means of the way” (ב as in Psa 105:18), in connection with which one would expect of find some attributive minuter definition of the way - God hath bowed down his strength (cf. Deu 8:2); it was therefore a troublous, toilsome way which he has been led, together with his people. He has shortened his days, so that he only drags on wearily, and has only a short distance still before him before he is entirely overcome. The Chethîb כחו (lxx ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ) may be understood of God’s irresistible might, as in Job 23:6; Job 30:18, but in connection with it the designation of the object is felt to be wanting. The introductory אמר (cf. Job 10:2), which announces a definite moulding of the utterance, serves to give prominence to the petition that follows. In the expression אל־תּעלני life is conceived of as a line the length of which accords with nature; to die before one’s time is a being taken up out of this course, so that the second half of the line is not lived through (Ps 55:24, Isa 38:10). The prayer not to sweep him away before his time, the poet supports not by the eternity of God in itself, but by the work of the rejuvenation of the world and of the restoration of Israel that is to be looked for, which He can and will bring to an accomplishment, because He is the ever-living One. The longing to see this new time is the final ground of the poet’s prayer for the prolonging of his life. The confession of God the Creator in Psa 102:26 reminds one in its form of Isa 48:13, cf. Psa 44:24. המּה in Psa 102:27 refers to the two great divisions of the universe. The fact that God will create heaven and earth anew is a revelation that is indicated even in Isa 34:4, but is first of all expressed more fully and in many ways in the second part of the Book of Isaiah, viz., Isa 51:6, Isa 51:16; Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22. It is clear from the agreement in the figure of the garment (Isa 51:6, cf. Psa 50:9) and in the expression (עמד, perstare, as in Isa 66:22) that the poet has gained this knowledge from the prophet. The expressive אתּה הוּא, Thou art He, i.e., unalterably the same One, is also taken from the mouth of the prophet, Isa 41:4; Isa 43:10; Isa 46:4; Isa 48:12; הוּא is a predicate, and denotes the identity (sameness) of Jahve (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 63). In v. 29 also, in which the prayer for a lengthening of life tapers off to a point, we hear Isa 65:2; Isa 66:22 re-echoed. And from the fact that in the mind of the poet as of the prophet the post-exilic Jerusalem and the final new Jerusalem upon the new earth under a new heaven blend together, it is evident that not merely in the time of Hezekiah or of Manasseh (assuming that Isa 40:1 are by the old Isaiah), but also even in the second half of the Exile, such a perspectively foreshortened view was possible. When, moreover, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews at once refers Psa 102:26-28 to Christ, this is justified by the fact that the God whom the poet confesses as the unchangeable One is Jahve who is to come.

Complaints in Affliction.

1 Hear my prayer, O Lord , and let my cry come unto thee. 2 Hide 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 consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth. 4 My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; 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 desert. 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 cast me down. 11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.

The title of this psalm is very observable; it is a prayer of the afflicted. It was composed by one that was himself afflicted, afflicted with the church and for it; and on those that are of a public spirit afflictions of that kind lie heavier than any other. It is calculated for an afflicted state, and is intended for the use of others that may be in the like distress; for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written designedly for our use. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but here, as often elsewhere, the Holy Ghost has drawn up our petition for us, has put words into our mouths. Hos. xiv. 2, Take with you words. Here is a prayer put into the hands of the afflicted: let them set, not their hands, but their hearts to it, and present it to God. Note, 1. It is often the lot of the best saints in this world to be sorely affected. 2. Even good men may be almost overwhelmed with their afflictions, and may be ready to faint under them. 3. When our state is afflicted, and our spirits are overwhelmed, it is our duty and interest to pray, and by prayer to pour out our complaints before the Lord, which intimates the leave God gives us to be free with him and the liberty of speech we have before him, as well as liberty of access to him; it intimates also what an ease it is to an afflicted spirit to unburden itself by a humble representation of its grievances and griefs. Such a representation we have here, in which,

I. The psalmist humbly begs of God to take notice of his affliction, and of his prayer in his affliction, v. 1, 2. When we pray in our affliction, 1. It should be our care that God would graciously hear us; for, if our prayers be not pleasing to God, they will be to no purpose to ourselves. Let this therefore be in our eye that our prayer may come unto God, even to his ears (Ps. xviii. 6); and, in order to that, let us lift up the prayer, and our souls with it. 2. It may be our hope that God will graciously hear us, because he has appointed us to seek him and has promised we shall not seek him in vain. If we put up a prayer in faith, we may in faith say, Hear my prayer, O Lord! "Hear me," that is, (1.) "Manifest thyself to me, hide not thy face from me in displeasure, when I am in trouble. If thou dost not quickly free me, yet let me know that thou favourest me; if I see not the operations of thy hand for me, yet let me see the smiles of thy face upon me." God's hiding his face is trouble enough to a good man even in his prosperity (Ps. xxx. 7, Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled); but if, when we are in trouble, God hides his face, the case is sad indeed. (2.) "Manifest thyself for me; not only hear me, but answer me; grant me the deliverance I am in want of and in pursuit of; answer me speedily, even in the day when I call." When troubles press hard upon us, God gives us leave to be thus pressing in prayer, yet with humility and patience.

II. He makes a lamentable complaint of the low condition to which he was reduced by his afflictions. 1. His body was macerated and emaciated, and he had become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones. As prosperity and joy are represented by making fat the bones, and the bones flourishing like a herb, so great trouble and grief are here represented by the contrary: My bones are burnt as a hearth (v. 3); they cleave to my skin (v. 5); nay, my heart is smitten, and withered like grass (v. 4); it touches the vitals, and there is a sensible decay there. I am withered like grass (v. 11), scorched with the burning heat of my troubles. If we be thus brought low by bodily distempers, let us not think it strange; the body is like grass, weak and of the earth, no wonder then that it withers. 2. He was very melancholy and of a sorrowful spirit. He was so taken up with the thoughts of his troubles that he forgot to eat his bread (v. 4); he had no appetite to his necessary food nor could he relish it. When God hides his face from a soul the delights of sense will be sapless things. He was always sighing and groaning, as one pressed above measure (v. 5), and this wasted him and exhausted his spirits. He affected solitude, as melancholy people do. His friends deserted him and were shy of him, and he cared as little for their company (v. 6, 7): "I am like a pelican of the wilderness, or a bittern (so some) that make a doleful noise; I am like an owl, that affects to lodge in deserted ruined buildings; I watch, and am as a sparrow upon the house-top. I live in a garret, and there spend my hours in poring on my troubles and bemoaning myself." Those who do thus, when they are in sorrow, humour themselves indeed; but they prejudice themselves, and know not what they do, nor what advantage they hereby give to the tempter. In affliction we should sit alone to consider our ways (Lam. iii. 28), but not sit alone to indulge an inordinate grief. 3. He was evil-spoken of by his enemies, and all manner of evil was said against him. When his friends went off from him his foes set themselves against him (v. 8): My enemies reproach me all the day, designing thereby both to create vexation to him (for an ingenuous mind regrets reproach) and to bring an odium upon him before men. When they could not otherwise reach him they shot these arrows at him, even bitter words. In this they were unwearied; they did it all the day; it was a continual dropping. His enemies were very outrageous: They are mad against me, and very obstinate and implacable. They are sworn against me; as the Jews that bound themselves with an oath that they would kill Paul; or, They have sworn against me as accusers, to take away my life. 4. He fasted and wept under the tokens of God's displeasure (v. 9, 10): "I have eaten ashes like bread; instead of eating my bread, I have lain down in dust and ashes, and I have mingled my drink with weeping; when I should have refreshed myself with drinking I have only eased myself with weeping." And what is the matter? He tells us (v. 10): Because of thy wrath. It was not so much the trouble itself that troubled him as the wrath of God which he was under the apprehensions of as the cause of the trouble. This, this was the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery: Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down, as that which we cast to the ground with a design to dash it to pieces; we lift up first, that we may throw it down with the more violence; or, "Thou hast formerly lifted me up in honour, and joy, and uncommon prosperity; but the remembrance of that aggravates the present grief and makes it the more grievous." We must eye the hand of God both in lifting us up and casting us down, and say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord, who both gives and takes away." 5. He looked upon himself as a dying man: My days are consumed like smoke (v. 3), which vanishes away quickly. Or, They are consumed in smoke, of which nothing remains; they are like a shadow that declines (v. 11), like the evening-shadow, or a forerunner of approaching night. Now all this, though it seems to speak the psalmist's personal calamities, and therefore is properly a prayer for a particular person afflicted, yet is supposed to be a description of the afflictions of the church of God, with which the psalmist sympathizes, making public grievances his own. The mystical body of Christ is sometimes, like the psalmist's body here, withered and parched, nay, like dead and dry bones. The church sometimes is forced into the wilderness, seems lost, and gives up herself for gone, under the tokens of God's displeasure.

The Future Glory of Zion.

12 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 dust thereof. 15 So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord , and all the kings of the earth thy 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 loose 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 .

Many exceedingly great and precious comforts are here thought of, and mustered up, to balance the foregoing complaints; for unto the upright there arises light in the darkness, so that, though they are cast down, they are not in despair. It is bad with the psalmist himself, bad with the people of God; but he has many considerations to revive himself with.

I. We are dying creatures, and our interests and comforts are dying, but God is an everliving everlasting God (v. 12): "My days are like a shadow; there is no remedy; night is coming upon me; but, thou, O Lord! shalt endure for ever. Our life is transient, but thine is permanent; our friends die, but thou our God diest not; what threatened us cannot touch thee; our names will be written in the dust and buried in oblivion, but thy remembrance shall be unto all generations; to the end of time, nay, to eternity, thou shalt be known and honoured." A good man loves God better than himself, and therefore can balance his own sorrow and death with the pleasing thought of the unchangeable blessedness of the Eternal Mind. God endures forever, his church's faithful patron and protector; and, his honour and perpetual remembrance being very much bound up in her interests, we may be confident that they shall not be neglected.

II. Poor Zion is now in distress, but there will come a time for her relief and succour (v. 13): Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion. The hope of deliverance is built upon the goodness of God—"Thou wilt have mercy upon Zion, for she has become an object of thy pity;" and upon the power of God—"Thou shalt arise and have mercy, shalt stir up thyself to do it, shalt do it in contempt of all the opposition made by the church's enemies." The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. That which is very encouraging is that there is a time set for the deliverance of the church, which not only will come some time, but will come at the time appointed, the time which Infinite Wisdom has appointed (and therefore it is the best time) and which Eternal Truth has fixed it to, and therefore it is a certain time, and shall not be forgotten nor further adjourned. At the end of seventy years, the time to favour Zion, by delivering her from the daughter of Babylon, was to come, and at length it did come. Zion was now in ruins, that is, the temple that was built in the city of David: the favouring of Zion is the building of the temple up again, as it is explained, v. 16. This is expected from the favour of God; that will set all to rights, and nothing but that, and therefore Daniel prays (Dan. ix. 17), Cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary, which is desolate. The building up of Zion is as great a favour to any people as they can desire. No blessing more desirable to a ruined state than the restoring and re-establishing of their church-privileges. Now this is here wished for and longed for, 1. Because it would be a great rejoicing to Zion's friends (v. 14): Thy servants take pleasure even in the stones of the temple, though they were thrown down and scattered, and favour the dust, the very rubbish and ruins of it. Observe here, When the temple was ruined, yet the stones of it were to be had for a new building, and there were those who encouraged themselves with that, for they had a favour even for the dust of it. Those who truly love the church of God love it when it is in affliction as well as when it is in prosperity; and it is a good ground to hope that God will favour the ruins of Zion when he puts it into the heart of his people to favour them, and to show that they do so by their prayers and by their endeavours; as it is also a good plea with God for mercy for Zion that there are those who are so affectionately concerned for her, and are waiting for the salvation of the Lord. 2. Because it would have a good influence upon Zion's neighbours, v. 15. It will be a happy means perhaps of their conversion, at least of their conviction; for so the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, shall have high thoughts of him and his people, and even the kings of the earth shall be affected with his glory. They shall have better thoughts of the church of God than they have had, when God by his providence thus puts an honour upon it; they shall be afraid of doing any thing against it when they see God taking its part; nay, they shall say, We will go with you, for we have seen that God is with you, Zech. viii. 23. Thus it is said (Esth. viii. 17) that many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them. 3. Because it would redound to the honour of Zion's God (v. 16): When the Lord shall build up Zion. They take it for granted it will be done, for God himself has undertaken it, and he shall then appear in his glory; and for that reason all that have made his glory their highest end desire it and pray for it. Note, The edifying of the church will be the glorifying of God, and therefore we may be assured it will be done in the set time. Those that pray in faith, Father, glorify thy name, may receive the same answer to that prayer which was given to Christ himself by a voice from heaven, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it yet again, though now for a time it may be eclipsed.

III. The prayers of God's people now seem to be slighted and no notice taken of them, but they will be reviewed and greatly encouraged (v. 17): He will regard the prayer of the destitute. It was said (v. 16) that God will appear in his glory, such a glory as kings themselves shall stand in awe of, v. 15. When great men appear in their glory they are apt to look with disdain upon the poor that apply to them; but the great God will not do so. Observe, 1. The meanness of the petitioners; they are the destitute. It is an elegant word that is here used, which signifies the heath in the wilderness, a low shrub, or bush, like the hyssop of the wall. They are supposed to be in a low and broken state, enriched with spiritual blessings, but destitute of temporal good things—the poor, the weak, the desolate, the stripped; thus variously is the word rendered; or it may signify that low and broken spirit which God looks for in all that draw nigh to him and which he will graciously look upon. This will bring them to their knees. Destitute people should be praying people, 1 Tim. v. 5. 2. The favour of God to them, notwithstanding their meanness: He will regard their prayer, and will look at it, will peruse their petition (2 Chron. vi. 40), and he will not despise their prayer. More is implied than is expressed: he will value it and be well pleased with it, and will return an answer of peace to it, which is the greatest honour that can be put upon it. But it is thus expressed because others despise their praying, they themselves fear God will despise it, and he was thought to despise it while their affliction was prolonged and their prayers lay unanswered. When we consider our own meanness and vileness, our darkness and deadness, and the manifold defects in our prayers, we have cause to suspect that our prayers will be received with disdain in heaven; but we are here assured of the contrary, for we have an advocate with the Father, and are under grace, not under the law. This instance of God's favour to his praying people, though they are destitute, will be a lasting encouragement to prayer (v. 18): This shall be written for the generation to come, that none may despair, though they be destitute, nor think their prayers forgotten because they have not an answer to them immediately. The experiences of others should be our encouragements to seek unto God and trust in him. And, if we have the comfort of the experiences of others, it is fit that we should give God the glory of them: The people who shall be created shall praise the Lord for what he has done both for them and for their predecessors. Many that are now unborn shall, by reading the history of the church, be wrought upon to turn proselytes. The people that shall be created anew by divine grace, that are a kind of first-fruits of his creatures, shall praise the Lord for his answers to their prayers when they were more destitute.

IV. The prisoners under condemnation unjustly seem as sheep appointed for the slaughter, but care shall be taken for their discharge (v. 19, 20): God has looked down from the height of his sanctuary, from heaven, where he has prepared his throne, that high place, that holy place; thence did the Lord behold the earth, for it is a place of prospect, and nothing on this earth is or can be hidden from his all-seeing eye; he looks down, not to take a view of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, but to do acts of grace, to hear the groaning of the prisoners (which we desire to be out of the hearing of), and not only to hear them, but to help them, to loose those that are appointed to death, then when there is but a step between them and it. Some understand it of the release of the Jews out of their captivity in Babylon. God heard their groaning there as he did when they were in Egypt (Exod. iii. 7, 9) and came down to deliver them. God takes notice not only of the prayers of his afflicted people, which are the language of grace, but even of their groans, which are the language of nature. See the divine pity in hearing the prisoner's groans, and the divine power in loosing the prisoner's bonds, even when they are appointed to death and are pinioned and double-shackled. We have an instance in Peter, Acts xii. 6. Such instances as these of the divine condescension and compassion will help, 1. To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and to make it appear that he answers to his name, which he himself proclaimed, The Lord God, gracious and merciful; and this declaration of his name in Zion shall be the matter of his praise in Jerusalem, v. 21. If God by his providences declare his name, we must by our acknowledgments of them declare his praise, which ought to be the echo of his name. God will discharge his people that were prisoners and captives in Babylon, that they may declare his name in Zion, the place he has chosen to put his name there, and his praise in Jerusalem, at their return thither; in the land of their captivity they could not sing the songs of Zion (Ps. cxxxvii. 3, 4), and God brought them again to Jerusalem in order that they might sing them there. For this end God gives liberty from bondage (Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name, Ps. cxlii. 7), and life from the dead. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee, Ps. cxix. 175. 2. They will help to draw in others to the worship of God (v. 22): When the people of God are gathered together at Jerusalem (as they were after their return out of Babylon) many out of the kingdoms joined with them to serve the Lord. This was fulfilled Ezra vi. 21, where we find that not only the children of Israel that had come out of captivity, but many that had separated themselves from them among the heathen, did keep the feast of unleavened bread with joy. But it may look further, at the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ in the latter days. Christ has proclaimed liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those that were bound, that they may declare the name of the Lord in the gospel-church, in which Jews and Gentiles shall unite.

Hoping in God's Compassion.

23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened 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 endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt 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.

We may here observe,

I. The imminent danger that the Jewish church was in of being quite extirpated and cut off by the captivity in Babylon (v. 23): He weakened my strength in the way. They were for many ages in the way to the performance of the great promise made to their fathers concerning the Messiah, longing as much for it as ever a traveller did to be at his journey's end. The legal institutions led them in the way; but when the ten tribes were lost in Assyria, and the two almost lost in Babylon, the strength of that nation was weakened, and, in all appearance, its day shortened; for they said, Our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts, Ezek. xxxvii. 11. And then what becomes of the promise that Shiloh should arise out of Judah, the star out of Jacob, and the Messiah out of the family of David? If these fail, the promise fails. This the psalmist speaks of as in his own person, and it is very applicable to two of the common afflictions of this time:—1. To be sickly. Bodily distempers soon weaken our strength in the way, make the keepers of the house to tremble and the strong men to bow themselves. 2. To be short-lived. Where the former is felt, this is feared; when in the midst of our days, according to a course of nature, our strength is weakened, what can we expect but that the number of our months should be cut off in the midst? and what should we do but provide accordingly? We must own God's hand in it (for in his hand our strength and time are), and must reconcile it to his love, for it has often been the lot of those that have used their strength well to have it weakened, and of those that could very ill be spared to have their days shortened.

II. A prayer for the continuance of it (v. 24): "O my God! take me not away in the midst of my days; let not this poor church be cut off in the midst of the days assigned it by the promise; let it not be cut off till the Messiah shall come. Destroy it not, for that blessing is in it," Isa. lxv. 8. She is a criminal, but, for the sake of that blessing which is in her, she pleads for a reprieve. This is a prayer for the afflicted, and which, with submission to the will of God, we may in faith put up, that God would not take us away in the midst of our days, but that, if it be his will, he would spare us to do him further service and to be made riper for heaven.

III. A plea to enforce this prayer taken from the eternity of the Messiah promised, v. 25-27. The apostle quotes these verses (Heb. i. 10-12) and tells us, He saith this to the Son, and in that exposition we must acquiesce. It is very comfortable, in reference to all the changes that pass over the church, and all the dangers it is in, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Thy years are throughout all generations, and cannot be shortened. It is likewise comfortable in reference to the decay and death of our own bodies, and the removal of our friends from us, that God is an everliving God, and that therefore, if he be ours, in him we may have everlasting consolation. In this plea observe how, to illustrate the eternity of the Creator, he compares it with the mutability of the creature; for it is God's sole prerogative to be unchangeable. 1. God made the world, and therefore had a being before it from eternity. The Son of God, the eternal Word, made the world. It is expressly said, All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made; and therefore the same was in the beginning from eternity with God, and was God, John i. 1-3; Col. i. 16; Eph. iii. 9; Heb. i. 2. Earth and heaven, and the hosts of both, include the universe and its fulness, and these derive their being from God by his Son (v. 25): "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, which is founded on the seas and on the floods and yet it abides; much more shall the church, which is built upon a rock. The heavens are the work of thy hands, and by thee are all their motions and influences directed;" God is therefore the fountain, not only of all being, but of all power and dominion. See how fit the great Redeemer is to be entrusted with all power, both in heaven and in earth, since he himself, as Creator of both, perfectly knows both and is entitled to both. 2. God will unmake the world again, and therefore shall have a being to eternity (v. 26, 27): They shall perish, for thou shalt change them by the same almighty power that made them, and therefore, no doubt, thou shalt endure; thou art the same. God and the world, Christ and the creature, are rivals for the innermost and uppermost place in the soul of man, the immortal soul; now what is here said, one would think, were enough to decide the controversy immediately and to determine us for God and Christ. For, (1.) A portion in the creature is fading and dying: They shall perish; they will not last so long as we shall last. The day is coming when the earth and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up; and then what will become of those that have laid up their treasure in it? Heaven and earth shall wax old as a garment, not by a gradual decay, but, when the set time comes, they shall be laid aside like an old garment that we have no more occasion for: As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed, not annihilated, but altered, it may be so that they shall not be at all the same, but new heavens and a new earth. See God's sovereign dominion over heaven and earth. He can change them as he pleases and when he pleases; and the constant changes they are subject to, in the revolutions of day and night, summer and winter, are earnests of their last and final change, when the heavens and time (which is measured by them) shall be no more. (2.) A portion in God is perpetual and everlasting: Thou art the same, subject to no change; and thy years have no end, v. 27. Christ will be the same in the performance that he was in the promise, the same to his church in captivity that he was to his church at liberty. Let not the church fear the weakening of her strength, or the shortening of her days, while Christ himself is both her strength and her life; he is the same, and has said, Because I live you shall live also. Christ came in the fulness of time, and set up his kingdom in spite of the power of the Old-Testament Babylon, and he will keep it up in spite of the power of the New-Testament Babylon.

IV. A comfortable assurance of an answer to this prayer (v. 28): The children of thy servants shall continue; since Christ is the same, the church shall continue from one generation to another; from the eternity of the head we may infer the perpetuity of the body, though often weak and distempered, and even at death's door. Those that hope to wear out the saints of the Most High will be mistaken. Christ's servants shall have children; those children shall have a seed, a succession, of professing people; the church, as well as the world, is under the influence of that blessing, Be fruitful and multiply. These children shall continue, not in their own persons, by reason of death, but in their seed, which shall be established before God (that is, in his service, and by his grace); the entail of religion shall not be cut off while the world stands, but, as one generation of good people passes away, another shall come, and thus the throne of Christ shall endure.

PSAL. CII.

A praier for the poore afflicted when he shall be overwhelmed, and shall powre forth his meditation before Iehovah.

IEhovah heare my praier, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day of distresse upon me, incline thine eare unto me; in the day I cal, make hasle, answer me. For my daies are consumed as smoke, and my bones are burnt as an hearth. Mine heart is smitten as grasse and withered, that I forget to eat my bread. For the voice of groning, my bone cleaveth to my flesh. I am like to a Pelican of the wildernesse: I am as an Owle of the desarts. I watch and am as a Sparrow, solitary upon the house roofe. All the day mine enemies doe reproach mee, they that rage against me, have sworne against me. For I eat ashes as bread, and mingle my drinkes with weeping. Because of thine angry threat and thy fervent wrath, for thou hast heaved me up, and cast me downe. My daies are as a shadow declined, and I am withered as grasse. And thou Iehovah sittest for ever, and thy memoriall to generation and generation. Thou wilt arise, wilt have tender meroy upon Sion, for the time to be gracious unto it, for the appointed time is come.

For thy servants delight in the stones thereof, and doe pitty the dust thereof. And the heathens shall feare the name of Iehovah, and all the Kings of the earth thy glory. When Iehovah shall build up Sion, shall appeare in his glory. Shall turne unto the praier of the lowly, and not despise their praier. This shall be written for the generation after, and the people created shall praise Iah.

For he hath looked downe from the height of his holinesse, Iehovah from the heavens did behold the earth. To heare the groaning of the prisoner, to loose the sonnes of death.

To tell in Sion the name of Iehovah, and his praise in Ierusalem. When the peoples shall be gathered together, & the kingdomes to serve Iehovah. Hee hath afflicted my strength in the way, hee hath shortened my daies. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days, thy yeers are through generation of generations. Afore-time thou hast founded the earth, and the heavens are the worke of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt stand; and they all shall wex old as a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy yeeres shall not be ended. The sonnes of thy servants shall dwell, and their seed shal be established before thee.

Annotations. FOr the poore] agreeing to his estate; or, of the poore. overwhelmed] with feares, cares, sorrowes, &c. see Psal. 61. 3. Vers. 4. as smoke] or, with the smoke, vanishing in the aire, so Psal. 37. 20. The Hebrew letters [non-Latin text not transcribed] beth, with, and [non-Latin text not transcribed] caph, as, are one like another, & sometime put one for another, as 2 Sam. 5. 24. with 1 Chron. 14. 15. an hearth] the place whereon fire burneth. Compare Iob 30. 30. Vers. 5. as grasse] or as the herbs smitten with blasting, Amos 4. 9. to eat my bread] The Chaldee applieth this to the bread of the soule, the Law of God. Vers. 6. to my flesh] that is, my skin, as Iob 19. 20. so elsewhere skin is put for flesh, Iob 18. 13. See also Lam. 4. 8. V. 7. a Pelican] a bird living in wilde & desolate places, Zeph. 2. 14. Esa. 34. 11. It seemeth to have the name in Hebrew of vomiting, and to be that fowle which we call the shovelard, which swalloweth shell-fishes, and after vomiteth them to get the fish. It was a bird uncleane by the law, Levit. 11. 18. Some thinke it to be the bittour, which maketh a loud and dolefull noise. Compare Iob 30. 29. Vers. 9. rage against me] or vaunt against; or, would make a foole of mee: the Greeke saith, that praise me; meaning fainedly. The word signifieth to lift up with praise and glory; and also ingloriously to vaunt, rage, or be mad: see Psal. 5. 6. and 75. 5. The word against is here to be understood: as in Prov. 8. 35. he that sinneth against me. An example of such raging madnesse, see against Christ, Luke 6. 11. Vers. 12. declined] or stretched out; as the shadow of the Sunne, when it is neere downe, which though it seeme longer, yet soone passeth away. So Psal. 109. 23. and 144. 4. Vers. 13. sittest] that is, continuest, as the Greeke explaineth it: for sitting and standing (as after in vers. 27.) are often used for sure and setled abiding. The Chaldee addeth, sittest for ever in heaven. thy memoriall] or remembrance of thee: so Psa. 135. 13. from Exod. 3. 15. Vers. 14. the appointed time] promised for restauration of the Church, as Dan. 9. 2. 24, 25. &c. Ier. 29. 10. Vers. 15. delight] or doe favour the stones, though ruinous: as Nehem. 2. 13, &c. and 4. 2. Zach. 1. 12. Vers. 18. the lowly] so the Greeke here turneth it, which elsewhere we call heath, that groweth in the wildernesse, Ier. 17. 6. and 48. 6. by the name in Hebrew, it seemeth to be some naked shrub, and so a fit resemblance of Gods afflicted people, made low, naked, and desolate by their enemies. Or we may turne it, the broken downe, or ruined, from Ier. 51. 58. Vers. 19. This shall be] or, Let this be written, to wit, for remembrance to ages after, as Ex[illegible: 1 letter], 17. 14. Deut. 31. 19. 21. This sheweth these to be prophesses for our times. created] that is, restored and made a new; as Ps. 104. 30. Esa. 65. 18. created in Christ Iesus unto good workes, Eph. 2. 10. So, a people borne, Psal. 22. 32. Vers. 20. the height of his holinesse] that is, his holy high place, or his high sanctuary, meaning heaven. This is taken from Deut. 26. 15. Vers. 21. groaning] or mournfull cry: so Psal. 79. 11. sonnes of death] appointed to die, as Psal. 79. 11. Vers. 24. in the way] in the course of my life; see Psal. 2. 12. He respecteth the affliction of Israel, in the way that God led them thorow the wildernesse, Deut. 8. 2, 3. Vers. 25. take me not away] or, make me not ascend: see Iohn 12. 32. The Chaldee addeth, take mee not away out of this world, bring mee unto the world that is to come. Vers. 26. Afore-time] that is, At the beginning, as Heb. 1. 10. where these things spoken to God, are applied to Christ, to prove his god head. Vers. 27. shalt stand] that is, endure or continue, as the Greeke expresseth it, Heb. 1. 11. change them] by folding them up, as the Greeke explaineth, Heb. 1. 12. for the heavens when they are changed shall be folden like a booke, Esa. 34. 4. V. 28. art the same] or, art he, that is, unchangeable, Mal. 3. 6. Iam. 1. 17. Vers. 29. shall dwell] to wit, in Sion, vers. 14. 22. as is also expressed, Psal. 69. 36, 37. before thee] that is, so long as thou dost dure, meaning for ever, as the Greeke well explaineth it. So, before the Moone and Sunne, Psal. 72. 5. 17. is so long as the Moone and Sunne endure.

PSAL. CII.

A Prayer of the afflicted] Or, for the afflicted, made by Daniel, or ſome other Prophet, not long before the return out of Babylon, where they ſuffered much, but prayed little, as Daniel confeſſeth, Chap. 9.13. Here therefore they are taught to take unto them words, and ſay, Hear my prayer, O Lord, &c. In greateſt afflictions there is place left for prayer, Pſal. 103.1. and ſomething God will yeeld to it, when moſt bitterly bent againſt a people, Mat. 24.20, 21.

When he is overwhelmed] Preſſed out of meaſure above ſtrength, 2 Cor. 1.8. ad deliquium animae, till heart faint, and faith ſeem to fail, bowing down through weight of grief, at ſi pars una corporis alia eſſet operta; for ſo the word here uſed ſignifieth, ſaith Kimchi, as if one part of the body were overcovered with another Eſtque pulchra collatis in verbi[illegible: 1 letter] gnataph & ſhaphac quae naturam fidei deping unt, ſaith Mollerus: Faith may bee under a cloud for a ſeaſon; but it will recover, and pour out its complaint before the Lord.

Verſ. 1. Hear my prayer, O Lord] O Lord Chriſt, for ſo this Pſalm is to bee underſtood, as the Apoſtle ſheweth, Heb. 1.

And let my cry] Which is, that thou wouldeſt be pleaſed to bring us poor exiles back to our own Country; and ſo this prayer is anſwerable to that of Daniel, Chap. 9.

Verſ. 2. Hide not thy face from me] For this would be worſe than all the reſt. See Jer. 16.13. I will caſt you cut of this land-and I will ſhew you no favour: This laſt was a cutting ſpeech, and far worſe than their captivity; and yet, Non exul curae dicitur eſſe De[illegible: 1 letter].

Anſwer me ſpeedily] Feſtina, reſponde: In our earneſt prayers we may preſs for expedition in general, not tying God to any particular time, as thoſe Bethulians did in the book of Judith.

Verſ. 3. For my dayes are conſumed like ſmoak] Which the higher it mounteth, the ſooner it vaniſheth. Some read it, in the ſmoak So Pſal. 119.83. I am become like a bottle in the ſmoak, dryed and withered, [illegible: 1 span]

And [illegible: 1 word] bones are burnt as an hearth] Oſſae mea quaſi fri[illegible: 2 letters] conta[illegible: 2 letters]er[illegible: 3 letters]. My ſtrength is gone.Vel[illegible: 2 letters]l ſartagi [illegible: 3 letters] Arah. Here, to the twelfth verſe, is a moſt lively picture of a dejected perſon, ſuch as can hardly bee paralleld; teaching us to be deeply affected with the Churches afflictions.

Verſ. 4. My heart is ſmitten] Blaſted with thins indignation, that ventus urent & [illegible: 1 letter]xi[illegible: 1 letter]ans.

So that I forget eat my bread] I am [illegible: 3 letters]achleſs, through want of that beat heart ſhould ſupply.

Verſ. 5. By reaſon of the voyce of my [illegible: 1 word] ] A broken ſpirit drieth the bones. Prov. 17.22. and by drinking up the marrow and radical moiſture, caſ[illegible: 1 letter]eth all into a conſumption.

Verſ. 6. I am like a [illegible: 1 word] ] Or [illegible: 1 word] which liveth in lonely pla[illegible: 4 letters], and crieth ou[illegible: 1 letter] [illegible: 1 span]

I am like an Owl of the Deſert:] Avis lutifuga, Night-bird, a Night-raven, the Vulgar hath it; others, a Bat, a Cuccow, but moſt an Owl, that noctis monſtr[illegible: 2 letters], as Pliny ſpeaketh of her, net cantu aliqu[illegible: 1 letter] vocales ſedge[illegible: 1 letter]itu, hated of all other fouls,Lib. 10. cap. which never come near her, but to keep a wondering at her.

Verſ. 7. I watch] I can as little ſleep, as eat, verſ. 4. That nurſe of nature, and ſweet Parentheſi[illegible: 1 letter] of mens griefs and cares, ſleep departeth from me, Nec membris dat curaſ[illegible: 1 letter]p[illegible: 1 letter]rem.

And am as a ſparrow] That hath loſt his mate, ſo have I mine aſſociater, which is a ſore loſs; for optimum ſolatium ſodalitium,

Verſ. 8. Mine enemies reproach me all the day] This is an evil that mans nature is moſt impatient of. See Pſal. 137.

And they that are mad againſt me] That let flye at me[illegible: 1 letter] or, that once praiſed me, flattered me[illegible: 1 letter] So the Sept.

Are ſworn againſt me] Have ſworn my death, or do ſwear and curſe by me, as the Turks do at this day, when to confirm a truth they ſay, Judaeus ſim ſi ſallam, I would I were a Jew, it is ſo. See Zach. 8.13. Iſa. 6.15. Jer. 29.22. God make thee as Abab, and as Zedechiah, &c.

Verſ. 9. For I have eaten aſhes like bread] Being caſt on the ground as a mourner, I know not whether I eat bread or duſt; this reliſheth to me as well as that, my mouth is ſo out of taſte.

And mingled my drink with weeping] I forbare not to weep, no not while I drank; ſorrow is dry, and wine driveth away ſorrow we ſay; Not ſo from me.Wine is calle by Simon ide[illegible: 1 letter] in Athonaeu[illegible: 1 letter] [non-Latin text not transcribed], an expeller o[illegible: 1 letter] ſadneſs. De coelo in terram. R. Solom.

Verſ. 10. Becauſe of thine indignation] This lay heavier upon the good mans heart than all the reſt, God was diſpleaſed.

For thou baſt lifted me up, and caſt me down] That is, that I might fall with the greater poiſe. Significatur graviſſima colliſie. Here the Prophet accuſeth not God of cruelty, but bewayleth his own miſery; Miſerum eſt ſuiſſe felicem, It is no ſmall unhappineſs to have been happy.

Verſ. 11. My dayes are like a ſhadow that declineth] As at Sun-ſet, the ſhadows are at longeſt, but not long laſting.

And I am withered like graſs] Mown down, and laid a drying.

Verſ. 12. But thou, O Lord, ſhalt indure for ever] And therefore wee thy Covenanters ſhall be reſtored, Lam. 5.19.

And thy remembrance] Which thou haſt of us, and we of thee.

Verſ. 13. Thou ſhalt ariſe, and have mercy upon Sion] This hee ſpeaketh with as much confidence, as if he had been in Gods boſome; for hee knew the promiſe of deliverance, after ſeventy years captivity. See the like Hab. 1.12.

For the time to favour her, &c.] This he underſtood by books, as Dan. 9.2. and therefore preſſeth God to a ſpeedy performance. God loveth to be burdened with his own word, to be ſued upon his own bond, &c. But beſides the promiſe, the Pſalmiſt had another ground of his confidence, and that is in the next.

Verſ. 14. For thy ſervants take pleaſure in her ſtones] They pity he[illegible: 1 letter], and wiſh her welfare, much more then doſt thou. Hee argueth from that ſweet, tender, melting frame of ſpirit that was found in the faithful, which is but a reflex of that farſweeter that is in God.

And ſavour the duſt thereof] Theruines and the rubbiſh, heartily deſiring, and expecting a re-edification, and reſtauration, whereof they had a ſweet promiſe, Am. 9.9. and for the ſpiritual Temple to be built of Jews and Gentiles, they had many more. See all that followeth.

Verſ. 15. So the beathen ſhall fear, &c.] By the reſtauration of Jeruſalem where the Meſſias was to be born and manifeſted, the everlaſting Goſpel ſhall be preached, and the Gentiles converted to the faith.

And all the Kings of the earth] Caught by thoſe Fiſhermen, and their ſucceſſors in the Miniſtry.

Verſ. 16. When the Lord ſhall build up Zion] Iſaiah had foretold that the ſecond Temple ſhould be more glorious than the firſt, Iſa. 54.11. and 60.17. the ſtones whereof, were types of thoſe living ſtones whereof that ſpiritual Temple was to bee built, 1 P[illegible: 1 letter]t. 2.5. and wherein God would manifeſt more of his glory than ever li[illegible: 1 letter] had done in all the world beſides.

Verſ. 17.Humileſque Myticae. Virg. He will regard the prayer of the deſtitute] Heb. Of the poor ſhrub, tha is in the wilderneſs trod upon by beaſts, unregarded, worthleſs: Heath, Juniper, t Wild Ta mar[illegible: 1 letter]k; Tremelli[illegible: 2 letters] rendreth it Nudatiſſimi; Others Excitantis ſe, the prayer of one that ſtirreth up himſelf to take hold of God, and thereby prevaileth with him. I came for thy prayer, ſaith the Angel to Daniel, chap. 10.12.

Verſ. 18. This ſhall be written for the generation to come] This, that the poor ſhrub hath ſped ſo well in prayer; together with all other the particulars of this Pſalm, and indeed the whole Scripture, Rom. 15.4. So little truth is there in that aſſertion of the Jeſuits, that the Epiſtles of the Apoſtles were intended onely for the uſe of thoſe Churches, or perſons, to whom they were firſt written.

And the people which ſhall be created] Created in Chriſt Jeſus unto good works, Eph. 2.10.Iſa. 51.16. his regenerated people; For God planteth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth, that be may ſay to Zion, Thou art my people.

Verſ. 19. For he hath looked down from the height, &c.] This is no ſmall condeſcention; ſith he abaſeth himſelf to look upon things in heaven, Pſal. 113.6.

From heaven did the Lord behold the earth] That is, his poor deſpiſed ſervants, that are in themſelves no better than the earth they tread on.

Verſ. 20. To hear the groaning of the priſoner] Thoſe priſoners of hope held ſo long captive in Babylon, the cruelty whereof is graphically deſcribed, Jer. 51.34.

Verſ. 21. To declare the Name of the Lord in Zion] This ſhall bee the buſineſs of the converted Gentiles, to make up one Catholick Church with the Chriſtian Jews, and to bear a part in ſetting forth Gods worthy prayſes. See verſ. 18.

Verſ. 22. When the people are gathered together] ſc. to the Lord Chriſt; For to Shil[illegible: 2 letters] ſhall be the gathering of the people, Gen. 49.10.

And the Kingdoms to ſerve the Lord] As they did under Conſtantine the Great, Valentinian, Theodoſius, which three Emperors called themſelves, Vaſalles Chriſti (as Socrates reporteth) the Vaſſals of Chriſt: And the like may be ſaid of other Chriſtian Kings and Princes ſince, who have yeelded profeſſed ſubjection to the Goſpel, and caſt their Crowns at Chriſts feet.

Verſ. 23. He wea[illegible: 1 letter]ned my ſtrength in the way] This is the complaint of the poor captives yet undelivered, In via, hoc eſt in vita; quia bic ſumus viatores, in coelo comprehenſores, here wee are but on our way to heaven, and wee meet with many diſcouragements.

He ſhortned my dayes] viz. According to my account, For otherwiſe in reſpect of God, our dayes are numbred. Stat ſua cuique dies.

Verſ. 24. Take me not away in the midſt of my dayes] Heb. Make me not to aſcend, Serus in coelum redeam. Fain I would live to ſee thoſe golden dayes of Redemption. Abraham deſired to ſee the day of Christ, Job. 8. Simeon did, and then ſang out his ſoul. All the Saints after the Captivity, looked hard for the conſolation of Iſrael.

Thy years are throughout all generations] And that's the comfort of thy poor Covenanters, who are ſure to participate of all thy goods.

Verſ. 25. Of old thou haſt laid the foundation, &c.] Here is a clear proof of Chriſts eternity; Heb. 1.10. becauſe he was before the creation of the world, and ſhall continue after the conſummation thereof, verſ. 26, 27. So the Saints a parte peſt, 1 Job. 2.17. The world paſſeth away, and the luſts thereof; but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever.

Verſ. 26. They ſhall periſh] i.e. They ſhall change form and ſtate, being diſſolved by the laſt fire, 2 Pet. 3.7, 10.

But thou ſhalt end[illegible: 1 letter]re] Heb. Stand, and with thee thy Church, Mat. 22.32.

Yea all of them ſhall wax old as a garment] Which weareth in the wearing; ſo do the viſible heavens and the earth, what ever ſome write, de conſtantia naturae, Iſaiah ſaith, It rotteth as a book (that is vener andae rubigini[illegible: 1 letter] and waſteth away as ſmoak, chap. 65.17. and 66.22. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Tucetu, Arab.

At a veſture ſhalt thou change them] The Greek hath roul them, confer Iſa. 34 4.

Verſ. 27. But thou art the ſame] Therefore immutable, becauſe Eternall, ut nihil tibi poſſit accedere vel decidere.

Verſ. 28. The children of thy ſervants ſhall continue] By vertue of the Covenant, and that union with thee which is the ground of communion. If it could be ſaid of Ceſar, that he held nothing to he his own that he did not communicate to his friends, how much more of Chriſt? Propterea bene ſemper ſperandum, etiamſi [illegible: 1 word] ruant, the Church is immortal, and immutable.

Hear my prayer, O LORD. Or O JEHOVAH. Sincere supplicants are not content with praying for praying's sake, they desire really to reach the ear and heart of the great God. It is a great relief in time of distress to acquaint others with our trouble, we are eased by their hearing our lamentation, but it is the sweetest solace of all to have God himself as a sympathizing listener to our plaint. That he is such is no dream or fiction, but an assured fact. It would be the direst of all our woes if we could be indisputably convinced that with God there is neither hearing nor answering; he who could argue us into so dreary a belief would do us no better service than if he had read us our death-warrants. Better die than be denied the mercy-seat. As well be atheists at once as believe in an unhearing, unfeeling God. And let my cry come unto thee. When sorrow rises to such a height that words become too weak a medium of expression, and prayer is intensified into a cry, then the heart is even more urgent to have audience with the Lord. If our cries do not enter within the veil, and reach to the living God, we may as well cease from prayer at once, for it is idle to cry to the winds; but, blessed be God, the philosophy which suggests such a hideous idea is disproved by the facts of every day experience, since thousands of the saints can declare, "Verily, God hath heard us."

Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble. Do not seem as if thou didst not see me, or wouldst not own me. Smile now at any rate. Reserve thy frowns for other times when I can bear them better, if, indeed, I can ever bear them; but now in my heavy distress, favour me with looks of compassion. Incline thine ear unto me. Bow thy greatness to my weakness. If because of sin thy face is turned away, at least let me have a side view of thee, lend me thine ear if I may not see thine eye. Turn thyself to me again if, my sin has turned thee away, give to thine ear an inclination to my prayers. In the day when I call answer me speedily. Because the case is urgent, and my soul little able to wait. We may ask to have answers to prayer as soon as possible, but we may not complain of the Lord if he should think it more wise to delay. We have permission to request and to use importunity, but no right to dictate or to be petulant. If it be important that the deliverance should arrive at once, we are quite right in making an early time a point of our entreaty, for God is as willing to grant us a favour now as to-morrow, and he is not slack concerning his promise. It is a proverb concerning favours from human hands, that "he gives twice who gives quickly, "because a gift is enhanced in value by arriving in a time of urgent necessity; and we may be sure that our heavenly Patron will grant us the best gifts in the best manner, granting us grace to help in time of need. When answers come upon the heels of our prayers they are all the more striking, more consoling, and more encouraging. In these two verses the psalmist has gathered up a variety of expressions all to the same effect; in them all he entreats an audience and answer of the Lord, and the whole may be regarded as a sort of preface to the prayer which follows.

For my days are consumed like smoke. My grief has made life unsubstantial to me, I seem to be but a puff of vapour which has nothing in it, and is soon dissipated. The metaphor is very admirably chosen, for, to the unhappy, life seems not merely to be frail, but to be surrounded by so much that is darkening, defiling, blinding, and depressing, that, sitting down in despair, they compare themselves to men wandering in a dense fog, and themselves so dried up thereby that they are little better than pillars of smoke. When our days have neither light of joy nor fire of energy in them, but become as a smoking flax which dies out ignobly in darkness, then have we cause enough to appeal to the Lord that he would not utterly quench us. And my bones are burned as an hearth. He became as dry as the hearth on which a wood fire has burned out, or as spent ashes in which scarcely a trace of fire can be found. His soul was ready to be blown away as smoke, and his body seemed likely to remain as the bare hearth when the last comforting ember is quenched. How often has our piety appeared to us to be in this condition! We have had to question its reality, and fear that it never was anything more than a smoke; we have had the most convincing evidence of its weakness, for we could not derive even the smallest comfort from it, any more than a chilled traveller can derive from the cold hearth on which a fire had burned long ago. Soul-trouble experienced in our own heart will help us to interpret the language here employed; and church-troubles may help us also, if unhappily we have been called to endure them. The psalmist was moved to grief by a view of national calamities, and these so wrought upon his patriotic soul that he was wasted with anxiety, his spirits were dried up, and his very life was ready to expire. There is hope for any country which owns such a son; no nation can die while true hearts are ready to die for it.

My heart is smitten, like a plant parched by the fierce heat of a tropical sun, and withered like grass, which dries up when once the scythe has laid it low. The psalmist's heart was as a wilted, withered flower, a burned up mass of what once was verdure. His energy, beauty, freshness, and joy, were utterly gone, through the wasting influence of his anguish. So that I forget to eat my bread, or "because I forget to eat my bread." Grief often destroys the appetite, and the neglect of food tends further to injure the constitution and create a yet deeper sinking of spirit. As the smitten flower no longer drinks in the dew, or draws up nutriment from the soil, so a heart parched with intense grief often refuses consolation for itself and nourishment for the bodily frame, and descends at a doubly rapid rate into weakness, despondency, and dismay. The case here described is by no means rare, we have frequently met with individuals so disordered by sorrow that their memory has failed them even upon such pressing matters as their meals, and we must confess that we have passed through the same condition ourselves. One sharp pang has filled the soul, monopolized the mind, and driven everything else into the background, so that such common matters as eating and drinking have been utterly despised, and the appointed hours of refreshment have gone by unheeded, leaving no manifest faintness of body, but an increased weariness of heart.

By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin. He became emaciated with sorrow. He had groaned himself down to a living skeleton, and so in his bodily appearance was the more like the smoke-dried, withered, burnt-up things to which he had previously compared himself. It will be a very long time before the distresses of the church of God make some Christians shrivel into anatomies, but this good man was so moved with sympathy for Zion's ills that he was wasted down to skin and bone.

I am like a pelican of the wilderness, a mournful and even hideous object, the very image of desolation. I am like an owl of the desert; loving solitude, moping among ruins, hooting discordantly. The Psalmist likens himself to two birds which were commonly used as emblems of gloom and wretchedness; on other occasions he had been as the eagle, but the griefs of his people had pulled him down, the brightness was gone from his eye, and the beauty from his person; he seemed to himself to be as a melancholy bird sitting among the fallen palaces and prostrate temples of his native land. Should not we also lament when the ways of Zion mourn and her strength languishes? Were there more of this holy sorrow we should soon see the Lord returning to build up his church. It is ill for men to be playing the peacock with worldly pride when the ills of the times should make them as mournful as the pelican; and it is a terrible thing to see men flocking like vultures to devour the prey of a decaying church, when they ought rather to be lamenting among her ruins like the owl.

I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the house top: I keep a solitary vigil as the lone sentry of my nation; my fellows are too selfish, too careless to care for the beloved land, and so like a bird which sits alone on the housetop, I keep up a sad watch over my country. The Psalmist compared himself to a bird, —a bird when it has lost its mate or its young, or is for some other reason made to mope alone in a solitary place. Probably he did not refer to the cheerful sparrow of our own land, but if he did, the illustration would not be out of place, for the sparrow is happy in company, and if it were alone, the sole one of its species in the neighbourhood, there can be little doubt that it would become very miserable, and sit and pine away. He who has felt himself to be so weak and inconsiderable as to have no more power over his times than a sparrow over a city, has also, when bowed down with despondency concerning the evils of the age, sat himself down in utter wretchedness to lament the ills which he could not heal. Christians of an earnest, watchful kind often find themselves among those who have no sympathy with them; even in the church they look in vain for kindred spirits; then do they persevere in their prayers and labours, but feel themselves to be as lonely as the poor bird which looks from the ridge of the roof, and meets with no friendly greeting from any of its kind.

Mine enemies reproach me all the day. Their rage was unrelenting and unceasing, and vented itself in taunts and insults, the Psalmist's patriotism and his griefs were both made the subjects of their sport. Pointing to the sad estate of his people they would ask him, "Where is your God?" and exult over him because their false gods were in the ascendant. Reproach cuts like a razor, and when it is continued from hour to hour, and repeated all the day and every day, it makes life itself undesirable. And they that are mad against me are sworn against me. They were so furious that they bound themselves by oath to destroy him, and used his name as their usual execration, a word to curse by, the synonym of abhorrence and contempt. What with inward sorrows and outward persecutions he was in as ill a plight as may well be conceived.

For I have eaten ashes like bread. He had so frequently cast ashes upon his head in token of mourning, that they had mixed with his ordinary food, and grated between his teeth when he ate his daily bread. One while he forgot to eat, and then the fit changed, and he ate with such a hunger that even ashes were devoured. Grief has strange moods and tenses. And mingled my drink with weeping. His drink became as nauseous as his meat, for copious showers of tears had made it brackish. This is a telling description of all-saturating, all-embittering sadness, —and this was the portion of one of the best of men, and that for no fault of his own, but because of his love to the Lord's people. If we, too, are called to mourn, let us not be amazed by the fiery trial as though some strange thing had happened unto us. Both in meat and drink we have sinned; it is not therefore wonderful if in both we are made to mourn.

Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. A sense of the divine wrath which had been manifested in the overthrow of the chosen nation and their sad captivity led the Psalmist into the greatest distress. He felt like a sere leaf caught up by a hurricane and carried right away, or the spray of the sea which is dashed upwards that it may be scattered and dissolved. Our translation gives the idea of a vessel uplifted in order that it may be dashed to the earth with all the greater violence and the more completely broken in pieces; or to change the figure, it reminds us of a wrestler whom his opponent catches up that he may give him a more desperate fall. The first interpretation which we have given is, however, more fully in accordance with the original, and sets forth the utter helplessness which the writer felt, and the sense of overpowering terror which bore him along in a rush of tumultuous grief which he could not withstand.

My days are like a shadow that declineth. His days were but a shadow at best, but now they seem to be like a shadow which was passing away. A shadow is unsubstantial enough, how feeble a thing must a declining shadow be? No expression could more forcibly set forth his extreme feebleness. And I am withered like grass. He was like grass, blasted by a parching wind, or cut down with a scythe, and then left to be dried up by the burning heat of the sun. There are times when through depression of spirit a man feels as if all life were gone from him, and existence had become merely a breathing death. Heart-break has a marvellously withering influence over our entire system; our flesh at its best is but as grass, and when it is wounded with sharp sorrows, its beauty fades, and it becomes a shrivelled, dried, uncomely thing.

Now the writer's mind is turned away from his personal and relative troubles to the true source of all consolation, namely, the Lord himself, and his gracious purposes towards his own people. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever. I perish, but thou wilt not, my nation has become almost extinct, but thou art altogether unchanged. The original has the word "sit, " —"thou, Jehovah, to eternity shalt sit:" that is to say, thou reignest on, thy throne is still secure even when thy chosen city lies in ruins, and thy peculiar people are carried into captivity. The sovereignty of God in all things is an unfailing ground for consolation; he rules and reigns whatever happens, and therefore all is well.

Firm as his throne his promise stands,

And he can well secure,

What I have committed to his hands.

Till the decisive hour.

And thy rememberance unto all generations. Men will forget me, but as for thee, O God, the constant tokens of thy presence will keep the race of man in mind of thee from age to age. What God is now he always will be, that which our forefathers told us of the Lord we find to be true at this present time, and what our experience enables us to record will be confirmed by our children and their children's children. All things else are vanishing like smoke, and withering like grass, but over all the one eternal, immutable light shines on, and will shine on when all these shadows have declined into nothingness.

Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion. He firmly believed and boldly prophesied that apparent inaction on God's part would turn to effective working. Others might remain sluggish in the matter, but the Lord would most surely bestir himself. Zion had been chosen of old, highly favoured, gloriously inhabited, and wondrously preserved, and therefore by the memory of her past mercies it was certain that mercy would again be showed to her. God will not always leave his church in a low condition; he may for a while hide himself from her in chastisement, to make her see her nakedness and poverty apart from himself, but in love he must return to her, and stand up in her defence, to work her welfare. For the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come. Divine decree has appointed a season for blessing the church, and when that period has arrived, blessed she shall be. There was an appointed time for the Jews in Babylon, and when the weeks were fulfilled, no bolts nor bars could longer imprison the ransomed of the Lord. When the time came for the walls to rise stone by stone, no Tobiah or Sanballat could stay the work, for the Lord himself had arisen, and who can restrain the hand of the Almighty? When God's own time is come, neither Rome, nor the devil, nor persecutors, nor atheists, can prevent the kingdom of Christ from extending its bounds. It is God's work to do it; —he must "arise"; he will do it, but he has his own appointed season; and meanwhile we must, with holy anxiety and believing expectation, wait upon him.

For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. They delight in her so greatly that even her rubbish is dear to them. It was a good omen for Jerusalem when the captives began to feel a home-sickness, and began to sigh after her. We may expect the modern Jews to be restored to their own land when the love of their country begins to sway them, and casts out the love of gain. To the church of God no token can be more full of hope than to see the members thereof deeply interested in all that concerns her; no prosperity is likely to rest upon a church when carelessness about ordinances, enterprises, and services is manifest; but when even the least and lowest matter connected with the Lord's work is carefully attended to, we may be sure that tne set time to favour Zion is come. The poorest church member, the most grievous backslider, the most ignorant convert, should be precious in our sight, because forming a part, although possibly a very feeble part, of the new Jerusalem. If we do not care about the prosperity of the church to which we belong, need we wonder if the blessing of the Lord is withheld?

So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD. Mercy within the church is soon perceived by those without. When a candle is lit in the house, it shines through the window. When Zion rejoices in her God, the heathen been to reverence his name, for they hear of the wonders of his power, and are impressed thereby. And all the kings of the earth thy glory. The restoration of Jerusalem was a marvel among the princes who heard of it, and its ultimate resurrection in days yet to come will be one of the prodigies of history. A church quickened by divine power is so striking an object in current history that it cannot escape notice, rulers cannot ignore it, it affects the Legislature, and forces from the great ones of the earth a recognition of the divine working. Oh that we might see in our days such a revival of religion that our senators and princes might be compelled to pay homage to the Lord, and own his glorious grace. This cannot be till the saints are better edified, and more fully builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Internal prosperity is the true source of the church's external influence.

When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. As kings display their skill and power and wealth in the erection of their capitals, so would the Lord reveal the splendour of his attributes in the restoration of Zion, and so will he now glorify himself in the edification of his church. Never is the Lord more honourable in the eyes of his saints than when he prospers the church. To add converts to her, to train these for holy service, to instruct, illuminate, and sanctify the brotherhood, to bind all together in the bonds of Christian love, and to fill the whole body with the energy of the Holy Spirit —this is to build up Zion. Other builders do but puff her up, and their wood, hay, and stubble come to an end almost as rapidly as it was heaped together; but what the Lord builds is surely and well done, and redounds to his glory. Truly, when we see the church in a low state, and mark the folly, helplessness, and indifference of those who profess to be her builders; and, on the other hand, the energy, craft, and influence of those opposed to her, we are fully prepared to own that it will be a glorious work of omnipotent grace should she ever rise to her pristine grandeur and purity.

He will regard the prayer of the destitute. Only the poorest of the people were left to sigh and cry among the ruins of the beloved city; as for the rest, they were strangers in a strange land, and far away from the holy place, yet the prayers of the captives and the forlorn offscourings of the land would be heard of the Lord, who does not hear men because of the amount of money they possess, or the breadth of the acres which they call their own, but in mercy listens most readily to the cry of the greatest need. And not despise their prayer. When great kings are building their palaces it is not reasonable to expect them to turn aside and listen to every beggar who pleads with them, yet when the Lord builds up Zion, and appears in his robes of glory, he makes a point of listening to every petition of the poor and needy. He will not treat their pleas with contempt; he will incline his ear to hear, his heart to consider, and his hand to help. What comfort is here for those who account themselves to be utterly destitute; their abject want is here met with a most condescending promise. It is worth while to be destitute to be thus assured of the divine regard.

This shall be written for the generation to come. A note shall be made of it, for there will be destitute ones in future generations, —"the poor shall never cease out of the land, " —and it will make glad their eyes to read the story of the Lord's mercy to the needy in former times. Registers of divine kindness ought to be made and preserved; we write dcwn in history the calamities of nations, —wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes are recorded; how much rather then should we set up memorials of the Lord's lovingkindness! Those who have in their own souls endured spiritual destitution, and have been delivered out of it, cannot forget it; they are bound to tell others of it, and especially to instruct their children in the goodness of the Lord. And the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD. The Psalmist here intends to say that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be a fact in history for which the Lord would be praised from age to age. Revivals of religion not only cause great joy to those who are immediately concerned in them, but they give encouragement and delight to the people of God long after, and are indeed perpetual incentives to adoration throughout the church of God. This verse teaches us that we ought to have an eye to posterity, and especially should we endeavour to perpetuate the memory of God's love to his church and to his poor people, so that young people as they grow up may know that the Lord God of their fathers is good and full of compassion. Sad as the Psalmist was when he wrote the dreary portions of this complaint, he was not so absorbed in his own sorrow, or so distracted by the national calamity, as to forget the claims of coming generations; this, indeed, is a clear proof that he was not without hope for his people, for he who is making arrangements for the good of a future generation has not yet despaired of his nation. The praise of God should be the great object of all that we do, and to secure him a revenue of glory both from the present and the future is the noblest aim of intelligent beings.

Verses 19-20. For he hath looked down from the heights of his sanctuary, or "leaned from the high place of his holiness," from heaven did the LORD behold the earth, looking out like a watcher from his tower. What was the object of this leaning lrom the battlements of heaven? Why this intent gaze upon the race of men? The answer is full of astounding mercy; the Lord does not look upon mankind to note their grandees, and observe the doings of their nobles, but to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death. Now the groans of those in prison so far from being musical are very horrible to hear, yet God bends to hear them: those who are bound for death are usually ill company, yet Jehovah deigns to stoop from his greatness to relieve their extreme distress and break their chains. This he does by providential rescues, by restoring health to the dying, and by finding food for the famishing: and spiritually this deed of grace is accomplished by sovereign grace, which delivers us by pardon from the sentence of sin, and by the sweetness of the promise from the deadly despair which a sense of sin had created within us. Well may those of us praise the Lord who were once the children of death, but are now brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. The Jews in captivity were in Haman's time appointed to death, but their God found a way of escape for them, and they joyfully kept the feast of Purim in memorial thereof; let fill souls that have been set free from the crafty malice of the old dragon with even greater gratitude magnify the Lord of infinite compassion.

To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem. Great mercy displayed to those greatly in need of it, is the plainest method of revealing the attributes of the Most High. Actions speak more loudly than words; deeds of grace are a revelation even more impressive than the most tender promises. Jerusalem restored, the church re-edified, desponding souls encouraged, and all other manifestations of Jehovah's power to bless, are so many manifestoes and proclamations put up upon the walls of Zion to publish the character and glory of the great God. Every day's experience should be to us a new gazette of love, a court circular from heaven, a daily despatch from the headquarters of grace. We are bound to inform our fellow Christians of all this, making them helpers in our praise, as they hear of the goodness which we have experienced. While God's mercies speak so eloquently, we ought not to be dumb. To communicate to others what God has done for us personally and for the church at large is so evidently our duty, that we ought not to need urging to fulfil it. God has ever an eye to the glory of his grace in all that he does, and we ought not wilfully to defraud him of the revenue of his praise.

When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord. The great work of restoring ruined Zion is to be spoken of in those golden ages when the heathen nations shall be converted unto God; even those glorious times will not be able to despise that grand event, which, like the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, will never be eclipsed and never cease to awaken the enthusiasm of the cliosen people. Happy will the day be when all nations shall unite in the sole worship of Jehovah, then shall the histories of the olden times be read with adoring wonder, and the hand of the Lord shall be seen as having ever rested upon the sacramental host of his elect: then shall shouts of exulting praise ascend to heaven in honour of him who loosed the captives, delivered the condemned, raised up the desolations of ages, and made out of stones and rubbish a temple for his worship.

He weakened my strength in the way. Here the Psalmist comes down again to the mournful string, and pours forth his personal complaint. His sorrow had cast down his spirit, and even caused weakness in his bodily frame, so that he was like a pilgrim who limped along the road, and was ready to lie down and die. He shortened my days. Though he had bright hopes for Jerusalem, he feared that he should have departed this life long before those visions had become realities; he felt that he was pining away and would be a shortlived man. Perhaps this may be our lot, and it will materially help us to be content with it, if we are persuaded that the grandest of all interests is safe, and the good old cause secure in the hands of the Lord.

I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. He betook himself to prayer. What better remedy is there for hcart-sickness and depression? We may lawfully ask for recovery from sickness and may hope to be heard. Good men should not dread death, but they are not forbidden to love life: for many reasons the man who has the best hope of heaven may nevertheless think it desirable to continue here a little longer, for the sake of his family, his work, the church of God, and even the glory of God itself. Some read the passage, "Take me not up, "let me not ascend like disappearing smoke, do not whirl me away like Elijah in a chariot of fire, for as yet I have only seen half my days, and that a sorrowful half; give me to live till the blustering morning shall have softened into a bright afternoon of happier existence. Thy years are throughout all generations. Thou livest, Lord; let me live also. A fulness of existence is with thee, let me partake therein. Note the contrast between himself pining and ready to expire, and his God living on in the fulness of strength for ever and ever; this contrast is full of consolatory power to the man whose heart is stayed upon the Lord. Blessed be his name, he faileth not, and, therefore, our hope shall not fail us, neither will we despair for ourselves or for his church.

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth. Creation is no new work with God, and therefore to "create Jerusalem a praise in the earth" will not be difficult to him. Long ere the holy city was laid in ruins the Lord made a world out of nothing, and it will be no labour to him to raise the walls from their heaps and replace the stones in their courses. We can neither continue our own existence nor give being to others; but the Lord not only is, but he is the Maker of all things that are; hence, when our affairs are at the very lowest ebb we are not at all despairing, because the Almighty and Eternal Lord can yet restore us. And the heavens are the work of thine hands. Thou canst therefore not merely lay the foundations of Zion, but complete its roof, even as thou hast arched in the world with its ceiling of blue; the loftiest stories of thine earthly palace shall be piled on high without difficulty when thou dost undertake the building thereof, since thou art architect of the stars, and the spheres in which they move. When a great labour is to be performed it is eminently reassuring to contemplate the power of him who has undertaken to accomplish it; and when our own strength is exhausted it is supremely cheering to see the unfailing energy which is still engaged on our behalf.

They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. The power which made them shall dissolve them, even as the city of thy love was destroyed at thy command; yet neither the ruined city nor the ruined earth can make a change in thee, reverse thy purpose, or diminish thy glory. Thou standest when all things fall. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. Time impairs all things, the fashion becomes obsolete and passes away. The visible creation, which is like the garment of the invisible God, is waxing old and wearing out, and our great King is not so poor that he must always wear the same robes; he will ere long fold up the worlds and put them aside as worn out vestures, and he will array himself in new attire, making a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. How readily will all this be done. "Thou shalt change them and they shall be changed; "as in the creation so in the restoration, omnipotence shall work its way without hindrance.

But thou art the same, or, "thou art he." As a man remains the same when he has changed his clothing, so is the Lord evermore the unchanging One, though his works in creation may be changed, and the operations of his providence may vary. When heaven and earth shall flee away from the dread presence of the great Judge, he will be unaltered by the terrible confusion, and the world in conflagration will effect no change in him; even so, the Psalmist remembered that when Israel was vanquished, her capital destroyed, and her temple levelled with the ground, her God remained the same self-existent, all-sufficient being, and would restore his people, even as he will restore the heavens and the earth, bestowing at the same time a new glory never known before. The doctrine of the immutability of God should be more considered than it is, for the neglect of it tinges the theology of many religious teachers, and makes them utter many things of which they would have seen the absurdity long ago if they had remembered the divine declaration, "I am God, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." And thy years shall have no end. God lives on, no decay can happen to him, or destruction overtake him. What a joy is this! We may lose our dearest earthly friends, but not our heavenly Friend. Men's days are often suddenly cut short, and at the longest they are but few, but the years of the right hand of the Most High cannot be counted, for they have neither first nor last, beginning nor end. O my soul, rejoice thou in the Lord always, since he is always the same.

The children of thy servants shall continue. The Psalmist had early in the psalm looked forward to a future generation, and here he speaks with confidence that such a race would arise and be preserved and blessed of God. Some read it as a prayer, "let the sons of thy servants abide." Any way, it is full of good cheer to us; we may plead for the Lord's favour to our seed, and we may expect that the cause of God and truth will revive in future generations. Let us hope that those who are to succeed us will not be so stubborn, unbelieving and erring as we have been. If the church has been minished and brought low by the lukewarmness of the present race, let us entreat the Lord to raise up a better order of men, whose zeal and obedience shall win and hold a long prosperity. May our own dear ones be among the better generation who shall continue in the Lord's ways, obedient to the end. And their seed shall be established before thee. God does not neglect the children of his servants. It is the rule that Abraham's Isaac should be the Lord's, that Isaac's Jacob should be beloved of the Most High, and that Jacob's Joseph should find favour in the sight of God. Grace is not hereditary, yet God loves to be served by the same family time out of mind, even as many great landowners feel a pleasure in having the same families as tenants upon their estates from generation to generation. Here is Zion's hope, her sons will build her up, her offspring will restore her former glories. We may, therefore, not only for our own sakes, but also out of love to the church of God, daily pray that our sons and daughters may be saved, and kept by divine grace even unto the end, —established before the Lord. We have thus passed through the cloud, and in the next psalm we shall bask in the sunshine. Such is the chequered experience of the believer. Paul in the seventh of Romans cries and groans, and then in the eighth rejoices and leaps for joy; and so, from the moaning of the hundred and second psalm, we now advance to the songs and dancing of the hundred and third, blessing the Lord that, "though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning."

TITLE.

1. Afflicted men may pray.

2. Afflicted men should pray even when overhelmed.

3. Afflicted men can pray —for what is wanted is a pouring out of their complaint, not an oratorical display.

4. Afflicted men are accepted in prayer —for this prayer is placed on record.

Verses 1-2. Five steps to the mercy-seat. The Psalmist prays for,

1. Audience: "Hear my prayer."

2. Access: "Let my cry come before thee."

3. Unveiling: "Hide not thy face."

4. An intent ear: "Incline thine ear."

5. Answer. C. Davis.

Verses 1, 17, 19-20. An interesting discourse may be founded upon these passages.

1. The Lord entreated to hear —Ps 102:1.

2. The Promise given that he will hear —Ps 102:17.

3. The Record that the Lord has heard —Ps 102:19-20.

1. Prayer in trouble is most needed.

2. Prayer in trouble is most heeded.

3. Prayer in trouble is most speeded: "Answer me speedily."

Or,

1. Prayer in trouble: "In the day, "etc.

2. The prayer of trouble: "Hide not thy face; "not remove the trial, but be with me in it. A fiery furnace is a paradise when God is with us there. G. R.

Verse 2 (first elause). He deprecates the loss of the divine countenance when under trouble.

1. That would intensify it a thousandfold.

2. That would deprive him of strength to bear the trouble.

3. That would prevent his acting so as to glorify God in the trouble.

4. That might injure the result of the trouble.

Verse 2 (last clause).

1. We often need to be answered speedily.

2. God can so answer.

3. God has so answered.

4. God has promised so to answer.

Verses 3-11.

1. The causes of grief. (a) The brevity of life. Ps 102:3. (b) Bodily pain. Ps 102:3. (c) Dejection of spirit. Ps 102:4- 5. (d) Solitariness. Ps 102:6-7. (e) Reproach. Ps 102:8. (f) Humiliation. Ps 102:9. (g) The hidings of God's countenance. Ps 102:10. (h) Wasting away. Ps 102:11.

2. The eloquence of grief. (a) The brevit of life is as vanishing "smoke." (b) Bodily pain is fire in the bones. (c) Dejection of spirit is "withered grass." Who can eat when the heart is sad? (d) Solitariness is like "The pelican in the wilderness, the owl in the desert, and the sparrow upon the housetop." (e) Reproach is being surrounded by madmen —"they that are mad." (f) Humiliation is "eating ashes like bread, "and "drinking tears." (g) The hidings of God's countenance is lifting up in order to be cast down. (h) Wasting away is a shadow declining and grass withering. G. R.

Unbelieving sorrow makes us forget to use proper means for our support.

1. We forget the promises.

2. Forget the past and its expcriences.

3. Forget the Lord Jesus, our life.

4. Forget the everlasting love of God. This leads to weakness, faintness, etc., and is to be avoided.

This as a text, together with Ps 103:5, makes an interesting contrast, and gives scope for much experimental teaching.

The evils and benefits of solitude; when it may be sought, and when it becomes a folly. Or, the mournful watcher —alone, outside the pale of communion, insignificant, wishful for fellowship, set apart to watch.

The sorrows of the saints —their number, bitterness, sources, correctives, influences, and consolations.

1. The trial of trials —thine indignation and thy wrath.

2. The aggravation of that trial —former favour, "thou hast lifted me up, "etc.

3. The best behaviour under it: see Ps 102:9, 12-13.

Verse l0 (last cause). The prosperity of a church or an individual often followed by declension; worldly aggrandisement frequently succeeded by affliction; great joy in the Lord very generally succeeded by trial.

Verses 11-12. I and Thou, or the notable contrast.

1. I: my days are like a shadow, (a) Because it is unsubstantial; because it partakes of the nature of the darkness which is to absorb it; because the longer it becomes the briefer its continuance. (b) I am like grass cut down by the scythe; scorched by drought.

2. Thou. Lord. Ever enduring. Ever memorable. Ever the study of passing generations of men. C. D.

1. Zion often needs restoration. It needs "mercy."

2. Its restoration is certain: "Thou shalt arise," etc.

3. The seasons of its restoration are determined. There is a "time" to favour her; a "set" time.

4. Intimations of those coming seasons are often given "The time, the set time, is come." G. R.

Verses 13-14.

1. Visitation expected.

2. Predestination relied upon.

3. Evidence observed.

4. Enquiry suggested —Do we take pleasure in her stones? etc.

Verses 13-14. The interest of the Lord's people in the concerns of Zion one of the surest signs of her returning prosperity.

The inward prosperity of the church essential to her power in the world.

God is Zion's purchaser, architect, builder, inhabitant, Lord.

1. Zion built up. Conversions frequent; confessions numerous; union firm; edification solid; missions extended.

2. God glorified. In its very foundation; by its ministry; by difficulties and enemies; by poor workers, and poor materials; and even by our failures.

3. Hope excited. Because we may expect the Lord to glorify himself.

4. Inquiry suggested. Am I concerned, as built, or building? not merely doctrinally, but experimentally?

1. The destitute pray.

2. They pray most.

4. They pray best.

4. They pray most effectually. Or the surest way to succeed in prayer is to pray as the destitute; show the reason of this.

1. A memorial.

2. A magnificat. W. Durban.

Verses 18-21.

1. Misery in extremis.

2. Divinity observant.

3. Deity actively assisting.

4. Glory consequently published.

Verses 19-22.

1. The notice which God takes of the world, Ps 102:19. (a) The place from which he beholds it: "from heaven, " not from an earthly point of view. (b) The character in which he beholds it; "from the height of his sanctuary, "from the mercy-seat.

2. What attracts his notice most in the world. The groaning of the prisoner and of those appointed to death.

3. The purpose for which he notices them. "To loose, " etc.;" to declare," etc. (a) For human comfort. (b) For his own glory.

4. When his notice is thus fixed upon the earth. "When, " etc., Ps 102:22. G. R.

For the sick.

1. Submission —The Lord sent the trial —"He weakeneth," etc.

2. Service —exonerated from some work, he now requires of me patience, earnestness, etc.

3. Preparation —for going home.

4. Prayer —for others to occupy my place.

5. Expectation —I shall soon be in heaven, now that my days are shortened.

1. The prayer. "Take me not away, "etc. (a) Not in the midst of life, is the prayer of some. (b) Not in the midst of worldly prosperity is the prayer of many, for the sake of those dependent upon them. (c) Not in the midst of spiritual growth, is the prayer of not a few: "Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, "etc. (d) Not in the midst of Christian work and usefulness, is the prayer of others.

2. The plea. "Thy years, "etc.; years are plentiful with thee, therefore to give me longer days will be an easy gift —and thine own are throughout all generations. G. R.

Verse 25-27.

1. The unchangeableness of God amidst past changes: "of old," etc. (a) He was the same before as after he had laid the foundations of the earth. (b) He was the same after as before.

2. The unchangeableness of God amidst future changes. "They shall perish," etc. (a) The same before they perish as after. (b) After as before.

3. The unchangeableness of God in the past and the future. "Thou art the same," etc. G. R.

Verse 26-27.

1. How far God may change —only in his garments, or outward manifestations of creation and providence.

2. Wherein he cannot change —his nature, attributes, covenant, love, etc.

3. The comfortable truths which may be safely inferred, or which gather support from this fact.

Verse 26-27.

1. The material universe of God. (a) No more to him than a garment to the wearer. (b) Ever waxing old, but he the same. (c) Soon to be changed and left to perish, but of his years no end.

2. Our relation to each (a) Let us never love the dress more than the wearer. (b) Nor trust more in the changeful than in the abiding. (c) Nor live for that which will die out.

The true apostolical succession.

1. There always will be saints.

2. They will frequently be the seed of the saints after the flesh.

3. They will always be the spiritual seed of the godly, for God converts one by means of another.

4. We should order our efforts with an eye to the church's future.