(A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before Jehovah.) Jehovah, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto thee.
One line opens this psalm: a plea to be heard. Commentators hear in it the voice of Christ Himself, rejected and close to the cross. The psalm's own heading calls it the prayer of someone afflicted and overwhelmed. So who is this sufferer, and does God answer Him?
Writers do not read this cry as a general lament. They hear the Messiah speaking, and they place the psalm in His last days.
Psalm 102 is one of the most remarkable of all the psalms, perhaps the most remarkable, and it presents Christ in a way that is divinely admirable. Verse 10 gives the occasion of the cry with which the psalm begins. The psalm looks at Christ fully as a man chosen out of the people and lifted up to be Messiah, and now, instead of taking the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off. The time is the immediate approach of the cross.
One writer ties this outpouring to Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus prayed the night before the cross.
It was in Gethsemane that He faced, as before God and in perfect communion with His Father, all that lay before Him, and especially the judgment for sin that He had to bear. He speaks of it in our psalm as "Your indignation and Your wrath." Jehovah had lifted Him up as the Messiah, but now had cast Him down, so that He might be the sin-bearer on the cross.
Commentators differ over how much of the cross this psalm covers. Another writer separates the shame Messiah took from His own people from the making of atonement.
There was more in the cross than the judgment of our sins, and that judgment is not the subject of Psalm 102. Here it is the Messiah put to complete shame by man and by the people; and yet He takes it all — and this was His perfection in it — from the hand of Jehovah. It is in such circumstances that He pours out His complaint.
The prayer does not end in silence. God answers, and the New Testament takes up that answer to settle who the sufferer really is.
The Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:10-12) quotes it to prove that the Old Testament regards Christ the Son of God as Jehovah... Yet it is Messiah's depth of humiliation which gives occasion to this expression of His divine glory. Out of that depth the Son contrasts His own wasting away in trouble with the permanence of Jehovah, with the certainty of Zion's rise from ruin... But when Messiah renews His cry of sorrow, the Father declares that the holy Sufferer is no less than Himself, Jehovah the Creator.
The psalm does not stop at suffering. Read on and it turns to mercy for Zion, the hill Jerusalem stands on.
We have only to read as far as verse 10 in that psalm to discover that there is some great Person who bears the indignation and wrath that the judgment of God entails, and when we reach verse 13 we find that mercy is to flow out to Zion. The bearing of the judgment leads to the extending of the mercy. That is the wonderful story.
The Psalms hold other prayers, but this one belongs to a greater sufferer. That is why troubled people can borrow its words.
Here is a prayer of the afflicted One, greater than Moses, yet the Son of David... What comfort it will be to godly souls to find One who has been in trouble in the same way, and whose expression of it describes their condition and circumstances, even though they may not exhaust the meaning of His words! Are they nearly overwhelmed, and do they think some strange thing has happened to them? This One has been completely overwhelmed. Does death stare them in the face? He has known what this is, and yet He never once failed to look to God... they will find consolation in this: that the groan of the prisoner and the cry of the afflicted can pierce the very heavens, and reach His ears even in the height of His sanctuary.
- Cry — The psalm opens with a plea to be heard. Verse 10 gives the reason: Jehovah lifted Him up as Messiah, then cast Him down, and the cross stands just ahead.
- Cost — He pours out real distress. Writers tie it to Gethsemane. They differ on whether the wrath named here is atonement itself, or the shame He took from God's hand.
- Confirmation — God answers the cry, and the answer names the sufferer as Jehovah the Creator. Hebrews quotes those words to prove the Son is God.
- Consequence — The judgment He bears in the first half turns into mercy for Zion in the second. Bearing leads to blessing.
- Comfort — One greater than Moses was overwhelmed and still looked to God. So the groan of any afflicted person can reach heaven.
Hide not thy face from me in the day of my trouble, incline thine ear unto me; in the day I call, answer me speedily.
Psalm 102 is headed as the prayer of someone overwhelmed, and this second line is its heart: do not turn away, and do not delay. Commentators hear the voice of Christ Himself here, which raises a hard question: why would the One whom God always heard need to ask that His face not be hidden?
The psalm is more than a prediction of the Messiah's sorrow. One writer points out that the words come to us as He Himself felt them.
Psalm 102 is not only a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that would flow to men as a result. It does give us these things truly. But it gives them as words spoken from His own lips, so that we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
One writer even names the psalm after Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus prayed before His arrest. He traces its path from deepest sorrow to glory.
Psalm 102 may rightly be called "The Gethsemane Psalm." Its heading is, "A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before God." It begins with the deepest distress. It ends with the eternal Glory of the One who was in such sorrow. Here we may well think of that moving cry found elsewhere in the Word, "Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow" (Lam. 1:12). First we hear His cry, "Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress."
The opening verses give the reason for the prayer. What is missing from them says as much as what is there.
The first seven verses give, in general terms, the reason for the Sufferer's prayer. His plea is His distress. There is no confession of sin, as there is in the psalms of atonement generally. On the other hand there is no profession of integrity either. It is like the prayer of one with whom there is no need. Yet He pleads that God's face should not be hidden from Him.
One writer sets the general rule beside the one terrible exception to it.
He pleads, "Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress" (v. 2). In one respect God did not hide His face from Him. Yet when He had to bear sin in His own body on the cross, for three hours God did hide His face from Him. That was a terrible exception to the general rule that God heard Him always. He did pray with strong crying and tears to the One who was able to save Him "out of death," and God heard Him (Heb. 5:7). He was not saved from dying, but "out of death," by resurrection.
Why ask for a quick answer? One writer explains what silence would have meant — and what this Sufferer's deliverance secures for His people.
This psalm (102) has a special strength and blessing for the believer. From one point of view it shows Christ's identity in spirit with His suffering people. From the other side it shows His identity with Jehovah. Our Lord's sufferings become the pledge of glory to those who are His. The triumph of Christ becomes the guarantee of deliverance and blessing to them. "Answer me speedily in the day when I call." What the godly soul in trouble longs for is that the Lord hears him. This is their anxiety, because otherwise there would be wrath. The resurrection of Jesus was the great witness of this.
The psalm does not end where it begins. The New Testament uses it to prove who this Sufferer really is.
The Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 1:10-12) quotes this psalm to prove that the Old Testament regards Christ the Son of God as Jehovah. Psalm 45 had just been cited to prove His Godhead. In both psalms it is the God of Israel Himself who speaks. Yet it is the depth of Messiah's humiliation that gives occasion to this expression of His divine glory.
- Voice — The prayer reaches us from the Sufferer's own lips, so we learn not only what He endured but how He felt it.
- Distress — His only plea is His trouble: no confession of sin, and no claim of His own goodness.
- Hidden — God hid His face for three hours on the cross. That was the one exception to always hearing His Son.
- Answered — God heard Him: not by sparing Him death, but by raising Him out of death.
- Glory — Out of that lowest depth comes the proof that this Sufferer is Jehovah, and His triumph guarantees blessing for His own.
For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a firebrand.
The third verse of Psalm 102 is where the sufferer stops asking and starts describing. Commentators read this cry as more than one man's bad season. They hear in it the voice of the Messiah. And they ask what fire could burn in the bones of a man with no sin to confess.
Commentators identify the One who prays this psalm:
Here is a prayer of the afflicted One. He is greater than Moses, yet He is the Son of David. Moses and David both prophesied about Him. He is the Mediator and King of Israel.
The psalm does not merely predict His sorrows from the outside. It hands us His own words about them.
Psalm 102 is not only a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow, and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that would flow to men as a result. It does give us these things. But it gives them so that the account comes to us as from His own lips. We get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
Verses 1 and 2 ask God to hear and not hide His face. Verse 3 begins with "for" — it supplies the reason. One writer traces the flow of the whole opening section:
He begins by asking Jehovah to hear Him, because He is in trouble. He asks that God's face not be turned away from Him, and that the answer come quickly. Then the afflicted One describes the condition that called out His prayer: "For my days have been consumed as smoke, and my bones have been burned as a hearth."
Translations of the second image differ. Some render it "burned as a hearth"; William Kelly gives "my bones are burned as a firebrand" (Kelly). ESV reads "my bones burn like a furnace." Either way the picture is of something set alight from within.
Here is what makes the verse unusual. The sufferer never admits fault, and never claims merit either — yet fire is on Him.
There is no confession of sin here, as there is in the psalms of atonement. On the other hand, there is no claim of integrity either. It is like the prayer of One who has no need of either. Yet He pleads that God's face should not be hidden from Him. And in the third verse He already seems to hint at what is said more plainly later — the wrath of God like a fire in His bones, and His days consumed like smoke.
That plainer word comes later in the psalm, where God's wrath is named outright. Verse 3 is the first hint of it.
The Gospels record what Jesus did and said. They rarely show what He felt. This psalm does.
In the Gospels we do not read of the deep feelings of the Lord Jesus in His day by day sufferings. But here we read that His days were consumed like smoke and His bones burned like a hearth. We do read once of Him groaning when faced with the death of Lazarus (John 11:38). The feeling behind that groaning is shown in verse 5 of this psalm.
The sufferer keeps returning to one word: "days." God answers him with a different word.
It is striking how He speaks in His humiliation of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). But in Jehovah's reply to Him, He speaks of "Your years." They run throughout all generations, and they shall have no end.
This is not comfort offered from a distance. Scripture says it of the very One whose days were going up in smoke.
This cry from the depths is followed at once by a remarkable statement: His person never changes. It is said of Him at the very moment of His apparent weakness (Ps. 102:12, 24-27). The heavens and the earth are His own handiwork, and men count them the very picture of stability. Yet they shall perish, while He exists for ever.
Anyone whose life feels like it is burning away can find their own condition described here. And they find that One went further down than they have gone.
What comfort it will be to godly souls among the remnant to find One who has been in trouble in the same way! His words describe their condition and their circumstances, though they may never exhaust the meaning of those words. Are they almost overwhelmed, thinking that some strange thing has happened to them? This One has been completely overwhelmed.
- Days consumed. The verse begins with "for." It gives the reason for the prayer — the condition that drove Him to cry out.
- Days without guilt. He confesses no sin and claims no innocence. Yet wrath burns in His bones — the first hint of what the psalm later says plainly.
- Days unrecorded. The Gospels tell us what He did; this verse tells us what He felt while doing it.
- Days answered. He speaks of His "days" four times over; God replies by speaking of His "years," which have no end.
- Days shared. He was completely overwhelmed. So the overwhelmed find their words already spoken — and they never exhaust His.
My heart is smitten and withered like grass; yea, I have forgotten to eat my bread.
Psalm 102 carries a title that names no author — only a sufferer, overwhelmed and pouring out his trouble before the Lord. Commentators hear the voice of Christ in verse 4, which raises two questions: what pressed Him so low, and what answer did such a prayer receive?
Writers here take the psalm as more than a prediction about Christ. They hear Him speaking.
Psalm 102 is not only a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow, and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that would flow to men as a result. It does give us these things. But it gives them as if the account came from His own lips, so that we hear His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
The picture of a heart struck down, with groaning and watching alone, has a setting in the Gospel record.
As we look at the first section, we can hardly help thinking of what the New Testament records about Gethsemane. There He lifted up His prayer as One who was in trouble. There His heart was struck down, and there came the voice of His groaning. There He watched, alone like a sparrow on a rooftop. There too He wept.
Grief here reaches even the body — bread left untouched. The Gospels record what Jesus did and said. This psalm records what He felt.
In the Gospels we do not read about the deep feelings of the Lord Jesus in His day by day sufferings. But here we read that His days were consumed like smoke and His bones burned like a hearth. Once we do read of Him groaning, when He faced the death of Lazarus (John 11:38). The feeling behind that groaning is shown in verse 5 of this psalm.
Grass that is cut dries out and is gone. The same image returns later in the psalm, where one writer hears the Sufferer looking ahead to His own death (he gives his own translation of the Hebrew, not the ESV).
This was the condition He had been in and was still in. Now the hour of His departure draws near… What then can He look forward to? "And I shall be withered like grass." Cut off as man, this is what He looks forward to as man. But what about Jerusalem? Will Zion never be restored? Messiah may die and wither like grass, but Jehovah remains the same.
Behind this grief stands more than human enemies. The psalm traces it to God's wrath resting on Him, yet never explains why.
Yet the psalm gives no account of this, and raises no question of sin in any way. There must be a reason, of course, but none is stated. The psalm does not point to atonement, and yet only in atonement could wrath rest on the sinless One as it does here. It sets the fact alone before us — Christ (and it surely is Christ) in the depth of His humiliation, in a sorrow that had no equal, brought down until the lengthening shadow of evening pictures His days, and withered grass is His emblem.
Darby reads the same lines in the same direction. He rules out two explanations before naming the real one:
We are far beyond seeing these sufferings as coming from men. They did come from men, and He felt them, but men are not what is before Him here. Nor is this His atoning work, though what produced it is here if we take it in its full effect on the cross — the indignation and wrath. It is Himself — His own being cut off as man. He is in trouble. His heart is struck down, and He is like a pelican of the wilderness and an owl of the desert. His days are like a shadow at evening, withered like grass. Such was Messiah, to whom all the promises belonged.
Because these words were His first, they fit others who sink into the same distress.
What comfort it will be to godly souls among the remnant to find One who has been in trouble in the same way, and whose words describe their own condition and circumstances, even though they may never exhaust the meaning of what He says! Are they almost overwhelmed, and do they think something strange has happened to them? This One was completely overwhelmed.
The psalm does not end where verse 4 leaves it. The Sufferer's words receive an answer.
What a bright ending to such a dark beginning! I shall be withered like grass, He had said. His years shall never end — that is the answer given to Him. And more: Jerusalem will be built, the nations will fear God, and the children of Messiah's servants will remain.
- Voice — this is not a report about Christ's sorrow. It is His own account, and we hear feelings the Gospels leave unrecorded.
- Garden — the struck-down heart, the groaning, the watching alone and the weeping all point to Gethsemane, where He prayed as One in trouble.
- Cause — God's wrath rests on a Sufferer with no sin charged against Him. The psalm never explains it; only atonement can.
- Grass — a life cut off as man, set against Jehovah who remains the same. So the promises to Zion do not die with Him.
- Answer — the dark beginning ends in years that never end and a people made secure. The overwhelmed find One who was overwhelmed first.
By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my flesh.
Psalm 102:5 is a line of raw physical description: groaning so constant that the body wasted away until bone pressed against skin. The psalm names no author, only a title — a prayer of one afflicted and overwhelmed — and commentators hear in this cry the voice of Christ Himself.
The psalm does more than predict sorrow from a distance. It hands the reader the words as the Sufferer spoke them.
Psalm 102 is not only a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that should flow to men as a result. It gives us these things truly. But it gives them in such a way that the account comes to us as from His own lips, and we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
The four Gospels report what Jesus did and said far more often than what He felt. One writer links this verse to the one moment the Gospels record Him groaning.
In the Gospels we do not read of the deep feelings of the Lord Jesus in His day by day sufferings. But here we read that His days were consumed like smoke and His bones burned like a hearth. Once we do read of Him groaning when faced with the death of Lazarus (John 11:38), but it is verse 5 of this psalm that shows the feeling behind that groaning.
In Scripture, fat is a picture of what drives a person from within. One writer uses that picture to explain the wasted body of this verse.
Scripture uses this symbol of fat often. It stands for the energy and force of the inward will, for what is inside a man's heart. So where Christ expresses His complete self-denial, He declares "They could count all His bones"; and, in Psalm 102, "Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh."
One writer places these opening verses at one particular night: Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus prayed before His arrest.
As we consider the first section, we can hardly help thinking of what the New Testament records about Gethsemane. There He lifted up His prayer as One in trouble. There His heart was struck, and there came the voice of His groaning. There He watched, like a sparrow alone on a housetop. There too He wept.
The same wasting away marks God's people under His chastening. One writer sees the Lord entering that very trial.
Under the chastening of the Lord the days of His people are shortened and fade like smoke; their glory withers like grass. Into this trial the Lord enters (vv. 3-5). His people are lonely and desolate like a bird of the desert or a sparrow alone upon the housetop. The Lord enters into this desolation (vv. 6-7).
The opening verses give the reason for the Sufferer's prayer. Two things a reader might expect are missing from it.
The first seven verses state in general terms the cause of the Sufferer's prayer. His plea is His distress. There is no confession of sin, as generally in the psalms of atonement. On the other hand, there is no claim of integrity either. It is the prayer of One who has no need of it.
The wasted body of verse 5 is not the last word. Later in the psalm, another voice answers the Sufferer.
Jesus, the humbled Man, speaks of being taken away in the middle of His days. Then the voice of God reminds Him that His years are throughout all generations.
- Voice — the psalm is not a report about the Sufferer; His own thoughts and feelings reach us from His own lips.
- Groaning — the Gospels rarely show His inward feelings; this verse supplies what they leave unsaid.
- Body — bone pressing against skin is the outward mark of complete self-denial.
- Sharing — this wasting is His people's condition too, and the Lord enters into it with them.
- Answer — the One whose days were cut short hears God's own voice: His years run through all generations.
I am become like the pelican of the wilderness, I am as an owl in desolate places;
This verse sits inside a prayer poured out by someone overwhelmed. He reaches for lonely desert birds to picture what his life has become, and commentators ask whose sorrow this really is.
Writers on this psalm hear the Messiah Himself in these lines, told not as a report about Him but as an account from inside His own experience.
Psalm 102 is not merely a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that should flow to men as a result. It does give us these things. But the account comes to us as from His own lips, and we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
Darby fixes the moment: a man raised to the highest place among his people, and then cast off.
The psalm looks fully at Christ as a man chosen out of the people and raised to be Messiah. Now, instead of taking the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off... He is in trouble. His heart is struck down, like a pelican of the wilderness and an owl of the desert. His days are like a fading shadow; He is withered like grass. Such was Messiah, and to Him all the promises belonged.
Where the ESV reads desert owl, older translations read pelican. The older reading carries its own picture of the bird.
The Psalmist said, "I am like a pelican of the wilderness," which points to the bird sitting alone for hours while it digests its store of fish. It was an unclean bird.
The force of the image is that the creature is somewhere it was never made to be.
"I am like a pelican of the wilderness" (v. 6). The pelican is a water bird, but here out of its proper habitat. The Lord Jesus was used to the refreshing joy of the Father's presence in heaven. So a wilderness world was strange to Him, completely unlike His rightful place of perfect circumstances. "Also, like an owl of the desert" — this speaks of loneliness in a place with no provision.
One writer reads the whole opening section, and traces the bleak surroundings back to God's own hand.
The first seven verses state in general terms the cause of the Sufferer's prayer. His plea is His distress. There is no confession of sin, and on the other hand no claim of innocence. In verse 6 the figures seem to speak of God's hand upon His circumstances, making Him like a bird of the deserts or of ruined places.
Darby does not treat this loneliness as mere misfortune. He reads it as part of the beauty of the place Christ held.
He was alone; His loneliness was the essence of the beauty and perfectness of that place of love. He could be like a sparrow on the housetop and like a pelican in the wilderness. In His sorrow He looked for someone to pity Him, but there was none. He looked for comforters, but found none.
The psalm's later verses (23-28) speak of the One who created all things. Set that beside the birds, and see how far down He came.
First we have a prophetic picture of the lonely One, like a pelican, an owl in the desert and as a sparrow alone upon the house top. What a deep humiliation for Him who created all things (verses 23-28) to take the lowest place, even like a sparrow.
Faithful witness has always carried a cost. One writer traces the same pattern from Christ to Paul.
Everyone left Him. He was "like a pelican of the wilderness, like an owl of the desert, and as a sparrow alone upon the housetops" (Ps. 102). And what came of Paul's faithful testimony, who followed so closely in the footsteps of his Master? "All who are in Asia turned away from me." "At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me... But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me."
The psalm does not stop in the desert. Its later verses turn to Zion, and one writer links the two halves.
Read only as far as verse 10 of this psalm, and you find a great Person who bears the indignation and wrath that God's judgment brings. Reach verse 13, and you find that mercy is to flow out to Zion. The bearing of the judgment leads to the extending of the mercy. That is the wonderful story.
- Voice — the words come to us as from His own lips, giving His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it.
- Displacement — a water bird in a wilderness. He was out of His proper place, far from the joy of the Father's presence.
- Design — the desert and the ruins show God's hand on His circumstances, not bad luck.
- Depth — the Creator of all things took the lowest place, looking for pity and comforters and finding none.
- Destination — the One cast down is the One through whom mercy reaches Zion. His bearing of judgment opens the way for mercy.
I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the housetop.
Psalm 102 is headed as the prayer of an afflicted man who is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Verse 7 sets that grief in one picture: a small bird awake on a roof, with no company, and it raises two questions — who is speaking, and why a sparrow?
Commentators read this prayer as more than a description of rejection seen from outside. We hear it as though we stood close enough to catch His own words.
Psalm 102 is not merely a prophecy about the rejection and sorrow and judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy which should flow to men as a result. It gives us these things truly. But it gives them in such a way that the account comes to us as from His own lips, and we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
The force of the image lies in the bird's own nature.
The sparrow is the social bird, found in flocks. The Lord Jesus did desire company. But even when He was with His disciples, we read that He was praying alone (Luke 9:18). His disciples did not enter into His thoughts, so His exercises were solitary. In the same way, the house speaks of fellowship, but where fellowship was desired it was lacking. How little we understand the loneliness of the path of the Lord Jesus in the world!
Another writer weighs what this prayer pleads, and whose hand set the scene.
The first seven verses state in general terms the cause of the Sufferer's prayer. His plea is His distress. There is no confession of sin. In the sixth verse the figures, as well as the number, seem to speak of God's hand upon His circumstances, making Him like a bird of the deserts or of ruined places. The picture of the sparrow heightens the desolation still more. It has social instincts, and it sits in the very place where those instincts would find satisfaction, yet it watches alone.
Writers connect these opening verses to Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus prayed in deep distress.
As we consider the first section, we can hardly help thinking of what the New Testament records about Gethsemane. There it was that He lifted up His prayer as One who was in trouble. There His heart was smitten, and there came the voice of His groaning: there He watched and was as a sparrow alone on the housetop. There too it was that He wept.
Others linger on what made this solitude unlike ours: no one around Him was able to share it.
He was alone in that dark hour, like the sparrow alone on the housetop. He had "looked for sympathy, but there was none, and for comforters," but found none. No one could share His loneliness. No one could sympathise with it, because they did not understand.
Yet one writer sees a reason behind this emptiness, and a beauty in it.
The time had not yet come for union with that blessed source of all blessedness. The Head must be exalted before the body could be joined to Him. He was alone. His loneliness was the essence of the beauty and perfectness of that place of love.
The New Testament settles who this psalm is about. And the psalm that shows Him at His lowest also names Him as Creator.
This Psalm is a prophecy about the sufferings of Christ, His humiliation and death, and the gracious results that flow from it. The quotation in the first chapter of Hebrews confirms this. First we have a prophetic picture of the lonely One, like a pelican, an owl in the desert and as a sparrow alone on the housetop. What a deep humiliation for Him who created all things (verses 23-28) to take the lowest place, even like a sparrow.
Psalm 84 uses the same bird, and writers set the two verses side by side as picture and answer.
The sparrow is a true figure of friendless desolation, with no one to care for it. But it is no longer on the housetop in its loneliness (Ps. 102:7). It is sheltered in the sanctuary of Him who cares for all His works. The swallow's repeated wanderings have ended in the rest God gives through sacrifice.
- Voice — The psalm is a prayer of the afflicted. It reaches us as if from the Lord's own lips, with His own thoughts and feelings.
- Alone — A sparrow belongs in a flock, and a house means fellowship. The verse names both, and He has neither.
- Awake — He watches alone, in the one place where company should have been.
- Unshared — He looked for pity and for comforters and found none. Those closest to Him did not understand.
- Answered — The Creator took the lowest place. In Psalm 84 the same lonely bird is sheltered in God's sanctuary.
Mine enemies reproach me all the day; they that are mad against me swear by me.
Psalm 102 is headed "a prayer of one afflicted," and verse 8 names the affliction: enemies who mock him all day long. Commentators hear the rejected Messiah speaking here, which raises a question — why bring the scorn of men to God?
Commentators say we are not just reading a prediction about Christ. We are hearing Him.
Psalm 102 is not only a prophecy about the rejection, the sorrow and the judgment-bearing that marked our blessed Lord, and about the mercy that would flow to men as a result. It does give us those things truly. But it comes to us as if spoken from His own lips, so we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
One commentator sets the moment just before the cross, with the Speaker rejected instead of crowned.
Christ is fully in view here as a man chosen out of the people and raised up to be Messiah. Now, instead of taking the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off. The time is just before the cross, though He may often have looked ahead to it in thought, as in John 12.
The taunts came from people. Yet the sufferer traces them higher.
There was more in the cross than God's judgment of our sins, and that judgment is not the subject of Psalm 102. Its subject is the Messiah completely put to shame by man and by the people — and still taking it all from the hand of Jehovah, for this was His perfection in it... No doubt man was the instrument of it. The world which He had made did not know Him; His own people did not receive Him and would not have Him. The unbelief of the Jews hated Him: the more they knew Him, the less they could bear Him. The goodness, the love, the glory of His person only drew out man's deadly hatred.
The second half of the verse goes past insult. Older translations word it differently, and one writer explains what it means:
Those who are mad against me have sworn by me — that is, they made me the set form of words people used when cursing someone.
What makes that so bitter is the agreement it assumes between His enemies and God.
The evil comes into clearer detail in the second section. Here we see a sorrow so extreme that His enemies use it as their standard curse. It is as if God and they were in agreement — they could wish no one worse than God had done to Him!
One writer walks through the psalm step by step. Each sorrow of God's people becomes the Lord's own, verse 8 included.
His people are lonely and desolate, like a bird of the desert or a sparrow alone on the housetop. The Lord enters into this desolation (vv. 6-7). They suffer constant reproach and opposition from men, and the Lord Himself bears this reproach (vv. 8-9).
The New Testament records the attacks. This psalm adds what they cost Him inside, and it names who led them.
He also had to face the active opposition of enemies. They never let up in trying to put Him down — and, sad to say, they were the religious leaders of the day, sure of their own ability and their own assumed rights. We know they looked for every way to make a victim of the Lord of glory, using very deceitful words. We read of these attacks in the New Testament, but we do not read there how He felt about them, as we do in Psalms like this one.
The complaint does not end in silence. God answers the reproached One by speaking of who He is.
He prays, "O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." Jehovah does not answer with the kind of mercy that added fifteen years to King Hezekiah's threatened life. Instead He answers with this wonderful statement of the Sufferer's glory.
One writer turns the verse into a reason not to give up.
Constant opposition is very tiring, and when we are tired we tend to faint and give way. So let us "consider Him," so that we do not faint. There is nothing we have to meet, whether from opposing sinners or failing believers, that He has not already met in full measure. He could say, "All the day my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse" (Psalm 102:8).
- Voice — Christ Himself speaks here, pouring out His complaint to God as the cross drew near.
- Reproach — the scorn was unbroken, "all the day," and His very name became the word people used to curse others.
- Received — men did the harm, and the religious leaders led them; He took it all from Jehovah's hand.
- Shared — the reproach He bore was His people's reproach; He entered their desolation and made it His own.
- Answered — God did not lengthen His days; He declared His glory. Christ met all of this in full, so His weary followers need not faint.
For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
Psalm 102 is headed "A Prayer of one afflicted," and verse 9 is where that complaint turns rawest: food and drink have become mourning. Commentators hear the voice of the Messiah in His humiliation — so why should the sinless One taste such grief?
This psalm does more than describe suffering from outside. It lets us hear the sufferer Himself.
Now Psalm 102 is not merely a prophecy about the rejection and sorrow and judgment-bearing which marked our blessed Lord… It gives us these things truly. But the account comes to us as from His own lips, and we get His thoughts and feelings as He passed through it all.
One writer traces the cry to its occasion and its moment.
Verse 10 gives the occasion of the cry with which the psalm begins. The psalm looks at Christ fully as man, chosen out of the people and exalted to be Messiah. Now, instead of taking the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off. The time is the immediate approach of the cross.
Ashes were a known sign of grief in Israel. To make them your meal pushes the picture further.
Ashes, mostly from burnt wood, were used as a sign of sorrow or mourning, either put on the head, 2 Sam. 13:19, or on the body with sackcloth… To eat ashes expresses great sorrow, Ps. 102:9; and to be reduced to them is a figure of complete destruction.
His enemies turned His condition into a curse-word:
The evil comes into clearer detail in the second section. There we find a suffering so extreme that His enemies use it as a standard curse. It is as if God and they were in agreement — they could wish no one worse than God had done to Him! He had eaten ashes for food, and mixed His drink with tears.
The New Testament records the attacks on Christ. This psalm records how He felt about them.
We read of these attacks in the New Testament, but we do not read there of how He felt about them. Psalms like this one do tell us. Here He speaks of eating ashes like bread, and mingling His drink with weeping (v. 9)… He felt that God both lifted Him up, and then cast Him away. Why did He feel this? Because He had come to identify Himself with the condition of Israel, and so to feel the shame and disgrace of the sin of which Israel was guilty.
Commentators differ over what causes the ashes and tears. Some see God's wrath actually falling on Him here. Others read His grief as entering, in spirit, into the judgment resting on His nation:
They suffer continual reproach and opposition from men, and the Lord Himself bears this reproach (vv. 8-9). What is more, the nation had been lifted up above all nations, and yet God's wrath and indignation had cast it down… He does not say "Your indignation and wrath is upon Me," because He is not speaking as One bearing judgment on the cross. He is entering in spirit into the indignation and wrath that was upon the nation.
Another writer leaves the tension standing:
Atonement is not intimated, and yet it is only in atonement that wrath could be upon the sinless One as here. But the fact alone is brought before us — Christ (as it surely is) in the depth of His humiliation, in the sorrow that had no equal.
The psalm reaches beyond Him to a faithful few who suffer later.
What comfort it will be to godly souls among the remnant to find One who has been in trouble too! His words describe their condition and circumstances, even though their case may not exhaust the meaning of those words. Are they nearly overwhelmed? Do they think some strange thing has happened to them? This One has been completely overwhelmed… Surely in this they will find consolation: the groan of the prisoner, the cry of the afflicted, can pierce the very heavens.
The psalm does not end in ashes. God's answer to the cry tells us who the sufferer is.
He was cut off as man, when He had passed through only half the span allotted to man on earth. Yet He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. He is the Ancient of days. Before time was counted, He was. When it shall end, His years shall not be finished.
And the sorrow has an outcome beyond Himself:
Mercy is to flow forth to Zion. The bearing of the judgment leads to the extending of the mercy. That is the wonderful story.
- Ashes — eating them is the language of extreme grief. The mourner's sign has become the mourner's meal.
- Voice — commentators read the complaint as Christ's own. It gives the feelings the Gospels leave unspoken.
- Cause — He identified Himself with a people under judgment. Commentators differ: is this atonement itself, or His sympathy with the nation's state?
- Comfort — the overwhelmed find One who was overwhelmed first. His cry proves that a prisoner's groan reaches heaven.
- Outcome — God answers the One who ate ashes as the eternal Creator. His bearing of judgment opens the way to mercy.
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath; for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
This one line explains the cry that opens the psalm. It also raises the psalm's hardest question. Why would God raise a man up, only to throw him down? And who is the sufferer speaking here?
One writer treats this verse as the key to the whole psalm:
Psalm 102 is one of the most remarkable of all the psalms — perhaps the most remarkable — and it presents Christ in a way that is wonderful and divine. Verse 10 gives the occasion of the cry that opens the psalm. Christ is seen here as a man chosen out of the people and raised up to be Messiah. And now, instead of receiving the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off.
The verse puts the lifting first and the casting down second. That is the reverse of the order Christian readers expect. (Older translations read "lifted me up, and cast me down.")
Jehovah raised Him up, and Jehovah cast Him down. If atonement itself were the subject here, as it is in Psalm 22, would it not read the other way round — cast down first, and then raised up? That is how we Christians naturally think of Christ, for that comes nearest to the sinner's need and to God's answer of grace. But here Jehovah raised Him up, and then Jehovah cast Him down. This points to His place as Messiah. It does not point to His place as the Christ who suffered and was afterwards glorified, the Head of the church.
Israel rejected Him, yet He takes that rejection from God's hand. One writer calls this piety, and a pattern for us:
No doubt Israel rejected Him. But behind Israel's hostility, which God foresaw, stood the word that He was "delivered up by the settled purpose and foreknowledge of God." It was piety on His part to take His rejection from God, who allowed it and used it. In the same way, it is our privilege to look beyond second causes, without ignoring them or excusing them. Those who know God have to do with God alone, above and beyond what is in front of them.
Commentators differ here. One reads the wrath as the wrath resting on the nation, which the Lord entered into without yet bearing judgment for sin:
God had lifted the nation up above all nations. Yet because of His wrath and indignation He had cast it down. The Lord enters into this trial too, for He who was anointed to be the Messiah was cast down, and His days were cut off. Notice that He does not say, "Your indignation and wrath is upon Me." He is not speaking here as One bearing judgment on the cross. He is speaking as One who enters in spirit into the indignation and wrath that lay upon the nation.
Another writer ties the phrase to the cross, and to what happened in Gethsemane beforehand:
It was in Gethsemane that He faced, before God and in perfect communion with His Father, all that lay ahead of Him — above all, the judgment for sin that He had to bear. He speaks of it in our Psalm as "Your indignation and Your wrath." Jehovah had lifted Him up as the Messiah, but now had cast Him down, so that He might be the sin-bearer on the cross. Before He entered into all that the cross involved, He went through it all in communion with His Father in the Garden.
The psalm does not stop in the dark. One writer traces the line from this verse to the mercy that follows:
We only have to read as far as verse 10 of that Psalm to find a great Person there, who bears the indignation and wrath that God's judgment brings. And when we reach verse 13, we find that mercy is going to flow out to Zion. The bearing of the judgment leads to the giving of the mercy. That is the wonderful story.
If the anointed King is cut off, the kingdom seems lost. The closing verses of the psalm answer that by telling us who this sufferer is:
A question arises. How can Jehovah step in to bless His people if the Messiah is cut off? ... How can the kingdom be set up if the anointed King is cut off? There cannot be a restored kingdom without the King. The answer lies in the great mystery of His Person. The Messiah who identified Himself with His suffering people, and was cut off, is none other than Jehovah Himself.
- Occasion — This verse gives the reason for the cry that opens the psalm. He was raised to the place of Messiah, then cast down instead of receiving the kingdom.
- Order — Lifted up first, then cast down. That is the reverse of the order believers expect, and it points to His place as Messiah rather than to atonement itself.
- Source — Men rejected Him, yet He takes His rejection from God's hand. Those who know God look past second causes.
- Debate — Commentators differ on the wrath here. One sees Him entering in spirit into the wrath resting on the nation. Another sees the judgment He would bear on the cross.
- Outcome — The casting down is not the end. The judgment He bore opens the way for mercy to flow to Zion, and the One cut off proves to be Jehovah Himself.
My days are like a lengthened-out shadow, and I, I am withered like grass.
Psalm 102 is headed as the prayer of a man who is overwhelmed, and by verse 11 he is measuring the little that is left of his life. Commentators hear in this cry the voice of the Messiah about to be cut off — so if the promised King withers like grass, what happens to every promise tied to Him?
This is not a general lament about how short life is. The speaker is the One who was raised up to be Messiah and is now being set aside — and the cross is close.
Christ is seen here fully as a man chosen out of the people and raised up to be Messiah. Now, instead of taking the kingdom, He is rejected and cast off. The time is the immediate approach of the cross... He is in trouble; His heart smitten, like a pelican of the wilderness and an owl of the desert; His days are like a fading shadow, and He Himself is withered like grass. Such was the Messiah — the One to whom all the promises belonged.
A shadow stretched out long across the ground means the sun is almost down. One writer here quotes the verse in an older wording. He notes a change in the language: the psalm stops describing what He has suffered and turns to what lies ahead.
Such was the condition in life He had been and was still in; now the hour for His departure draws near. So there is a marked change in the language, which the older translation fails to show. "My days are like a shadow stretched out," near their end. What then can He look forward to? "And I shall be withered like grass." Cut off as man, this is what as man He looks forward to. But what of Jerusalem? Is Zion never to be restored? Are the promises never to be made good? Messiah may die, wither as grass; but Jehovah remains the same.
Verse 10 names what lies behind the withering: indignation and wrath. One writer says this wrath was not against Him at all, but against the sin of the nation He had joined Himself to.
...everyday life on earth was distressing to Him. It was all the more so because of God's indignation and wrath — not against Him, but against the sin on every hand, which He felt as though it had been His own (v. 10)... He felt that God both lifted Him up, and then cast Him away. Why did He feel this? Because He had come to identify Himself with the condition of Israel, and so to feel the shame and disgrace of the sin of which Israel was guilty. Verse 11 shows that He felt how quickly His condition as Man on earth was passing — His days like a shadow, and withering like grass.
Commentators differ on how far this wrath reaches. Another writer links the casting down straight to the cross.
Jehovah had lifted Him up as the Messiah. But now Jehovah had cast Him down, so that He might be the sin-bearer on the cross. Before He entered into all that the cross involved, He went through it all in communion with His Father while in the garden.
What makes this verse remarkable is what comes next. The One whose days are fading is addressed as the Maker of the heavens and the earth. Both are true of Him at the same moment.
Straight after this cry from the depths comes the remarkable declaration that His person never changes. It is given to Him at the very moment when He seems weak (Ps. 102:12, 24-27). The heavens and the earth are His own handiwork, and people treat them as the very picture of what lasts. Yet they will perish, while He exists for ever.
Because He has been through this Himself, His words become a shelter for others who feel they are sinking.
What comfort it will be to godly souls... to find One who has been in trouble too! The way He speaks of it describes their own condition and circumstances, though they may not exhaust the meaning of His words. Are they nearly overwhelmed and think some strange thing has happened to them? This One has been completely overwhelmed. Does death stare them in the face? He has known what this is, yet never once failed to look to God.
- Shadow. A shadow stretched out means evening. His days are near their end, and as man He looks forward to being cut off.
- Cause. Verse 10 gives the reason: indignation and wrath. On one reading He felt it because He had made the guilt of His people His own.
- Cross. Commentators differ. Some see Him entering into the nation's judgment; others see the casting down that made Him the sin-bearer.
- Answer. The One who withers is named Creator. Heaven and earth wear out; He remains for ever.
- Comfort. He was completely overwhelmed, yet never once failed to look to God. Those who feel the same find their own words already spoken here.