I said, My God, take me not away in the midst of my days! ... Thy years are from generation to generation.
Psalm 102 is a prayer of someone afflicted and faint, pouring out his complaint to the LORD. Here the sufferer, worn down in strength, asks God not to take him away half-way through life — and the verse ends with years that never run out.
Commentators say the afflicted sufferer in this psalm is the Messiah. His weakness looks like ours, and that is where the comfort lies.
Remember that "the afflicted" here is no less a Person than the Messiah in the midst of His sorrow and rejection... He says in verse 23, "He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days." How it endears our precious Saviour to our hearts, that we are allowed to see Him in circumstances so closely resembling our own. By becoming man, He bore the feeling and experience of weakness, and the shortness of human life.
The phrase points to a life cut short. One writer sees the same thing in ears of grain that were green and yet full.
Notice that the ears were green, yet they were full ears, that is, they were mature. Does this not remind us of the prophet's wonderful lament, "I said, O my God, take Me not away in the midst of My days" (Ps. 102:24)? At about the age of thirty-three our Lord's life was cut off. And yet though He was, as to His manhood, only a young man (as men reckon), He was marked by full maturity.
Earlier in the psalm God promises to rebuild Zion and gather the nations. That promise makes this prayer urgent: if the King dies young, who will reign?
In the hundred and second, the time has come, Zion is to be built up again, the nations gathered together to serve the Lord. But where is He that is to rule? Is it a Man cast down in the divine wrath, His strength weakened in the way, His days shortened? Hear Him as He pleads, "O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days! Your years are throughout all generations."
Commentators read the second half of the verse, and the verses after it, as God's reply. The reply says nothing about His circumstances. It says who the sufferer is.
"Your years are throughout," etc., is in answer to verse 23 and the first clause of verse 24. Jesus, in His humiliation, breathes out His broken heart to Jehovah. The Psalm anticipates the rebuilding of Zion. If so, where would this smitten Messiah be? If cut off in the midst of His day, how could He be there? God's answer is that He, the holy sufferer, is Jehovah, the creator and disposer of all things. What a testimony to His unchangeable deity!
That answer reaches far beyond the short life He pleads over. It runs past the end of time.
He may, and surely must, die as man according to the counsels of God; but time can make no change to Him. His works may perish, and grow old... Cut off in the midst of His days as man, when He had lived only half the span allotted to man on earth, He proves to be the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, the first and the last. He is the Ancient of days. He was there before time was counted. When time ends, His years will not be finished.
Read straight through, the verse sounds like one unbroken prayer. The Spirit of God shows otherwise: the words that follow are God's, spoken to the Son.
Suppose the Spirit of God Himself had not applied these words to Christ. We would have thought they were part of our Lord's address to God. Read it straight through. Does it not sound as though the Lord was going on to say, "Take Me not away in the midst of My days: Your years are throughout all generations. Of old You have laid the foundation of the earth"? But here we are told that it is God who is addressing His blessed Son.
The prayer was not answered by postponing death. It was answered on the far side of it.
Death was before Him. Compare here Heb. 5:7. He asked life of Jehovah, and He is heard. But how, after all? In length of days (as man) for ever and ever. "His glory," they say to Jehovah, "is great in Your salvation: honour and majesty You have laid upon him."
- Days — the speaker is the Messiah, His strength weakened and His days cut short, feeling the shortness of human life as we feel it.
- Doubt — if Zion is to be rebuilt and the nations gathered, where is the King who was cut off at thirty-three?
- Deity — God's reply names Him as the Creator whose years never fail, and it comes at the moment He looks weakest.
- Disclosure — the Spirit of God supplies the key; without it, readers would have taken God's answer as more of the sufferer's own prayer.
- Deliverance — God heard the prayer for life. He did not spare Him death; He gave Him length of days forever.
Of old hast thou founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands
God answers a dying man's prayer by telling us who that man is. He speaks to One whose strength had failed and whose days were running out — and He calls Him the Maker of earth and sky.
The psalm begins as the cry of a sufferer. At this verse the voice changes. Commentators find the proof in Hebrews, which puts these lines in God's mouth, spoken to the Son.
It is certain from Hebrews 1:10 that there is a change of speakers at verse 25. The opening of the psalm, in its full meaning, can only be the words of Christ suffering for His people. But the apostle reasons from Psalm 45:5-6 and Psalm 102:25, and so shows that in these last verses we have God's answer to the divine sufferer. Can anything be more touchingly beautiful? Christ mournfully pleads, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days." Jehovah replies — "Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain," and so on. The crucified One was Himself also the Eternal — a blessed mystery, and the foundation of all God's purposes of grace and glory!
He asked not to be cut off early. God's reply does not add years to His life. It says who He is.
This is from Psalm 102. It is Jehovah's response to the One who was destitute and weak, and whose days were shortened here. He took up the sorrows of His earthly people. For their sake He bore indignation and wrath at Jehovah's hands. Enemies reproached Him, and He sounded the lowest depths of trouble, weakness, isolation, and grief. He prays: "I said, O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." In Hezekiah's case, God answered with a mercy that added fifteen years to the threatened life. Here Jehovah does not do that. He replies instead with this marvellous statement of the Sufferer's glory.
The One dying on the cross had made the earth under it and the sky above it. The psalm also sets His "days" beside His "years."
The One who is crying out of all this distress laid the earth's foundation; the heavens that then darkened over Him were the work of His hands. But the material creation, in the form we know, will perish, while He stands and endures. Its days are numbered. Heaven and earth will show the signs of decay and age. But He will be the same, and His years shall have no end. Notice how He speaks in His humiliation of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). In Jehovah's reply to Him, God speaks of "Your years." They are throughout all generations, and they shall have no end.
The psalm raises a hard problem. If the promised King is cut off, what becomes of the promised kingdom?
In these closing verses Christ is presented as a divine Person — God — identified with Jehovah. The question arises, How can Jehovah intervene in blessing for His people if the Messiah is cut off? For the Messiah can say, "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days." How can the kingdom be established if the anointed King is cut off? There cannot be a restored kingdom without the King. The answer is disclosed in the great mystery of His Person. The Messiah who identified Himself with His suffering people and was cut off is none less than Jehovah Himself. So these verses tie the Messiah in Person to Jehovah, just as earlier verses tied Him in suffering to His people.
The creation named here has a purpose and an end. He will one day set aside what He founded — and He Himself will never change.
He is the Creator who made the earth and the heavens. He made them so that in them He might show in full what God is in His righteousness, as opposed to all iniquity. When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside as one would set aside clothing no longer used. Then He will establish a new creation in which righteousness will dwell. But in that new creation He will be the same. As He was and is, so He shall ever be. He is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will remain.
The distance between the prayer and the answer is the whole point. Faith learns to say both things about the same Person at once.
Can you conceive of, or bring together, two greater extremes apparently — most abject need and helplessness, the cry of One calling out in weakness to God, and the response coming from the very throne of God Himself, addressing this suppliant as God over all, blessed forever? Do we not turn with adoring heart to that blessed One and address Him in that language too?
- The cry. A Man in deep distress asks God not to cut His life short.
- The answer. God does not add years to His life. Instead God declares the glory of the One who prays, and calls Him the Maker of earth and heaven.
- The Person. Here is the answer to the psalm's problem. The Messiah who is cut off is Jehovah Himself, so the kingdom stands even through His death.
- The garment. He founded the earth and heavens, and He will fold them away when they have served their purpose. A new creation follows.
- The same. All that is material will change. He will not. His years have no end, so every promise of blessing stands.
*They* shall perish, but *thou* continuest; and all of them shall grow old as a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.
Psalm 102 is the prayer of a man who is worn down and cut off in the middle of his life. Verse 26 is not part of that complaint. It is part of the answer to it. The reply sets two things side by side: a creation that wears out like clothing, and a Person who stays.
The psalm raises a hard question. If Zion is to be rebuilt one day, what becomes of the Messiah whose life was cut short before that day came?
The psalm that contains it is one of the fullest expressions in Scripture of what Jesus felt in His humiliation on earth. It shows His dependence on Jehovah. It also shows that, after He was raised up as Messiah from among men, He was cast down and His days were shortened. If Zion were rebuilt — and the psalm foretells the time when it will be — where would He be, Messiah as He was, if, weakened and humbled, He was cut off in the middle of His days, as in fact happened? … The words quoted here are the answer to this question. Humbled as He might be, He was the Creator Himself. He was always the same, and His years could never fail. He founded the heavens. He would fold them up like a garment, but He Himself would never change.
The New Testament takes these words and applies them to the Son. One writer points out that a single small word in the quotation carries the weight.
No human being would ever have known the real meaning of this psalm if it had not pleased the Spirit of God to give it in this chapter. The little word "and" shows that in verses 25-27 the Son of God is addressed by God as the Creator of all things. It is Jehovah's answer to the prayer of His Son suffering as man and dying.
This declaration of who He is comes at the moment He looks weakest.
He was cut off in the middle of His days as man. He had lived only half the span given 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 comes to an end, His years will not be finished.
The garment image tells us what the heavens and earth are. He wears them for a time. They are not permanent.
But even the earth and the heavens as they are now will not continue. They will perish, while He Himself is unchangeable (v. 26). They are only like a garment that He puts on for a brief time. So creation grows old. 2 Peter 3:7 foretells its destruction by fire, and then "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13). It is the Lord Jesus Himself who will bring about this great change (v. 26).
The verse does not say creation is thrown away. He changes it. The change comes when its work is done, not when it fails.
He is the Creator who made the earth and the heavens. He made them so that in them He might show in full what God is in His righteousness, against all iniquity. When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside as one would set aside a garment no longer in use. Then He will establish a new creation in which righteousness will dwell. But in that new creation He will be the same. As He was and is, so He will always be. That is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will remain.
The comfort God gave His suffering Son is the comfort He now gives His suffering people.
As the Captain of our salvation, He was made perfect through sufferings. So He has become the perfect example for all His sorrowing and tried saints. But here is the marvel. While He walked the path of rejection, He seemed to labour in vain and to spend His strength for nothing. The comfort given to Him then is of the same kind as the comfort given to us on our own pilgrim path. Was He told, as in the psalm, of His changeless being? We are told the same thing as we pass through this world of change: He remains, and He is always the same… Christ remains, even if we lose everything else.
- The cry. A suffering man prays as his life is cut short. Commentators read the psalm as the Messiah's own prayer, made before Zion's promised rebuilding.
- The answer. God answers by calling Him Creator. The One dying as man made the earth and the heavens, so time cannot finish Him.
- The garment. Heaven and earth are clothing worn for a season — they wear out, while the One who wears them does not.
- The change. He folds them away once their purpose is served, and brings in a new creation where righteousness dwells.
- The rest. The very comfort spoken to Christ in His lowest hour is spoken to us: everything else may go, but He remains.
But thou art the Same, and thy years shall have no end.
This verse ends a psalm prayed by a man crushed by affliction and afraid his life was being cut short. The New Testament shows who speaks these closing words and who receives them, and that turns a line about God's permanence into a statement about Christ.
The lines before this one are a lament: fading strength, shortened days, a plea not to be taken away too soon. Commentators read verses 25–27 as a change of speaker — the reply given to the one who prayed.
Jesus, in His humiliation, pours out His broken heart to Jehovah. The Psalm looks ahead to the rebuilding of Zion. If so, where would this stricken Messiah be? If cut off in the middle of His days, how could He be there? God's answer is that He, the holy sufferer, is Jehovah, the Creator and Ruler of all things. What a testimony to His unchangeable deity!
God does not answer by adding years to the sufferer's life, as He once did for King Hezekiah. He answers by declaring who the sufferer is.
He prays, "O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." Jehovah does not answer with a mercy that adds fifteen years to a threatened life, as He did for Hezekiah. He answers instead with this wonderful statement of the Sufferer's glory.
The phrase does more than describe steady character. Behind it stands a Hebrew expression that works as one of God's names.
There is another word which, though it can be used as a description, is hard to exclude from the names of God. Hu, Atta Hu, "you are the same," the unchangeable One (see Deut. 32:39); "I am He, the same, and besides Me there is no god." … It carries the sense of the unchanging One who simply is, and this is true of God only. That is how Hebrews 1 quotes Psalm 102:27.
Each speaker uses a different word for time.
Notice that in His humiliation He speaks of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). But in Jehovah's reply to Him, Jehovah speaks of "Your years." Those years run through all generations, and they will never end.
Creation here is a garment He wears for a time.
Creation is only a temporary garment. He has put it on to show part of His glory, and it will be folded up and changed. "But You are the Same, and Your years have no end." … In eternity past, in His present showing of Himself to faith, and in future visible glory, His very Name is "The Same." His years have no end. The decline of age that so affects creation has no bearing on His blessed Person.
On its own, the verse could sound like a general truth about God. Hebrews tells us exactly who receives these words.
There we found that the words in Psalm 102, "You are the same, and Your years have no end," were not spoken to God in a general way. They were spoken to the One we know as our Lord Jesus Christ. That thought grows into the great statement that He is "the same yesterday and today and forever." Who could such a statement describe but One who was and is God?
One writer finds the same Person in scenes as far apart as the cross and the coming kingdom.
May the One who never changes keep our hearts truly steady. He is the Same here in rejection and the Same in the glory of the coming kingdom; the Same on the cross and the Same when the sky is folded up; Jesus Christ, the Same yesterday, and today, and forever!
Christ walked a path of rejection, and God comforted Him along it.
Here is the wonder. The comfort given to Him while He walked the path of rejection — when, as far as anyone could see, He worked for nothing and spent His strength for nothing — is the same kind of comfort given to us on our own journey. Is He told, as in the Psalm, of His changeless being? We are reminded of the same thing as we pass through this world of change: He remains, and He is always the same. This sets us on a Rock. Nothing can ever shake it, and resting on it in perfect peace we can watch everything fall apart without a single fear. Christ remains, if we lose everything else.
- Cry — The sufferer in the psalm begs God not to cut His life short. Commentators read verses 25–27 as God's reply.
- Answer — God does not add years to His life; He declares whose years they are. The One dying is the Creator of all things.
- Name — "The same" is one of God's own names, tied to "I am He" and true of God alone.
- Reach — Hebrews aims these words at Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today and forever — the same in rejection, the same in glory.
- Rest — God spoke this comfort to Christ in His affliction, and He speaks it to us. Everything else folds up like a worn garment; He remains.