Psalm CII
A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.
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 an
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.
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 m 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;
300 PSALM cii. — Messiah’s comi’Laint and comforts
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.
23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.
24 I said, O my God, take rae 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.
The Greek lawgiver, Zaleucus, exemjDlified his own laws, even in their sorest penalties, by bearing half of his son’s justly-deserved doom; and men read of the deed, and praise it. But our Lawgiver, God over all, has cast into the shade every such act of homage to law by the infinitude of suffering he in our nature endured, to honour the law of heaven and save the doomed transgressors. The twinkle of a taper bears more proportion to the blaze of the ever-burning sun, than this one act of Zaleucus, dictated by partiality for his own family, does to the honour rendered to law and justice by our Divine Redeemer, out of love to that holy law. In this Psalm we may see him, of whom Psa. ci. sang, giving honour to those rules of rectitude which there he proclaimed. For here we see the Righteous One, the Lord Jesus, laying the foundation of his kingdom of redeemed ones, by fully satisfying the demands of justice in their room.
It is Christ, in the days of his humiliation, that is before us. The title has been thus versified,
“This is the mourner s prayer when he is faint, And to the Eternal Father breathes his plaint,” (Keble). The simplicity of the Hebrew is most expressive — “The prayer of the needy one luhen he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.” The “needy one” is Christ, who, “though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich.” A believer, also,
IN THE DAYS OF HIS HUMILfATION. 30 1
can take it up, for much of it expresses what the members may often feel while taking the same view of the Father’s face that Christ sought.
His doleful complaint occupies from 1 to 1 1 verses, resembling closely the deep pathos of Psa. xxii. Many of the allusions add depth to the words, conveying the idea, that all that was ever sorrowful in other men is to be found in this one “Man of Sorrows.” Hannah’s and David’s sorrow, that took away all appetite for food (1 Sam. i. 7 ;* 2 Sam xii. 17), and even Saul’s blank horror (1 Sam. xxviii. 20), are to be found in him —
“Ml, heart is smitten, and withered like grass,
So that Ihaveforcjotten to eat my bread” (Ver. 4.)
At such cost He purchased for believers on his name the privilege of “eating their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God,” as exemplified in the men of Pentecost (Acts ii. 46). He is like “the pelican of the wilderness’’ (sometimes seen at the Lake of Galilee, or by the shore of the Waters of Merom,)when it has left its companions in their desert resorts, and lingers alone, drooping and dying; or like “the owl in desolate places,” sometimes haunting ruins, sometimes sitting on some hollow tree forlorn, even at noon-day, as travellers have observed in Palestine (see Narrative of Mission to the Jeius, chap. V.); or, like some solitary sparrow, separated from the happy company of its fellows, mournful on the house-top.f He is like Job in the ashes, tears mingling with his drink, cast away, or cast down low now, and yet once lifted high (vers. 9, 10), his days like the shadow.
But, as an angel strengthened him in Gethsemane, so the thought of his Father’s purposes supports him here. At verse ] 2 he looks upward, as if he said,” But, 0 Father! I do not
* Daniel’s, too, chap. x. 3. Some have supposed Daniel the writer of this Psalm, the Holy Spirit using him in the days of the captivity, as a fit penman for a subject that touched upon many circumstances like his own.
f Waterston, the naturalist, however, fixes on the “Passer solitarius,” which is known in Egypt and Syria, and in the south of Italy. This bird is like a thrush in size, shape, habits, and has a sweet plaintive note; but never associates with others of its species, not even with its own mate, except in breeding time. It is seen sitting solitary on house-tops, warbling, it may be, its plaintive song.
The contents.
distrust thee (comp. Psa. xxii. 3); thou art to me the same as from all eternity; thou art Jehovah;
“Thy memorial is from generation to generation” (Ver. 13.)
That is, thy name manifested by deeds of love, and left on record for after ages, never changes.
“It is thou that shalt arise (QJlpJ^ ^n<), and have mercy on Zion; For the time to favour her, the appointed time, cometh on’’ (i ‘’3, comp. Psa. xcvi. 13).
At that time, “Thy servants have mercy upon OJ^n“|) the verydust of Zion;” they feel sorrow for it. At that time shall instruments be found not less efficient than Nehemiah in his day (see Neh. iii. 34, and iv. 4) to repair her wastes; and at that time the nations shall not hinder but help on the work, seeing the glory of the Lord. “For” — as if already beholding it accomplished, the vision is so clear (vers. 17, 18) —
“For the Lord has huilded Zion I
And His Glory has been seen!
He has regarded the prayer oftlie destitute.
And has not despised their prayer.” (Comp. Psa. xxii. 24.)
He has heard the prayer of Zion’s helpers, as well as the prayer of Him who was emphatically “The Destitute One” — the “)i?iyn, naked of all things, nowhere to lay his head; like (as the word means) the heath in the wilderness (Jer. xvii. 6), like a bare solitary tree. This humiliation ends in exaltation; a future generation shall see it; for the Lord’s character is known as helper of the miserable, manifesting his grace in their deliverance; and he has ever “looked down” (Deut. xxvi. 15) on Israel with such feelings, delivering (as he did Peter in after days) at times when men expected to see the captive’s end. He will look down (ver 20),
“To hear the groaning of the Prisoner (Christ), To set at large the children of death” (Compare Isa. lxi. 1; Christ’s members, and Israel among the rest.)
And this delivered company shall shew forth his praise on that day when Messiah appears in his glory among the nations, the Shiloh to whom, at length, all kindreds and people gather.
Such is the bright prospect, the glorious vision! From the garden of Gethsemane, with the cup at his lips, Christ sees the throne — glory, for a moment, bursting through the gloom. But it passes away; he feels himself still in the valley, and his sense of weakness and woe returns. “SoiTowful unto death,” his soul cries —
“He has weakened my strength* in the way;
He has shortened my days.
I say, 0 my God!
Take me not aioay in midst of my days.” (Ver. 23, 24.) Take me not away, let me not sink, ere my Mediatorial work is accomplished.
It is here (compare Heb. i. 10-12) that the voice from the Father addresses him. It is at this cry that the silence above is broken. The Father speaks words of strength and hope.
“T7iy years are to all generations! (U’^’yn “lilS; qd-, in the depth of ages past, “generation of generations.” Not as verse 12,
ITT -lip)
Of old thou hast laid the foundations of earth,
And the heavens were the work of thy hands,’’ &c. (Ver. 24, 25.)
The Eternal Son cannot faint or fail. He must be conqueror. He must pass safely up from this humiliation to the throne whence he descended. Yes, it is his to create these heavens and earth anew.
“These shall perish, hut thou remainest — These shall wear out as a garment.”
And when they have been worn out,
“Thou shall change them as a vesture (splendid attire, Gesen.), And they shall be changed’’ (•IS’^/n)-
The word for “change” implies in it (see Schultens on Prov. xxxi. 8) something succeeding to another, ^pPT, (the root of “Caliph,”) having in it the radical idea of substitution. It is used in Arabic in regard to plants, when they are changed, by a new effloresence, at spring-time; it is used by Job (xiv. 14) regarding his Resurrection change; it is used in Isa. ix. 9 —” We
* “His strength,” iPliS is the true reading, (Hengst). Is it, “God has withdrawn the help which he used to make me feel?”
Christ’s mem-
804) PSALM cii. — mkssiah’s complaints and comforts.
will put cedars in the room of sycamores.” If so, we see very clearly the assurance contained in these words, that Christ must not only suffer, but enter into his glory too. As certainly as in the beginning he was the glorious Creator of all things, but was pleased to stoop to our world as a man of sorrows, so certainly he must once again create these fallen heavens and earth anew — no more the Man of Sorrows, but manifested as the Eternal Son.
In that glory his children shall share — in that unchanging bliss they “receive a kingdom that cannot be moved,” (Heb. xii. 28), They at present often drink of his cup; they have some of his sorrows; for many an age their lot on earth has been like his — sorrowful. But, at length, the day of his glory dawns, and the “children of his servants” shall no more be strangers and wanderers; but (liDti’’,) “shall continue,” or pitch their tents and be fixed. The children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “his servants,” may be specially intended; at least, they are not forgotten. For now his saints enter on the possession of Earth, and the millennial race of Israelites inherit their Land, reigned over by the Lord and his glorified saints. And thus we understand this Psalm, beginning in woe, ending in gladness. It is
iiah’s complaint and comforts in the days of his
humiliation.