Psalm 102
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to You. 2 Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble; incline Your ear to me; in the day that I call, answer me speedily. 3 For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned like a hearth. 4 My heart is stricken and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. 5 Because of the sound of my groaning my bones cling to my skin.
David cries out to Jesus. “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." (Clarke) “‘Incline Your ear to me; in the day that I call, answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke;’ as wood or any combustible matter put into the fire wasteth away in smoke and ashes.” (Matthew Poole) He "bases his cry for a speedy answer on the swiftness with which his days are passing away, like smoke escaping, from a chimney.” (Meyer) — “‘and my bones;’ the most strong and solid parts of my body, which seemed safest from the fire." (Matthew Poole) are literally “incinerated as on the hearth." “‘My heart is stricken’ with sin and under the knowledge of its wage ‘and withered like grass,’ (v. 4) like Jonah’s gourd.” (F. B. Meyer)— “with a sense of sin, and of God's wrath and displeasure at him... — ‘so that I forget to eat my bread;’ etc. Sometimes in repentance and crying over sin “persons refuse to eat bread, as Jonathan and Ahab, which is a voluntary act, and purposely done; but here, in the psalmist, there was such a loss of appetite, through sorrow, that he forgot his stated meals, having no manner of inclination to food.” (Gill)
6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert. 7 I lie awake, and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop.
“‘I am like a pelican of the wilderness... owl of the desert,’ of ruined places, both of these being unclean birds according to the Levitical law [devoted to destruction]. I lie awake— watching, passing the night in sleeplessness, ‘and am as a sparrow,’ a small and despised bird, ‘alone upon the housetop,’ the figures expressing extreme loneliness.” (Paul E. Kretzmann) “‘Alone—... for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures.” (Francis Bacon)— and sleepless— “during the hours allotted to sleep....” (Alfred Edersheim) I lie awake in this condition.
8 My enemies reproach me all day long; those who deride me swear an oath against me. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, 10 because of Your indignation and Your wrath; for You have lifted me up and cast me away. 11 My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass.
My enemies are determined to destroy us (Acts 26:11); “and they have bound themselves by oath to do it. See a similar case related Acts 23:12-14, where a number of Jews had bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had slain Paul.” (Adam Clarke)— “For I have eaten ashes like bread.’ The ‘For’ introduces the ground upon which his enemies reproach him (Ps 102:8) - namely, his great misery, notwithstanding his piety.” (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown) While the repentant "usually restrain their sorrow during the short time in which they refresh themselves with food, he declares that his mourning was without intermission. Some, instead of reading in the first clause, 'as bread', read, 'in bread;'.” (John Calvin) “And mingled my drink with weeping.” Ashes and tears mixed with his spiritual bread “for Thou [Jesus] hast lifted me up, and cast me down’— as a storm lifts up an object only to dash it down and break it (Job 27:21; Isa 22:17-18). So Thou hast elevated me only to make my fall the more grievous.” (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown)
12 But You, O Lord, shall endure forever, and the remembrance of Your name to all generations. 13 You will arise and have mercy on Zion; for the time to favor her, yes, the set time, has come. 14 For Your servants take pleasure in her stones, and show favor to her dust. 15 So the nations shall fear the name of Yahweh, and all the kings of the earth Your glory. 16 For Yahweh shall build up Zion; He shall appear in His glory. 17 He shall regard the prayer of the destitute, and shall not despise their prayer. 18 This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.
“But thou, O Lord [Jesus], shalt endure forever’ - Hebrew, 'shalt SIT forever’… [the work being finished at Calvary] However near to destruction the house of David my seem, yet as Yahweh has promised its permanence…” (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown) Jesus is “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see." (Cp. 1 Timothy 6:15b-16; Revelation 19:11-16). “You will arise and have mercy on Zion;’ etc. as visibly as the Ark before us. "While the prophet was wasting with sickness in the midst of his days, and grieving for Zion, he comforted himself with the idea of the eternity of our JEHOVAH Jesus… The vicissitudes of life, the revolutions of empire, the shaking of heaven and earth, while they crush the wicked, safely roll the saints upon the firm rock of God’s eternal rest.” (Sutcliffe) —“’for the time to favor her, yes, the set time, has come.’— (Isaiah 40:2, margin) ‘Her appointed time is accomplished.’ The ‘set time’ is when ‘the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled’ (Luke 21:24; Romans 11:25); when ‘that determined shall be poured upon the desolate’ (Daniel 9:27); when the ‘time, times, and an half’ shall be complete.” (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown)
“For Your servants take pleasure in her stones, and show favor to her dust;' expecting a re-edification and restoration, whereof they had a sweet promise, Amos 9:9, and for the spiritual temple to be built of Jews and Gentiles, they had many more.” (John Trapp) “’So the nations shall fear the name of Yahweh, and all the kings of the earth Your glory. For Yahweh shall build up Zion; He shall appear in His glory.’ Which was.. fulfilled… in building of the spiritual Jerusalem by Christ, unto whom the Gentiles were gathered… ” (Matthew Poole) “’He shall regard the prayer of the destitute,’ etc,— gentiles. Let us know ourselves destitute, that we may know how to pray; destitute of strength, of wisdom, of due influence, of true happiness, of proper faith, of thorough consecration, of the knowledge of the Scriptures, of righteousness. These words introduce and stand in immediate connection with a prophecy of glorious things to be witnessed in the latter times. We profess to be eager for the accomplishment of those marvellous things; but are we offering the prayer of the destitute? On the contrary, is not the Church at large too much like the church at Laodicea? Will not a just interpretation of many of its acts and ways bring forth the words, ‘I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing?’ And do not its prayers meet with this reproachful answer, ‘Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and knowest it not.’" (George Bowen) “’This shall be written for the generation to come,’…. This prayer, as the Targum paraphrases it, is a directory to saints in distressed circumstances… ‘and the people which shall be created’…. who shall become new creatures; be created in Christ Jesus, and made new men; ’these shall praise the Lord,’ when he shall arise and have mercy on Zion.” (Gill)
19 For He looked down from the height of His sanctuary; from heaven the Lord viewed the earth, 20 to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to release those appointed to death, 21 to declare the name of Yahweh in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, 22 when the peoples are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve Yahweh. 23 He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days. 24 I said, “O my God,Do not take me away in the midst of my days; Your years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. 26 They will perish, but You will endure; yes, they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. 27 But You are the same, and Your years will have no end. 28 The children of Your servants will continue, and their descendants will be established before You.”
Jesus looked down from the Heavenly Sanctuary, referring to His Meditorial role, “to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to release those appointed to death, to declare the name of Yahweh in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the peoples are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve Yahweh.' (cp Is 61:1; Lu 4:18) “I read this psalm, first, with reference to.... forming a suitable form of words to approach God in Christ, at a mercy-seat, in seasons of soul exercises and trouble. Hebrews 12:3.” (Robert Hawker) See exposition of these verses in Hebrews 1:10-12 - “’Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands,’ Lord Jesus. ‘They will perish, but You will endure;’ yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: If heaven and earth perish, much more man will perish: but the Church by reason of God's promise endures forever. Seeing you have chosen your Church out of the world, and joined it to you, it cannot but continue forever: for you are everlasting.”” (Geneva Study Bible) Here is the glorious promise of Jesus in it's fulness- “The children of Your servants will continue, and their descendants will be established before You.”