You Will Have Mercy on Zion
1 A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before Yahweh. Hear my prayer, Yahweh! Let my cry come to you. 2 Don’t hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Turn your ear to me. Answer me quickly in the day when I call. 3 For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch. 4 My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread. 5 By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin. 6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places. 7 I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop. 8 My enemies reproach me all day. Those who are mad at me use my name as a curse. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears, 10 because of your indignation and your wrath; for you have taken me up and thrown me away. 11 My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass. 12 But you, Yahweh, will remain forever; your renown endures to all generations. 13 You will arise and have mercy on Zion, for it is time to have pity on her. Yes, the set time has come. 14 For your servants take pleasure in her stones, and have pity on her dust. 15 So the nations will fear Yahweh’s name, all the kings of the earth your glory. 16 For Yahweh has built up Zion. He has appeared in his glory. 17 He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. 18 This will be written for the generation to come. A people which will be created will praise Yah, 19 for he has looked down from the height of his sanctuary. From heaven, Yahweh saw the earth, 20 to hear the groans of the prisoner, to free those who are condemned to death, 21 that men may declare Yahweh’s name in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem, 22 when the peoples are gathered together, the kingdoms, to serve Yahweh. 23 He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days. 24 I said, “My God, don’t take me away in the middle of my days. Your years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old, you laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, all of them will wear out like a garment. You will change them like a cloak, and they will be changed. 27 But you are the same. Your years will have no end. 28 The children of your servants will continue. Their offspring will be established before you.”
A sick man compares himself to three birds, and ends up being quoted about the Son who founded the earth.
A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before Yahweh. Hear my prayer, Yahweh! Let my cry come to you.
The heading is a description of a condition rather than an occasion, which makes it the most generally usable superscription in the book.
For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places. 7 I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop.
Three birds, and each is a picture of being in the wrong place. A water bird in a desert; a night bird among ruins; and a sparrow — a flocking bird, never alone — sitting by itself on a roof. The exact identifications are uncertain, and nothing turns on them: the point is a creature out of its element and without its own kind.
9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears, 10 because of your indignation and your wrath; for you have taken me up and thrown me away.
The last clause is the harshest image in the psalm — picked up and discarded, like something being cleared away.
But you, Yahweh, will remain forever Psalms 102:12.
The turn, and what it turns to is not his own case at all. From here the psalm is about Zion, and the personal complaint does not resume for eleven verses. A man dying young starts praying about the rebuilding of a city he will not see.
For your servants take pleasure in her stones, and have pity on her dust.
Affection for rubble. It is what makes a ruin different from a building site, and the psalm treats it as evidence that restoration is near.
17 He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. 18 This will be written for the generation to come. A people which will be created will praise Yah,
The reason for writing any of this down: so that a later generation, and a people which will be created, will know that the prayer of the destitute was answered.
to hear the groans of the prisoner, to free those who are condemned to death,
25 Of old, you laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, all of them will wear out like a garment. You will change them like a cloak, and they will be changed. 27 But you are the same. Your years will have no end.
The answer to a man whose days are shortened, and it is the contrast between a garment and its owner. The universe is the changeable thing.
The letter to the Hebrews quotes these three verses and applies them to the Son Hebrews 1:10–12, as part of the argument that he is greater than the angels. A prayer by an anonymous sick man about his own brief life is used to establish the eternity of Christ, on the ground that the one addressed here as the earth's founder is the one through whom it was made.
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