Biblion Bible Commentary
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You Will Have Mercy on Zion
Psalms 102:1-28
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. · WEB
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 Psalms 102:1.
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 Psalms 102:3.
I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places. I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop Psalms 102:6–7.
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.
For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears, because of your indignation and your wrath; for you have taken me up and thrown me away Psalms 102:9–10.
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 Psalms 102:14.
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.
He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. This will be written for the generation to come Psalms 102:17–18.
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 Psalms 102:20.
Of old, you laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure... But you are the same. Your years will have no end Psalms 102:25–27.
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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