Messiah’s complaint and comforts in the days of His humiliation

As regards this psalm, who and when are unanswerable. There must have been a certain occasion, and yet it can have relevance to all stages of the church’s history. But there seems good grounds to understand it as spoken concerning the times of Christ. In Hebrews 1:10, there is a reference to vv. 25-27, which guides us to accept that reference.

Affliction lies heavy on the writer, as it did on Christ. There is a cry of being overwhelmed, and the anguish of loneliness and fears. But there is a positive assurance that God was not unmindful of the experience, nor of the state of the church, and He would arise.

God looks down from Heaven, and comes down from Heaven to rescue His people. Time and time again His glory has appeared in Zion, and His favour has renewed the church and delivered them from their weakness. These consolations are “written for the generation to come.” Let us believe then, it is still possible.

Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Recommended Tune: Herongate

Psalm 102 – Second Version (Long metre)

¹LORD, hear my pray’r, and let my cry
Have speedy access unto thee;
²In day of my calamity
O hide not thou thy face from me.

Hear when I call to thee; that day
An answer speedily return:
³My days, like smoke, consume away,
And, as an hearth, my bones do burn.

⁴My heart is wounded very sore,
And withered, like grass doth fade:
I am forgetful grown therefore
To take and eat my daily bread.

⁵By reason of my smart within,
And voice of my most grievous groans,
My flesh consumed is, my skin,
All parch’d, doth cleave unto my bones.

⁶The pelican of wilderness,
The owl in desert, I do match;
⁷And, sparrow–like, companionless,
Upon the house’s top, I watch.

⁸I all day long am made a scorn,
Reproach’d by my malicious foes:
The madmen are against me sworn,
The men against me that arose.

⁹For I have ashes eaten up,
To me as if they had been bread;
And with my drink I in my cup
Of bitter tears a mixture made.

¹⁰Because thy wrath was not appeas’d,
And dreadful indignation:
Therefore it was that thou me rais’d,
And thou again didst cast me down.

¹¹My days are like a shade alway,
Which doth declining swiftly pass;
And I am withered away,
Much like unto the fading grass.

¹²But thou, O LORD, shalt still endure,
From change and all mutation free,
And to all generations sure
Shall thy remembrance ever be.

¹³Thou shalt arise, and mercy yet
Thou to mount Zion shalt extend:
Her time for favour which was set,
Behold, is now come to an end.

¹⁴Thy saints take pleasure in her stones,
Her very dust to them is dear.
¹⁵All heathen lands and kingly thrones
On earth thy glorious name shall fear.

¹⁶GOD in his glory shall appear,
When Zion he builds and repairs.
¹⁷He shall regard and lend his ear
Unto the needy’s humble pray’rs:

Th’ afflicted’s pray’r he will not scorn.
¹⁸All times this shall be on record:
And generations yet unborn
Shall praise and magnify the LORD.

¹⁹He from his holy place look’d down,
The earth he view’d from heav’n on high;
²⁰To hear the pris’ner’s mourning groan,
And free them that are doom’d to die;

²¹That Zion, and Jerus’lem too,
His name and praise may well record,
²²When people and the kingdoms do
Assemble all to praise the LORD.

²³My strength he weaken’d in the way,
My days of life he shortened.
²⁴My God, O take me not away
In mid–time of my days, I said:

Thy years throughout all ages last.
²⁵Of old thou hast established
The earth’s foundation firm and fast:
Thy mighty hands the heav’ns have made.

²⁶They perish shall, as garments do,
But thou shalt evermore endure;
As vestures, thou shalt change them so;
And they shall all be changed sure:

²⁷But from all changes thou art free;
Thy endless years do last for aye.
²⁸Thy servants, and their seed who be,
Establish’d shall before thee stay.