View Psalms 102 in the note window.
A complaint of pressing afflictions, ver. 1 - 11.
Motives of comfort, ver. 12 - 28.
A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out
his complaint before the LORD.
Title of the psalm. Complaint - This psalm contains a prayer for the
use of all true Israelites, in the name and behalf of the church of
Israel. It seems to have been composed in the time of their captivity,
and near the end of it, ver.(Ps 99:13,14).
3: An hearth - An hearth is heated or burnt by the coals which are
laid upon it.
5: Skin - My flesh being quite consumed.
6: A pelican - Is a solitary and mournful bird.
9: Bread - The sense is, dust and ashes are as familiar to me as the
eating of my bread; I cover my head with them; I sit, yea, lie down in
them, as mourners often did.
10: Lifted me - As a man lifts up a thing as high as he can, that he
may cast it to the ground with greater force.
12: Remembrance - Thy name, Jehovah, which is called by this very
word, God's remembrance, or memorial, and that unto all generations,(Ex 3:15).
13: The set time - The end of those seventy years which thou hast
fixed.
18: This - This wonderful deliverance shall be carefully recorded by
thy people.
19: Looked - From heaven.
20: To loose - To release his poor captives out of Babylon, and
from the chains of sin and eternal destruction.
21: To declare - That they might publish the name and praises of God
in his church.
22: When - When the Gentiles shall gather themselves to the
Jews, and join with them in the worship of the true God.
23: He - God. The way - In the midst of the course of our lives.
Some think the psalmist here speaks of the whole commonwealth as of
one man, and of its continuance, as of the life of one man.
24: I said - Do not wholly destroy thy people Israel.
In the midst - Before they come to a full possession of thy promises
and especially of that fundamental promise of the Messiah.
Thy years - Though we die, yet thou art the everlasting God.
26: Perish - As to their present nature and use.
28: Continue - Though the heavens and earth perish, yet we rest
assured that our children, and their children after them, shall enjoy
an happy restitution to, and settlement in their own land.
