"A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.
Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you!
2 Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!
3 For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
4 My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
5 Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh.
6 I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl of the waste places;
7 I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.
8 All the day my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
9 For I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,
10 because of your indignation and anger;
for you have taken me up and thrown me down.
11 My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned for ever;
you are remembered throughout all generations.
13 You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favour her;
the appointed time has come.
14 For your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.
15 Nations will fear the name of the Lord,
and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.
16 For the Lord builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
17 he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
19 that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
21 that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
22 when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.
23 He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.
24 “O my God,” I say, “take me not away
in the midst of my days—
you whose years endure
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 remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you."
Psalm 102
This is a striking Psalm in many ways. The Psalmist is in deep distress, as 1-11 make clear, and the description of his personal suffering and the bleakness and isolation of his experience are very moving. An over-all view, however, indicates that his distress is offset by the assurance that God will visit and vindicate His servant, and that his numbered days are encompassed by the unchanging eternity of the divine love and care. Also, the distress is interlaced with the assurance of God's intervention, and when once that assurance has been given, although the pain and distress surface again in 23, it is more quickly subdued by the reality of God's mighty grace. Not only so: the distress in 23 is different from the earlier manifestation, for it is now concerned with supplicating God to be allowed to see the answer of deliverance and not to be taken away before it becomes a reality. Also, and very significantly, in the fact that the Psalm begins with personal grief and the answer in 12ff is deliverance for Zion, we learn that the grief in 1-11 is linked with and associated with the plight of Zion, and that therefore the answer on the larger issue proves to be the answer to the personal one also. This bears out something that the Apostle Paul indicates in the famous passage on the Christian warfare in Ephesians 6:10ff, in the exhortation to make supplication 'for all saints', and the need to relate 'our' battle to 'the battle', and to know that when the battle on the larger scale is won, our lesser battles will share in the larger victory. This is the ultimate assurance the Psalm gives, that God will show mercy to Zion, and all of us, as individuals, will share in that mercy!