CHAPTER 102

AUTHOR UNKNOWN: A PRAYER OF PENITENCE

¹Hear My prayer, O LORD, and let My cry come unto You. (The subject of this Psalm is twofold. The glories of Christ as the Great King are contrasted with His sufferings as the Rejected Man. Here, as in so many other Scriptures, His sufferings and glories are brought together, and always in that order. It was necessary that He should be both the Man of Sorrows and the Mighty God. As the One, He is equipped with Mercy; as the Other, with Judgment. He is the Afflicted One of this Psalm.)

²Hide not Your face from Me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Your ear unto Me: in the day when I call answer Me speedily. (Both Verses 1 and 2 pertain to Christ as Very Man, although never ceasing to be Very God, yet the Perfect Sacrifice.)

³For My days are consumed like smoke, and My bones are burned as an hearth. (The sufferings He endured from the opposition of virtually all of Israel, especially the religious hierarchy, literally consumed Him.)

⁴My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat My bread. (As Christ dealt with a lost world, brokenhearted over its destitute spiritual condition, it says of Him, In the mean while His Disciples prayed Him, saying, Master, eat [Jn. 4:31].)

⁵By reason of the voice of My groaning My bones cleave to My skin. (This Passage tells us that the entirety of His Earthly Ministry was filled with such consternation because of the terrible sin of the people, especially the religious leaders.)

⁶I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. (Both the pelican and the owl were unclean fowls and, thereby, unacceptable. Christ was treated by the religious hierarchy like an unclean fowl.)

⁷I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top. (A sparrow was seldom alone, unless its mate was killed. There was no one who could enter into the sufferings of Christ, and for all the obvious reasons.)

⁸My enemies reproach Me all the day; and they who are mad against Me are sworn against Me. (The Scribes and Pharisees, as is evident from this Verse, bound themselves by an oath to destroy Him.)

⁹For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled My drink with weeping (the great sorrow of our Lord was twofold: 1. Israels rejection of Him and 2. What it would mean to them),

¹⁰Because of Your indignation and Your wrath: for You have lifted Me up, and cast Me down. (On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was lifted up, for the Voice said, This is My Beloved Son; and on the Mount of Condemnation [Calvary], He was cast down, for He cried, Why have You forsaken Me?)

¹¹My days are like a shadow that declines; and I am withered like grass. (He did not come to live, He came to die. But in His Death, He bought eternal life.)

¹²But You, O LORD, shall endure forever; and Your remembrance unto all generations. (Whereas Verses 1 through 11 speak of His First Advent, Verses 12 through 22 speak of His Second Advent. As the First was in suffering and sorrow, the Second shall be in glory and victory.)

¹³You shall arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yes, the set time, is come. (The set time for Israel began in 1948, when she was restored, at least partially, as a nation. It will come to fruition in the Battle of Armageddon, when it seems that Israel and Jerusalem will be completely destroyed. At that time, Israel will cry out to God for her Messiah. He will then arise and have mercy upon Zion [Rev., Chpt. 19].)

¹⁴For Your servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. (Modern Israel desires the world to look at Jerusalem as her capital, but with the United States, as well as most other nations, not doing so for fear of offending the Arabs. All need to read these Verses.)

¹⁵So the heathen shall fear the Name of the LORD, and all the kings of the Earth Your Glory. (This will take place in the coming Kingdom Age.)

¹⁶When the LORD shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His Glory. (Israel is Gods prophetic time clock. The Lord has already begun to build up Zion, so this tells us that we are living in the very last of the last days, regarding the Church Age.)

¹⁷He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. (The destitute here pertains to Israel in the Battle of Armageddon. God will hear their prayer and will answer it.)

¹⁸This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD. (This speaks of those who will be born in the coming Kingdom Age.)

¹⁹For He has looked down from the height of His Sanctuary; from Heaven did the LORD behold the Earth (the specific meaning of this Passage, through Verse 22, is that God will see Israels plight in the latter half of the Great Tribulation, and especially in the Battle of Armageddon, when He will come to their rescue);

²⁰To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death (this pertains to the efforts by the Antichrist to completely annihilate Israel);

²¹To declare the Name of the LORD in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem (when Israel rejected Christ in His First Advent, the Lord withdrew from visible protection of that nation. For nearly 2,000 years now, they have wandered throughout the nations of the world. In the latter half of the Great Tribulation, and especially during the Battle of Armageddon, the Lord will once again begin to visibly show Himself, and upon His Second Advent will actually set up His Earthly headquarters in Jerusalem);

²²When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD. (The sense of this Verse is the glory of the Millennial Morn. Satans day is over.)

²³He weakened My strength in the way; He shortened My days.

²⁴I said, O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days: Your years are throughout all generations. (First of all, these two Passages refer to the Messiah in His Earthly Ministry and the price He paid for the Deliverance of humanity. Second, it refers to Israel, when her days were shortened because of sin. She was meant to be a light throughout all generations, but she herself extinguished that light. However, that light will be restored, and Israel will faithfully serve the Lord throughout all generations.)

²⁵Of old have You laid the foundation of the Earth: and the heavens are the work of Your Hands. (Not mindless evolution!)

²⁶They shall perish, but You shall endure: yes, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shall You change them, and they shall be changed (this means that the heavens and the Earth will ultimately be changed. The idea here is that they are being affected by sin and the bondage of corruption. They will be renewed and liberated from this corrupt state to a new and eternal state and be kept eternally new when all sin is put down [I Cor. 15:2428], with everything then restored as before the curse. There will be no more curse or bondage of corruption after this [Rom. 8:2124; Heb. 1:1012; Rev. 21:1; 22:3]):

²⁷But You are the same, and Your years shall have no end. (The material creations that have been cursed and brought under the bondage of corruption to wax old will, of necessity, be renewed and changed to the state of eternal newness. God will never wax old nor need to be renewed. He is eternally the same.)

²⁸The children of Your servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before You. (This has a twofold meaning: 1. It refers to Israel, which will be restored and will worship God forever and 2. It means that eternal generations of natural people shall continue upon planet Earth forever, and will be established. In other words, the Plan of God for the human race was not cancelled by the Fall [Gen., Chpt. 3], but was only delayed.)