Scripture Daily

Context No. 784 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 102:17-28: in context

17He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. 18This will be written for the generation to come. A people which will be created will praise the LORD, 19for he has looked down from the height of his sanctuary. From heaven, the LORD saw the earth, 20to hear the groans of the prisoner, to free those who are condemned to death, 21that men may declare the LORD’s name in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem, 22when the peoples are gathered together, the kingdoms, to serve the LORD. 23He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days. 24I said, “My God, don’t take me away in the middle of my days. Your years are throughout all generations. 25Of old, you laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. 26They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, all of them will wear out like a garment. You will change them like a cloak, and they will be changed. 27But you are the same. Your years will have no end. 28The children of your servants will continue. Their offspring will be established before you.”

Psalm 102 is the prayer of a man at the end of his rope, his days fading like a shadow, and in the middle of it he says something about how God listens. He has regarded the prayer of the destitute, the psalmist declares, and has not despised their prayer. God looked down from his holy height, from heaven he saw the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner and to set free those condemned to die. The lowest, most helpless voice there is, the prayer of someone with nothing and no leverage, is not beneath God's notice; he bends down to the prisoner's groan. And this, the psalm adds, will be written down for a generation not yet born, a people not yet created, who will read it and praise.

Then the psalmist turns to his own dwindling life. God has broken his strength and cut his days short, and he pleads, do not take me away in the middle of my days. But he does not leave the fear hanging on his own fragility. Against his shortened days he sets God's endless ones: you laid the foundation of the earth long ago, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will wear out like a garment, and you will fold them up like a cloak, but you are the same, and your years have no end. A dying man steadies himself not on his own thread of time but on the One who does not change, and trusts that the children of God's servants will go on, secure, after he is gone.

The psalmist believed his helpless prayer was heard, and anchored his short life in the God who never changes. Do I think my lowest, most powerless prayer is beneath God's notice, and where am I bracing my fleeting life on something as fleeting as itself?

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