Psalm 102

Notes

Ver. 6, 7. What three birds are specifically intended it is impossible with certainty to say; two of them are, however, inhabitants of the deserts, far from the haunts of men; and one, though the inhabitant of cities, a solitary watcher on house-tops. The different habits of these birds formed admirable emblems of that solitary state into which our Lord was often forced in order to elude the watchful and incessant malice of his enemies. C.

Ver. 12. This address exactly corresponds with its continuation in ver. 25; and as there is apostolic authority for considering ver. 25 to be words of the Father to the Son, there can be no doubt that ver. 12 is the address of the Father likewise. C.

Ver. 13. Would not history rather prove that the time to punish Zion had come at the period of our Lord's prayer of distress? Not so. 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.' And though her salvation seem to linger in the eye of sense, it was then secured to the heart of faith; and all that now grows in the field of promise, shall be reaped in the harvest of vision. C.

Ver. 23. In this, and the first clause of ver. 24, the Son, in the days of his flesh, resumes his address to the Father. The reply of the Father, as quoted by the apostle, He. 1. 10, is one amongst the many and overwhelming evidences of the Godhead of the Son. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Ge. 1. 1. But the Father being witness, the Son created the heavens and the earth; therefore—hear it, ye gainsayers, and be silent for ever—therefore the Son is God. C.

Reflections.—To what low condition God reduces his church and people for the exercise and trial of their grace, and for exciting their more importunate prayers. In darkness, vexation, and trouble, their days often post toward an end. Afflicted, dispirited, and pained in their heart, and their body wasted to skin and bones, like owls and pelicans, they shun converse and comfort, and pine away in melancholy solitude. Often, like lonely sparrows, they are debarred from rest and sleep, and are deserted by friends, or avoid their company: are exposed to the reproach and fury of inveterate enemies—oppressed with grief—overwhelmed with a sense of God's indignation, in his sudden and awful changing of their comforts into depths of misery, till near the grave, and apparently near the pit! But great is the mercy that they have, notwithstanding, a God, a hearer of prayer, to whom they may complain; and a heart to pour out before him. Be the afflictions of the righteous as numerous as they will, the eternal Saviour has, and does, and will deliver them out of them all. He has fixed the periods of his church's deliverance, and issued forth promises ascertaining the same. While with deep concern his servants are affected with her ruinous case, and pour forth their importunate prayers, he will flee to her relief, to the conversion of multitudes and the terror of obstinate opposers. What he did in former times, in delivering from Babylon, in erecting the New Testament church, and in destroying her Jewish and heathen persecutors, encourages us to hope for more glorious deliverances from Antichrist, and at last from the world that lieth in wickedness. And whatever distresses befall the faithful in their way to the heavenly mansions, Jesus' eternity secures the power and stability of his church, and of all who believe in Christ.