By G. Campbell Morgan
Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: For it is time to have pity upon her: yea, the set time is come. For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And have pity upon her dust. Psalm 102:13, 14
This psalm is peculiar, in that in the inscription to be found at its head we have a declaration of its character, and a revelation of the circumstances under which it may be used. That inscription reads thus:
A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.
It is a prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed. It is a prayer that is to be used when the afflicted and overwhelmed soul is in the presence of Jehovah. It is a psalm, therefore, which sets affliction in the light of the government of God.
It is impossible and unnecessary to find the date of the writing of this psalm. Hengstenberg earnestly maintained that it was Davidic, whereas Perowne shares the general opinion that it was written in exile, and that the set time referred to the end of Jeremiah's seventy years, when the exiled people were hoping for the dawn of a better day.
These are opinions only. The far more interesting fact is that the author of the letter to the Hebrews ignores altogether the question of human dating and human authorship, and ascribes some of the words of the psalm to Jehovah Himself. In the opening chapter of that letter he declares that God says of His Son,
Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Thy hands:
They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure,
all of which is direct quotation from the latter part of this psalm.
Consequently, the New Testament would lead us to understand that the fulfilment of the psalm--that is, the filling to the full of its spiritual significance--is only discovered as it is interpreted by the experiences of our blessed Lord Himself. According to the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, the psalm is pre-eminently and finally Messianic.
If that be accepted, let us at least pause long enough to notice the fact that it falls into three parts. In the first eleven verses we have nothing but the expression of overwhelming and desolating sorrow. At verse twenty-three the strain, broken in upon at verse eleven, is taken up again: "He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days. I said: O, my God, take me not away in the midst of my days." Again it is the plaintive note of an overwhelming grief. In the middle of that verse the tone changes, and we read, "Thy years are throughout all generations"; and we should certainly have read that as though it were still the appeal of the suffering one to God, were it not that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that these are words in which God answers the cry of His suffering servant. When out of the midst of sorrow he cries, the answer of the Father is this: "Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth." Therein, we have revealed the secret of the Messiah's strength and victory.
But in the paragraph which I have omitted, verses twelve to twenty-two, we have the great song of Zion--Zion personified, Zion afflicted, Zion expecting deliverance. And the text that I have chosen this morning lies at the center of that central section of this wonderful psalm. Its immediate application is to Zion:
Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion:
For it is time to have pity upon her: yea, the set time is come.
Because thy servants take pleasure in her stones,
And have pity upon her dust.
