My heart has been struck like grass and has withered, Indeed, I forget to eat my bread. Psalm 102:4 NASB Has been struck – We might use the idiom “Go pound sand!” but I’ve never heard anyone say, “Go beat grass!” That makes me wonder what the psalmist had in mind when he chose this verb, nākâ. Certainly…
For my days have ended in smoke, and my bones have been scorched like a hearth. Psalm 102:3 NASB Have ended – Legacy. Does that term bother you? Do you think about what you will leave behind? Ecclesiastes suggests that your legacy better not be money, fame, or power. Those ephemeral status symbols won’t mean much after…
Do not hide Your face from me on the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me; On the day when I call answer me quickly. Psalm 102:2 NASB I call – Do you remember the introduction of this psalm? “The afflicted man when he pours out. . .” šāpak. Then there’s the first verse…
Do not hide Your face from me on the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me; On the day when I call answer me quickly. Psalm 102:2 NASB My distress – Why do earthquakes occur? The simple answer is that geological plates move under stress. The shift in the land is what we call…
Do not hide Your face from me on the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me; On the day when I call answer me quickly. Psalm 102:2 NASB Do not hide – In his book The Prophets, Abraham Heschel wrote: “To be able to pray, one must alter the course of consciousness, one must…
Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB Come to You – “‘There are three ways in which a man expresses deep sorrow: the man on the lowest level cries; the man on the second level is silent; the man on the highest level knows how to turn his…
Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB Cry for help – Isn’t punctuation wonderful? With these little extra characters in language, we can convey the emotional context of a sentence. Just imagine what writing would be like without ! or “ ”, or ? Why, you’d have to…
Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB Hear – Moses and David. The great Shema and the lesser Shema. “Hear, O Israel” and “YHVH, hear my prayer.” Both from the same root and the same consciousness. Both dependent on relationship. And both with multiple Semitic meanings. “šāmaʿ has…
Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB Hear – If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear, does it make a sound? An interesting existential question. What is the relationship between a physical event and the perception of the event? If God…
A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Complaint – You’re praying. You feel oppressed and downtrodden. You acknowledge your total dependency on God. You’re weak; He’s strong. You kneel before Him—His servant, His child. And you complain? Before we tackle the noun “complaint” we…
