Psalm 102: When Suffering Wears You Down

Core Theme: For when long affliction has drained your strength, your sleep, and your hope, and your days seem to be slipping away like a shadow

(Related Theme: This psalm also speaks to Physical Illness & Suffering — see verses 3–7 below.)

Background

Psalm 102 carries one of the most unusual headings in the Psalter. It names no author and no occasion. Instead, it describes the kind of person who will need it: “A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD.” Whoever wrote it, God gave it to the Church as a prayer for anyone who finds themselves overwhelmed.

The psalm’s references to Zion’s stones lying in the dust and to the Lord rebuilding her (verses 13–16) suggest the writer may have lived during or near the Babylonian exile, when Jerusalem lay in ruins. His personal suffering and the suffering of his people are woven together. Psalm 102 is also one of the seven psalms Christians have long grouped together as the penitential psalms, or psalms of repentance.

Most striking of all, the New Testament takes the closing verses of this psalm, verses 25–27, and applies them directly to the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:10–12). A prayer that begins in deep affliction ends by pointing to the unchanging Son of God.

Psalm 102 (KJV)

1 A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.

2 Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.

3 For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

4 My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

5 By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.

6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

7 I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

8 Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.

9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,

10 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.

11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.

12 But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.

13 Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come.

14 For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.

15 So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.

16 When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.

17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.

18 This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.

19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth;

20 To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;

21 To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

22 When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.

23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

24 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.

25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

28 The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.

The heart of it

Psalm 102 is the prayer of someone whose suffering has gone on long enough to change everything. His body aches, his appetite is gone, his sleep is broken, and he feels his life fading “like a shadow that declineth.” He is alone, mocked by enemies, and he cannot shake the sense that God has lifted him up only to cast him down.

The turning point comes in verse 12 with two small words: “But thou.” The psalmist stops measuring his life by his own failing strength and starts measuring it by God’s eternal faithfulness. His days are short; God’s years have no end. His body is withering; God endures forever. That contrast runs through the rest of the psalm, and it becomes the source of his hope.

This psalm does not promise that suffering will end quickly, and it does not pretend the body is not failing. What it offers is something steadier: a God who does not change, who looks down from heaven to hear the groaning of those who suffer, and who “will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

Walking through it

Verses 3–7: “For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.”

These verses read like the journal of someone in long illness. His days drift away like smoke. His bones feel burned like a hearth [fireplace], hot and dried out. His heart is withered like grass, and he is so worn down that he forgets to eat. His groaning has left him so thin that his bones cleave [cling] to his skin. For anyone walking through physical illness and suffering, this is the language of the body when it has been hurting for too long, and it is in the Word of God. Then he describes his isolation: like a pelican in the wilderness, an owl in the desert, a sparrow alone on a rooftop, watching through the night. Yet the Lord Jesus said of that very bird, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father” (Matthew 10:29). The lonely sparrow on the housetop is never out of the Father’s sight.

Verses 11–12: “My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.”

A shadow that declineth [stretches long as evening comes] is a picture of a day running out. The psalmist feels his life is nearing its evening. Then comes the great turn: “But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever.” He has not been healed. Nothing outward has changed. But he has lifted his eyes from his fading strength to the God who never fades. Paul described the same exchange: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The body may weaken, but the soul anchored in God can be strengthened even then.

Verses 17–20: “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

The destitute [those stripped of everything] are exactly who God pays attention to. The psalmist pictures the Lord looking down “from the height of his sanctuary… To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death.” When suffering has reduced your prayers to groans, you have not lost God’s attention. Those groans are precisely what He bends down to hear. And verse 18 adds a lovely note: “This shall be written for the generation to come.” What God does for the afflicted becomes a testimony for those who come after.

Verses 25–27: “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.”

The psalm closes by looking at the whole created universe and declaring that even the heavens will one day wear out like an old garment. God will change them like a vesture [a piece of clothing], “But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.” The writer of Hebrews applies these exact words to the Lord Jesus: “…but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:12). The One who holds you through suffering is the eternal Son of God, and He does not change. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). When your body is changing and your days feel uncertain, He is the fixed point that does not move.

Carrying this forward

If the Lord has already brought you through a long season of illness or affliction, remember the nights you watched like a sparrow alone, and the days you could barely eat. Remember that He heard your groaning. It is easy, once strength returns, to slowly drift and forget how near He was when you had nothing left. Keep your focus on Him. Your story may be one that God wants you to use to comfort others who are walking through their own suffering, for He “…comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

If you are in the middle of it now, and your body is worn out and your days feel like smoke, bring God your complaint just as this psalm does. You do not have to dress it up. He has not promised that every illness will be healed in this life, but He has promised His presence and His grace: “…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Your strength may be failing, but He is the same, and His years shall have no end. You are held in His hands, and He will not despise your prayer.