In a previous post, I presented a basic overview of a canonical approach that added interpretive weight to the placement of Psalm 90 in the canonical Psalter. That canonical approach draws on some relatively recent scholarship, but it also has ancient roots in Christian interpretive traditions, as in Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise On the Inscriptions of the Psalms.

In this post, I am continuing in the same vein as I prepare a sermon on Psalm 102.

Psalm 102 within the Fourth Book of the Canonical Psalter

Psalm 102 occurs in the Fourth Book of the Psalter, the Book headed by a prayer of Moses in Ps 90. (For my own sake and for yours, I take the liberty of adapting two paragraphs from a previous post on Ps 90’s canonical placement just below.)

It is often remarked that the Fourth Book is “Mosaic” since Moses is mentioned seven times (Pss 90.0 [1 MT]; 99.6; 103.7; 105.26; 106.16, 23, 32)—and only once elsewhere in the whole Psalter (77.20 [21 MT]). In this case, the word-frequency is suggestive. Still, we would miss the point if we do not also spell out why it is important that psalms reflecting on and reacting to Ps 89 are called “Mosaic.” Moses points beyond himself. As the psalmists look back to Moses, to the first constitution of Israel as God’s holy people, they are also looking upward to God’s kingdom (e.g., Ps 103.19) and forward to a new exodus (n.b., 105.43–44) and to the reconstitution of Israel (e.g., 106.47) after it had nearly died out again in the wilderness-wandering of exile. So I think Futato is right when he says that “the Mosaic flavor” of the Fourth Book signals a call “to live eschatologically” (Interpreting Psalms, p. 86). The people are looking toward the fulfillment of their own national history in God’s regeneration of the world and consummation of his heavenly kingdom on earth.

As Ps 89 reflects on the utter fialure of the sons of David and the threat of Israel’s dissolution, the Fourth Book, with a prayer of Moses at its head, “teaches that we are to live by faith in the reign of God even when the evidence is to the contrary” (Futato, “Psalms,” p. 352). The psalms in the Fourth Book all look forward to the day when God will come to dwell with Israel in a new way so that they will have renewed and heightened access to him as their dwelling place (cf. Ps 90.1 ; 102.24–28 [25–29 MT]), when the evening of death will be overcome by a new and evening-less morning of resurrection (cf. 90.14–15; Ps 102.11–22 [12–23 MT]), when the work of God’s servants will be given lasting significance (cf. 90.17; 102.21–22 [22–23 MT]).

More on Psalms 89, 90, and 102

Psalm 89 poses three questions that begin to be answered in Moses’s intercessory prayer in Ps 90. Yet the remainder of the Fourth Book continues to meditate on these questions, and Ps 102 is no different. Indeed, Ps 102 has a strong likeness to Ps 90: these are the only two “prayers for help” in a book dominated by psalms of praise (deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, and Tanner, Book of Psalms, p. 685). In several ways, the lamentation-questions of Ethan the Ezrahite in Ps 89 find their most acute answers in these two prayer-psalms, the one by “Moses the man of God” and the other by “an afflicted one when he is feeble and pours out his worry before YHWH.”

I repeat the questions of Ps 89 here:

1. Psalm 89.46 (47 MT): How long will God hide (< סתר) and wrathfully allow his people to suffer the covenant-curses?
2. Psalm 89.48 (49 MT): Is there anyone who can live forever or rise from the domain of the dead?
3. Psalm 89.49 (50 MT): If God made promises to David according to his covenant-love, which is inseparable from his constancy (v. 1 [2 MT]) and lasts forever (v. 2 [3 MT]) and will not be removed (v. 33 [34 MT])—then where is this covenant-love now?

Here I have paraphrased the questions in a set of three, as they occur in three verses. VanGemeren (Psalms, pp. 687–88) breaks them down into five, and he insightfully shows how the five questions are answered in Book 4 of the Psalms—that is, in Pss 90–106.

1. Psalm 89.46 (47 MT): How long will God hide (< סתר) and wrathfully allow his people to suffer the covenant-curses?

The afflicted one also begs, “Do not hide [תסתר] your face from me in the day when I am hard pressed” (Ps 102.2 [3 MT]). And in response to such a thought—mirroring how Moses beseeched God to “show compassion” to his servants (90.13)—the afflicted one then boldly asserts that God “will arise and show compassion to Zion” (102.13 [14 MT]). God will not hide forever; he will “appear in his glory” to “(re)build Zion” (v. 16 [17 MT]). There is unqualified assurance that God sees the plight of the exiles and will gather them back to Zion for worship along with other peoples and kingdoms (vv. 13–22 [14–23 MT]). And as Moses reminds us that God is always “a hideout” for his people “from generation to generation” (90.1), so the afflicted one is sure that the next generation of God’s servants “will dwell” and “be established” in God’s presence (102.28 [29 MT]).

2. Psalm 89.48 (49 MT): Is there anyone who can live forever or rise from the domain of the dead?

The afflicted one is all too aware that his days pass away like smoke (Ps 102.3 [4 MT]; cf. 89.47–48 [48–49 MT]; ) and that he withers like grass (102.11 [12 MT]; cf. 90.5–6). He even knows that his present suffering comes from God’s decree: “[God] has afflicted my strength along the way; he has shortened my days” (102.23 [24 MT]; cf. 90.7–10). But despite this knowledge, the afflicted one is sure that the everlasting God can cause the next generation to dwell secure and be established (v. 28 [29 MT]). The assurance of the resurrection is obscure here, as in most places in the Psalms, but it is not absent: if God who made the heavens and the earth can outlast the heavens and the earth (102.24–27; cf. 90.2), then surely he also has the authority to “liberate the sons of death”—that is, deliver those who are under the power of death (102.20 [21 MT]; cf. Heb 2.14–15). Moses had asked God to repay the people with rejoicing according to the number of days that he afflicted (< ענה) them (Ps 90.15); and the afflicted one (< ענה) knows that “the appointed time has come” for God “to show his favor to [Zion]” (102.13 [14 MT]). Yet there is no limitation by reckoning of days here. There is no qualification on God’s liberation of the dead people. The psalmist, this afflicted one, is ripe to hear the good news of God’s glory in the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Psalm 89.49 (50 MT): If God made promises to David according to his covenant-love, which is inseparable from his constancy (v. 1 [2 MT]) and lasts forever (v. 2 [3 MT]) and will not be removed (v. 33 [34 MT])—then where is this covenant-love now?

The afflicted one knows exactly what has become of God’s covenant-love. Much like Ethan the Ezrahite in Ps 89 and Moses in Ps 90, the afflicted one in Ps 102 presupposes God’s covenant-love throughout his entire prayer. Only such a presupposition can explain why the afflicted one, “when he is feeble, pours out his worry before YHWH” (v. 0 [1 MT]). It may be that God has shaken him up (v. 10 [11 MT]; cf. 90.7–11), but God still “turns toward the prayer of the stripped and does not despise their prayer” (102.17 [18 MT]). Though the people wander in exile, God “peered from his holy height” and “gazed upon the earth from the heavens in order to hear the sighing of the prisoner, in order to liberate the sons of death” (102.19–20 [29–21 MT]), not unlike his former kindness to Moses’s generation (cf. Exod 2.23–25). Surely, just as God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, he will gather his people again from the hell of exile (Ps 102.13–22 [14–23 MT]).

Other Insights from Gregory of Nyssa

As noted in the previous post on Ps 90, Gregory of Nyssa‘s treatise On the Inscriptions of the Psalms considers how the Five Books of the Psalter bring readers through a stepwise ascent of the soul through virtue into eschatological blessedness, culminating in the reuniting of human and angelic natures (9.81–83 [PG, Vol. 44, Col. 484b–c]). The Fourth Book of the Psalter marks a transition in the soul’s ascent. Here one is no longer able to ascend by human strength but must “be conjoined to God” (συνημμένος Θεῷ; 1.7 [PG, Vol. 44, Col 456b]). Moses, who himself ascended the mountain and bore the immutable beauty in his mutable nature, is the guide for this Book of the Psalter. (Gregory recommends a veritable imitatio Mosis and describes Moses’s intercession in terms that, to my mind, resemble Christ’s.) In short, Gregory seems to land in a place similar to what I wrote above: one key to understanding Ps 102, and the rest of the psalms in the Fourth Book, is to pay careful attention to Ps 90 (in Gregory’s Greek Bible, the number is 89).

For the Greek and Latin of Gregory of Nyssa's Tractatus in Psalmorum Inscriptiones, see Patrologia Graeca, vol. 44, col. 434–608. For an English translation, see Heine, Gregory of Nyssa’s Treatise on the Inscriptions of the Psalms: Introduction, Translation, and Notes.

When Gregory comes to consider the inscription of Ps 102 (101 LXX), he thinks of it in terms of this Moses-like ascent (On the Inscriptions of the Psalms 2.3 [PG 44:498–500). We must ascend to God in order to understand our poverty. Knowledge that one lacks good things is propaedeutic to desiring and praying for those good things (cf. Jas 1.5). So prayer is enhanced and even elevated by realization of one’s poverty before God; the infinite height of beatitude with God makes prayer all the more urgent for the one who is in the depths. So this “poor” psalmist learns to have a prayer “that makes use of tears in the eyes instead of (mere) words [διὰ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἀντὶ ῥημάτων χρωμἐνη τοῖς δάκρυσιν]” (2.3 [PG 44:498d]; n.b., Luke 7.38, 44; Heb 5.7; Rev 7.17; 21.4).

As a aside, the concept POVERTY is highlighted here because the superscription of Ps 102 in Greek is προσευχὴ τῷ πτωχῷ, “the prayer belonging to the poor man.” The Greek word for “poor,” πτωχός, often translates the Hebrew word that I have rendered as “afflicted” above, עני. Hence Jesus’s pronouncement of beatitude for “the poor [οἱ πτωχοὶ] in spirit” [Matt 5.3] or just “the poor [οἱ πτωχοί]” (Luke 6.20) likely has Ps 102 or related passages and themes in the background.

In other words, the “poor” psalmist knows that only “the Spirit is a help for our weakness, for” in our poverty we realize that “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with wordless groanings [στεναγμοῖς ἀλαλήτοις]” (Rom 8.26). The lows and the highs of Moses’s ministry and intercession—which are but pale reflections of the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ who now ministers and intercedes at the heavenly throne (Heb 3.1–6; 8.1–10.18)—enable me to better understand the mind of the psalmist of Ps 102. He is at the bottom and knows it; he is poor in spirit and looking for the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt 5.3); he is humiliated and looking to the Exalted God; he is sure that—though not quite sure how—God can bring about a great reversal like the exodus, for “God turns toward the prayer of the stripped/lowly [הערער/τῶν ταπεινῶν] and does not despise their prayer” (Ps 102.17 [102.18 MT; 101.18 LXX]).

To Close

From the perspective of more recent canonical approaches, I find a wealth of connection to covenantal history that points forward to the coming of Christ, the one who is himself the answer to all the problems arising from the fallen Davidic line and exile (e.g., Matt 1.1–17). From the perspective of the more ancient canonical approach of Gregory of Nyssa, I find these words to be the words of Christ himself, who is not only the Exalted God but also the one who gave up his status by taking on the form of such a servant (Phil 2.7) as an “afflicted one” who, when he was weak, poured out his worry to his heavenly Father (e.g., Matt 26.36; 27.46; Heb 4.7).

This canonical approach is only one perspective in which I can examine this psalm as I meditate on it and seek to find what the Spirit of Christ says to the churches (cf. Rev 2.7, 11, 17, 29; 3.6, 13, 22). I hope the reflections above show how fruitful such an approach can be.

Bibliography

• deClaissé-Walford, Nancy, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner. The Book of Psalms. NICOT. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014. WTSBooks.
• Futato, Mark D. Interpreting Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook. HOTE. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2007. WTS Books.
• Futato, Mark D. “Psalms.” Pages 341–55 in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament: The Gospel Promised. Edited by Miles V. Van Pelt. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016. WTS Books.
• Heine, Ronald E. Gregory of Nyssa’s Treatise on the Inscriptions of the Psalms: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. OECS. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. OUP.
• Patrologia Graeca. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 vols. Paris: Migne, 1857–1886. Patristica.net.
• VanGemeren, Willem A. Psalms. REBC 5. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008. WTS Books.
• Waltke, Bruce K. with Charles Yu. An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2007. WTSBooks.