Psalm 102:14

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Stones . . . dust.—This touching description of the devotion of the Jews to their ruined city is best illustrated by the actual history in Nehemiah 3, 4, and by the scenes so often described by travellers at the “wailing place” in modern Jerusalem.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

102:12-22 We are dying creatures, but God is an everlasting God, the protector of his church; we may be confident that it will not be neglected. When we consider our own vileness, our darkness and deadness, and the manifold defects in our prayers, we have cause to fear that they will not be received in heaven; but we are here assured of the contrary, for we have an Advocate with the Father, and are under grace, not under the law. Redemption is the subject of praise in the Christian church; and that great work is described by the temporal deliverance and restoration of Israel. Look down upon us, Lord Jesus; and bring us into the glorious liberty of thy children, that we may bless and praise thy name.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For thy servants take pleasure in her stones - Those who profess to be thy servants; thy friends. This was the "evidence" to the mind of the psalmist that God was about to visit his people, and to rebuild Jerusalem. It was an "awakened interest" among the professed people of God, leading them to manifest their love for Zion, and for all that pertained to her - a love for the very stones that lay in undistinguished heaps where the city once stood - the piles of rubbish where the walls and dwellings had once been. The people of God in their captivity began to look with strong interest on these very ruins, and with an earnest wish that from these ruins the city may again arise, and the walls be rebuilt.

And favor the dust thereof - literally, pity - or, show compassion for. They no longer look with indifference on these ruins of Zion. They look with a tender heart on the very dust of those ruins. They feel that a wrong has been done to Zion; they ardently desire its restoration to its former splendor and glory. They long for a return to it as to their home. They are weary with their captivity, and they are anxiously waiting for the time when they may revisit their native land. This would seem to refer to an awakened interest on the subject, caused perhaps in part by the fact that it could be ascertained (see Daniel 9:2) that the period of the captivity was about to end, and partly by an influence on their hearts from on high, awakening in them a deeper love for Zion - a revival of pure religion. The practical truth taught here is, that an indication of a coming revival of religion is often manifested by the increased attention to the subject among its professed friends; by the desire in their hearts that it may be so; by tenderness, pity, compassion among them in view of abounding desolations, the coldness of the church, and the prevalence of iniquity; by their looking with interest on that which had before been neglected, like shapeless ruins - the prayer-meeting, the communion, the sanctuary; by a conscious returning love in their hearts for all that pertains to religion, however unimportant it may be in the eyes of the world, or however it may be despised. A surrounding world would look with unconcern on the ruins of Jerusalem; a friend of God, in whose heart religion was revived, would look with the most tender concern even on that rubbish, and those ruins. So it is in a revival of religion, when God is about to visit his church in mercy. Everything in regard to the church becomes an object of deep interest.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. Hence it is here adduced.

for—or, "when."

the set time, &c.—the time promised, the indication of which is the interest felt for Zion by the people of God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thy people value the dust and rubbish of the holy city more than all the palaces of the earth, and passionately desire that it may be rebuilt.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For thy servants take pleasure in her stones,.... Meaning not Cyrus and Darius, who gave leave and orders for the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusalem, as some; nor Nehemiah, and Ezra, and others, who took more pleasure in the stones and rubbish of the temple, as it lay in ruins, than in all the stately palaces in Babylon; and who were very desirous of, and took delight in gathering these stones, and putting them together again, as others; but, the ministers of the Gospel, and other Christians, in the latter day, who will take pleasure in the great number of converts that there will then be, who, as lively stones, will be built up a spiritual house; and especially when those stones shall be laid with fair colours, and the headstone shall be brought in with acclamations, crying, Grace, grace unto it; see 1 Peter 2:5.

and favour the dust thereof; which sometimes designs multitudes, Numbers 23:10, perhaps here it may denote the meanest of the Lord's people, who will be regarded, and not despised by his servants; but they will show favour to them, do them all the good they can, and wish well to them, and pray for their prosperity, and for the peace of Zion; that God would make it the joy of the whole earth; and when there shall be such a delight in the stones and dust of Zion, and a spirit of grace and supplication poured forth upon the servants of the Lord, to pray for the promised glory and happiness of it, it will be a token for good, and an intimation that the set time to favour her is at hand; which seems to be the sense of the psalmist: such great reverence and respect have the greatest of the wise men among the Jews for the land of Israel, literally understood, that they kiss the borders, the stones of it, and roll themselves in its dust (a), having perhaps in mind this passage of Scripture.

(a) Maimon. Hilchot Melachim, c. 5. s. 10.

Geneva Study Bible

For thy servants take pleasure in her {l} stones, and favour the dust thereof.

(l) The more the Church is in misery and desolation, the more the faithful should love and pity it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. For thy servants have affection for her stones,

And for her dust are they moved with pity.

Another argument to move Jehovah’s compassion. His servants look with yearning love towards Zion in its ruin. Even the broken stones and scattered heaps of rubbish which are all that remain of it are very dear to them. The language resembles that of Sanballat’s contemptuous taunt: “Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish?” Heb. dust, Nehemiah 4:2; cp. Psalm 102:10, “there is much rubbish,” Heb. dust.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - For thy servants take pleasure in her stones (comp. Isaiah 64:10, 11; Lamentations 4:1; Nehemiah 2:13; Nehemiah 4:2). To this day the same affection is shown by Israelite pilgrims at the "Jews' Wailing Place." And favour (rather, pity) the dust thereof. The rubbish in which the stones lay (Nehemiah 4:2) seems to be intended. Psalm 102:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the church in its individual members dies off on a foreign soil, still its God, the unchangeable One, remains, and therein the promise has the guarantee of its fulfilment. Faith lays hold upon this guarantee as in Psalm 90. It becomes clear from Psalm 9:8 and Lamentations 5:19 how תּשׁב is to be understood. The Name which Jahve makes Himself by self-attestation never falls a prey to the dead past, it is His ever-living memorial (זכר, Exodus 3:15). Thus, too, will He restore Jerusalem; the limit, or appointed time, to which the promise points is, as his longing tells the poet, now come. מועד, according to Psalm 75:3; Habakkuk 2:3, is the juncture, when the redemption by means of the judgment on the enemies of Israel shall dawn. לחננהּ, from the infinitive חנן, has ĕ, flattened from ă, in an entirely closed syllable. רצה seq. acc. signifies to have pleasure in anything, to cling to it with delight; and חנן, according to Proverbs 14:21, affirms a compassionate, tender love of the object. The servants of God do not feel at home in Babylon, but their loving yearning lingers over the ruins, the stones and the heaps of the rubbish (Nehemiah 4:2), of Jerusalem.