Text -- Psalms 102:1-6 (NET)

Psalm 102

102:1 The prayer of an oppressed man, as he grows faint and pours out his lament before the Lord. O Lord, hear my prayer! Pay attention to my cry for help! 102:2 Do not ignore me in my time of trouble! Listen to me! When I call out to you, quickly answer me! 102:3 For my days go up in smoke, and my bones are charred like a fireplace. 102:4 My heart is parched and withered like grass, for I am unable to eat food. 102:5 Because of the anxiety that makes me groan, my bones protrude from my skin. 102:6 I am like an owl in the wilderness; I am like a screech owl among the ruins.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 102:1

¹ sn Psalm 102. The psalmist laments his oppressed state, but longs for a day when the Lord will restore Jerusalem and vindicate his suffering people.

² tn Heb “and may my cry for help come to you.”

NET Notes: Psa 102:2

¹ tn Heb “do not hide your face from me in the day of my trouble.” The idiom “to hide the face” can mean “to ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or carry the stronger idea of “to reject” (see Pss 29:7; 30:7; 88:14).

² tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”

NET Notes: Psa 102:3

¹ tn Heb “for my days come to an end in smoke.”

² tn The Hebrew noun מוֹ־קֵד (mo-qed, “fireplace”) occurs only here, in Isa 33:14 (where it refers to the fire itself), and perhaps in Lev 6:2.

NET Notes: Psa 102:4

¹ tn Heb “struck, attacked.”

² tn Heb “I forget.”

³ sn I am unable to eat food. During his time of mourning, the psalmist refrained from eating. In the following verse he describes metaphorically the physical effects of fasting.

NET Notes: Psa 102:5

¹ tn Heb “from the sound of my groaning my bone[s] stick to my flesh.” The preposition at the beginning of the verse is causal; the phrase “sound of my groaning” is metonymic for the anxiety that causes the groaning. The point seems to be this: Anxiety (which causes the psalmist to groan) keeps him from eating (v. 4). This physical deprivation in turn makes him emaciated – he is turned to “skin and bones,” so to speak.

NET Notes: Psa 102:6

¹ tn The Hebrew term קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (see Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). Modern translations have frequently rendered this as some type of owl (NIV, REB “desert owl”; NRSV “owl”).

² tn The Hebrew term כוֹס (khos) refers to a bird (see Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16), probably a type of owl (cf. NIV, REB “owl”; NRSV “little owl”).

³ sn By comparing himself to a screech owl among the ruins, the psalmist may be highlighting his loneliness (see v. 7), though he may also be comparing his cries for help to the owl’s screech.