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Psalm 102:
A | Complaint poured out before the Lord.
B | Days consumed like smoke.
Days like a shadow that declineth.
C | Contrast: BUT THOU shalt endure (Heb. sit).
Thy remembrance unto all generations.
D | When the Lord shall build up Zion.
D | He shall appear in His glory.
B | Days shortened.
Days Take me not away in the midst of.
C | Contrast: Thy years are throughout all generations.
BUT THOU shalt endure (Heb. stand).
Thou art the same.
Thy years shall have no end.
A | Seed established before Thee.
Another Psalm belonging to the same group, namely Psa. 104:, is quoted in Heb. 1: 7
"Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire" (Psa. 104: 4). It
immediately continues:
"Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever (to the
age and yet further, Hebrew to the age of the age, Gk.). Thou coveredst it with the deep
as with a garment . . . . . at Thy rebuke they fled . . . . . Thou hast set a bound that they
may not pass over" (Psa. 104: 5-9).
Earlier we read, "Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: Who stretchest
out the heavens like a curtain" (Psa. 104: 2). These, the heavens and the earth, are to wax
old as a garment, be folded up, and put away.
We remember the majestic interposition of the Lord in the book of Job, when He
broke through all the arguments of the three comforters, and even of Elihu, and answered
Job out of the whirlwind.
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth?
When I made the cloud the garment thereof . . . . .
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed"
(Job 38: 4-11).
He Who challenged Job, and Who is seen as the Creator in Psa. 104: and Psa. 102:, is
He Who, when the fullness of time had come, humbled Himself and took upon Him the
form of a servant. He Who created man is the One Who redeemed him. "They shall
perish; but Thou remainest". We know from II Pet. 3: 10, from Rev. 20: 11 and from
Isa. 34: 4 that "The host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled
together as a scroll", but the purpose for the introduction of this catastrophic event in
Hebrews was not for its own sake, but to further the real object of the epistle. Paul knew,
for he had been a Pharisee and a zealous upholder of the traditions of the fathers, that