Ps. cii. 13 — 15. Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion : for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come : for thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.
AMIDST all the personal afflictions with which a Child of God can be encompassed, he will be filled with consolation, if he hear glad tidings concerning Zion. The interests of God and the welfare of man- kind are nearer to his heart than any of the concerns of time and sense. Hence Paul, when complaining that he " suffered trouble, as an evil-doer, even unto bonds," consoled himself with this, that " the word of
God was not bound3:" yea, his very bonds themselves were an occasion of joy to his soul, when he saw that they were overruled for the establishment of Be- lievers, and the augmentation of the Church of God\ Thus, in the psalm before us, the writer, whether speaking in his own person, or personating the Church of God, was in a most disconsolate con- dition0; but the thought of God's speedy
interposition for his Church and people comforted him. He saw Jerusalem lying in ruins ; but he felt assured that the time was near at hand, when it should be rebuilt, and God's glory be manifested in it as in the days of old. To the Gospel Church also he had a further reference in his own mind : for though the restoration of the Jews from Babylon attracted some attention from the neighbouring states, it was far from being attended with those effects which are here foretold as following from their yet future restoration to their own land, and their final union with the Church of Christ*. In considering this event, we shall notice,
I. The time fixed for it —
God most assuredly has mercy in store for Zion —
[The Jews shall not always continue in their present de- graded state : they shall be gathered from every quarter of the globe, and be brought back again to their own land. We must almost cease to assign any determinate meaning to words, if we explain in a figurative sense only the numberless declarations
of God on this subjecte As to their restoration to the
Divine favour, it is impossible for any one who believes the Scriptures to doubt of it. Though God is angry with them, he has not cast them off for ever. There is yet among them " a remnant according to the election of grace," who shall be again engrafted on their own olive-tree, and enjoy all the riches of the Gospel salvation f ]
For the conferring of "these favours," there is a time fixed in the Divine counsels —
a 2 Tim. ii. 9. b Phil. i. 12— IS. c ver. 3—11.
d That the writer looks forward to that period, will appear by com- paring ver. 25 — 27. with Heh. i. 10 — 12. e Ezek. xxviii. 25, 26. and xxxvii. 1 — 28. f Rom. xi. 5, 25, 26.