1st Chronicles 10 is on the death of King Saul and since we covered his death in an earlier post, I’m going to just focus on Psalm 102.

This psalm has a rather said heading:

“The prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord.”

We don’t know who wrote this psalm or when. Perhaps it was a prophet who was going through hard times.

The version of the heading in the Septuagint reads: “A prayer by a poor man, when he was depressed and poured out his supplication before the Lord.”

And as one who has been through depression (and risen above it by the grace of God) I can tell you that there isn’t any better thing you can do than to pour out your prayer to the LORD.

Even though the psalm sounds a bit like that song “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me” from the old tv show Hee Haw, it has some future prophecy hints tucked inside. Let’s look at them.

After 11 verses of “gloom, despair, and agony on me,” there is a sudden shift in focus to Yahweh in verses 12-21.

As we read this, it’s important to remember that Zion is Jerusalem; but also more than Jerusalem. Zion also refers to the people of the Heavenly City.

In verse 16 the LORD “builds” or “builds up” Zion. And connected to this building of Zion we have this rather shocking prophecy:

“When the LORD shall build up Zion, He shall appear in his glory.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭102‬:‭16‬ ‭KJV‬‬

I read this verse in enough translations to realize that there is no consensus on the tense of the verbs. Some have the building in the past, “The Lord has built up Zion.” “He has appeared in glory.” Some have it happening in the present of the psalmist, “The Lord builds up Zion.” “He appears in His glory.” And some have it future tense, “The Lord will build up Zion.” “He shall appear in His glory.”

To tease this out a bit more it may help to consider what it would look like for the Lord to “appear in His glory.” And it might mean more than one thing.

Consider these texts that refer to Jesus in His FIRST coming:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…” Hebrews‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

And this text from the last OT prophet Malachi about the forerunner John the Baptist and Jesus:

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The Lord has come and built up Zion He has appeared in His glory.

But if you go to the next verse in Malachi it’s suddenly about fire and judgement. It sounds more like Revelation than the Gospels. What’s up with that?

We will find in the OT many times that in one breath the prophet will foretell something about Christ’s first advent. And then in the very next breath the word is about His second-coming. We have the benefit of living between the two so we have a different perspective.

OT prophecies are like looking at a mountain range in the distance.

From this perspective, the mountains look like they are lined up forming a wall. But anyone who has ever driven through the mountains knows they aren’t. There are miles between peaks.

There are miles of time between the peaks of Jesus’ first coming and His second. But from the distant perspective of the OT prophet, they looked like one continuous event.

So the Lord has already built up Zion and appeared in His glory. But also… not yet.

The Lord today is in the process of building up Zion as people are added to the Church. Every time the saints meet together and edify one another in the Lord we (Zion) are being “built up” and though it doesn’t look like fire from heaven or blinding light or whatever, it is still the glory of God being revealed. So it IS both past tense and present tense. But it is ALSO future…

We know from other prophecy that the Lord will return to build up Zion (again). His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. The Heavenly City of Zion will somehow “come down out of heaven.” And when Jesus comes again to build up Zion, He will appear in His glory.

The psalm even goes on in verse 26 to reference the fundamental transformation of the heavens and the earth. We KNOW that is still a future event.

So all the tenses are correct. And I find it super encouraging to have a prophecy of Christ’s future appearing way back here in the book of Psalms. It’s not just an idea in Revelation. It’s not an idea that was invented by first-century Christians (we hear that one a lot). No. This was God’s idea all along and to prove it, he found a prophet who was battling depression and poverty and sickness. God chose this poor, anonymous man who felt like he had been cast off by the Almighty and gave him a powerful and mysterious prophecy concerning the Messiah.

If you feel like everything that can go wrong has gone wrong and you are battling great discouragement, DO NOT give up. Don’t you dare quit. You have come too far. In the middle of your sorrows, the Lord can turn things on a dime and the next thing you know you are participating in the Lord’s building up of Zion and His glory is appearing in your life.