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Psalm 102: 24-26, [v.24] ‘Oh my God,’ I say, ‘take me not away in the midst of my days—you whose years endure throughout all generations!’ [v.25] Of old you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. [v.26] They will perish, but you will remain…
Heb. 1:10 cites Ps. 102:25 as a passage that God the Father speaks to the Son. Now, this same Son who ‘laid the foundations of the earth’ and ‘will remain’ is the one who Hebrews also tells us suffered when He was tried (2:18), and who—out of that suffering—made prayers to God with loud cries and tears (5:7), prayers that He might be saved from death, prayers that were heard, as is evidenced by His resurrection.
The reason I mention this is that, Ps. 102 is the ‘prayer of one afflicted, when He is faint and pours out His complaint before YHWH’ (v.1). Well, who is the Afflicted One par excellence? It is Christ Himself (Is.53:4, 63:9). Jesus, the Beloved Son, is the Afflicted One of this psalm—and of all psalms. He is the one afflicted in all the afflictions of His people (Is.63:9).
What this means is that when we read Ps.102, we ought to see Christ BOTH as the one who prays with loud cries and tears, ‘Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days!’ (Ps.102:24, Heb.5:7), AND ALSO—according to Hebrews 1:10—as the one who laid the foundations of the earth and sets the stars in place by His hands (Ps.102:25). The author of Hebrews, reading the Psalms by the illumination of the Resurrection-given Spirit, understands the afflicted one of Psalm 102:24 and the Creator God of Psalm 102:25 to be the same person, namely, the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
With Hebrews, then, we recognize v.24 to depict Christ’s ‘loud cries and tears’ in the days of His affliction (Heb.5:7), while v.25 constitutes the Father’s answer to those agonized prayers: ‘You, who laid the foundations of the earth and established the heavens, will not be abandoned to death. They will pass away, but you—my Son—will remain.’ (Heb.1:10). Christ’s suffering humanity (v.24), His sovereign divinity (v.25), and the Father’s promise to answer His prayers through resurrection (v.26) are all witnessed in this Psalm.
