Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 102:10
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
10. This suffering is the punishment of sin. The storm of God’s wrath has swept Israel away from its own land, and flung it down helpless in the land of exile. Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down (A.V.) has been taken to mean that the bitterness of Israel’s present humiliation is intensified by the recollection of its past exaltation (cp. Lam 2:1), but it suits the context better to render For thou hast taken me up and flung me away, a metaphor from a hurricane. Cp. Job 27:21; Job 30:22; Isa 64:6. The same word is used of the banishment of Israel in Jer 7:15, &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath – Hebrew, From the face of thine indignation, etc. That is – he regarded all his sufferings as proof of the indignation and wrath of God against him. See Psa 90:7-9.
For thou hast lifted me up – In former times. Thou hadst given me prosperity; thou hadst given me an elevated and honorable place among men.
And cast me down – Thou hast brought me into a low condition, and I feel it all the more from the fact that I had enjoyed prosperity. Compare the notes at Psa 30:7. The passage, however, is susceptible of another interpretation: Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me away. That is, Thou hast lifted me from the ground as a storm or tempest takes up a light thing, and hast whirled me away. This idea occurs in Isa 22:18. See the notes at that passage. The former, however, seems to me to be the more correct interpretation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. For thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.] Thou hast lifted me on high, that thou Lightest dash me down with the greater force. We were exalted in thy favour beyond any people, and now thou hast made us the lowest and most abject of the children of men.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath; because I do not only conflict with men, but with the Almighty God, and with his anger.
For thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down; as a man lifts up a person or thing as high as he can, that he may cast it down to the ground with greater force. Or he aggravates his present reproach and misery by the consideration of that great honour and happiness to which God had formerly advanced him, as Job did, Job 29; Job 30, and the church, Lam 1:7.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. lifted . . . cast me downor,”cast me away” as stubble by a whirlwind (Isa64:6).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath,…. This was the burden of his complaint, what gave him the greatest uneasiness; not so much the reproach of his enemies, and his other outward afflictions, as the sense he had of God’s wrath and indignation. The people of God are as deserving of his wrath as others; and when they are awakened to a sense of sin and danger, or the law enters into their consciences, it works wrath there, and leaves nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, till comfort is given; and under afflictive providences they are very ready to conclude, that the wrath of God is upon them; but this is only their apprehension of things; it is not in reality: for God has not appointed them to wrath, and has swore he will not be wroth with them; Christ has bore it for them, in their room and stead; and being justified by his blood and righteousness, they are saved from it; but then the sense they have of it is very terrible, and there is no rest, peace, and comfort in their souls, while under the apprehensions of it:
for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down; as a man that, in wrestling, has the advantage of his antagonist, lifts him up as high as he can, that he may throw him with the greater force upon the ground; in like manner the psalmist thought the Lord was dealing with him: or this may express his changeable state and condition, sometimes lifted up, and sometimes cast down, and which is the case of every believer, more or less; all have their liftings up, and their castings down: when God first calls them by his grace, he raises them from a low estate, lifts them up out of an horrible pit, takes them from the dunghill, sets them among princes to inherit the throne of glory: when he comforts them with the consolations of his Spirit, he is the lifter up of their heads; when he grants his presence, and lifts up the light of his countenance: when he discovers his love, and makes their mountain to stand strong; when he shows them their interest in himself, as their covenant God, in Christ, as their Redeemer and Saviour, and grants them the communion of the Holy Ghost; and when their graces are in lively exercise, then is it a time of lifting up: and they are cast down when corruptions prevail, when grace is weak, when God hides his face, and when afflictions lie heavy on them: this was now the case of the psalmist, and perhaps the remembrance of his liftings up in former times was an aggravation of it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
10. On account of thy anger and thy wrath He now declares that the greatness of his grief proceeded not only from outward troubles and calamities, but from a sense that these were a punishment inflicted upon him by God. And surely there is nothing which ought to wound our hearts more deeply, than when we feel that God is angry with us. The meaning then amounts to this — O Lord! I do not confine my attention to those things which would engage the mind of worldly men; but I rather turn my thoughts to thy wrath; for were it not that thou art angry with us, we would have been still enjoying the inheritance given us by thee, from which we have justly been expelled by thy displeasure. When God then strikes us with his hand, we should not merely groan under the strokes inflicted upon us, as foolish men usually do, but should chiefly look to the cause that we may be truly humbled. This is a lesson which it would be of great advantage to us to learn.
The last clause of the verse, Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down, may be understood in two ways. As we lift up what we intend to throw down with greater violence against the ground, the sentence may denote a violent method of casting down, as if it had been said, Thou hast crushed me more severely by throwing me down headlong from on high, than if I had merely fallen from the station which I occupied. (145) But this seems to be another amplification of his grief, nothing being more bitter to an individual than to be reduced from a happy condition to extreme misery, the prophet mournfully complains that the chosen people were deprived of the distinguished advantages which God had conferred upon them in time past, so that the very remembrance of his former goodness, which should have afforded consolation to them, embittered their sorrow. Nor was it the effect of ingratitude to turn the consideration of the divine benefits, which they had formerly received, into matter of sadness; since they acknowledged that their being reduced to such a state of wretchedness and degradation was through their own sins. God has no delight in changing, as if, after having given us some taste of his goodness, he intended forthwith to deprive us of it. As his goodness is inexhaustible, so his blessing would flow upon us without intermission, were it not for our sins which break off the course of it. Although, then, the remembrance of God’s benefits ought to assuage our sorrows, yet still it is a great aggravation of our calamity to have fallen from an elevated position, and to find that we have so provoked his anger, as to make him withdraw from us his benignant and bountiful hand. Thus when we consider that the image of God, which distinguished Adam, was the brightness of the celestial glory; and when, on the contrary, we now see the ignominy and degradation to which God has subjected us in token of his wrath, this contrast cannot surely fail of making us feel more deeply the wretchedness of our condition. Whenever, therefore, God, after having stripped us of the blessings which he had conferred upon us, gives us up to reproach, let us learn that we have so much the greater cause to lament, because, through our own fault, we have turned light into darkness.
(145) “What is meant by נשאתני, ‘thou hast lifted me up,’ etc., is to be judged by the immediate antecedents, indignation and wrath; by these is meant vehement displeasure and anger, and in God, in whom anger is not found, effects that bear analogy with those which proceed from angry men. To such it is ordinary to cast to the ground any thing that they are displeased with, and where the displeasure is vehement, to lift it up first as high as they can, that they may cast it down with more violence, and dash it in pieces by the fall. And this is the meaning of the phrase here, and so is a pathetical expression of his present affliction, heightened by the dignity of the public office wherein Nehemiah was at the time of writing this mournful psalm, (Neh 1:1 and Neh 2:1.) The greater his place was at Shushan, the deeper his sorrow for his countrymen and for Jerusalem (Neh 1:3) pierced him, whereupon he complains that God, by way of indignation, hath dealt with him, as those that take an earthen vessel and throw it against the pavement, and that they may beat it to pieces the more certainly, lift it up first as high as they can, to throw it down with more violence. This the LXX. have fitly rendered, ἐπάρας κατέρ᾿ῥαξάς με, and the Latin, elevans illisisti me , ‘having lifted me up, thou hast dashed me to pieces.’” — Hammond
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) Indignation and thy wrath.Comp. Psa. 90:7. The last part of the clause is a figure taken from the action of a whirlwind. (Comp. Job. 27:20-21; Job. 30:22.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. Lifted me up, and cast me down Both honour and shame, prosperity and adversity, are from God; the one, the reward of obedience; the other, the punishment of sin. This was true of the nation. Compare Psa 30:7; Psa 104:28-29
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 102:10 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
Ver. 10. Because of thine indignation ] This lay heavier upon the good man’s heart than all the rest, God was displeased.
For thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Because of = from the face of. See note on Psa 95:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Because: Psa 38:3, Psa 38:18, Psa 39:11, Psa 90:7-9, Lam 1:18, Lam 3:39-42, Lam 5:16, Dan 9:8-14, Rom 3:19
thou hast: Psa 30:6, Psa 30:7, Psa 73:18-20, Psa 147:6, 1Sa 2:7, 1Sa 2:8, 2Ch 25:8, 2Co 4:9
Reciprocal: Psa 55:2 – I mourn Psa 88:7 – Thy wrath Psa 88:16 – fierce Psa 109:23 – I am tossed Jon 4:7 – prepared
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
102:10 Because of thine {h} indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
(h) He shows that not only the afflictions moved him, but chiefly the feeling of God’s displeasure.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
He felt his condition was the result of divine discipline. He believed his life was ending, as the lengthening shadows signal the approaching end of a day.