Every Stone

Psalm 102:12-17

12But you, O LORD, will rule forever.

Your fame will endure to every generation.

13You will arise and have mercy on Jerusalem—

and now is the time to pity her,

now is the time you promised to help.

14For your people love every stone in her walls

and show favor even to the dust in her streets.

15And the nations will tremble before the LORD.

The kings of the earth will tremble before his glory.

16For the LORD will rebuild Jerusalem.

He will appear in his glory.

17He will listen to the prayers of the destitute.

He will not reject their pleas.

They call it the Wailing Wall. It’s the western courtyard wall of what used to be the Temple in Jerusalem, the only remaining piece of that once-majestic structure. What the Romans didn’t level in A.D. 70, the ravages of time, vandals, and crusaders have destroyed or carted off—all except this wall, which now shares its hilltop perch with two Muslim shrines.

The psalmist says of Jerusalem, “Your people love every stone in her walls.” You can sense that as the Orthodox Jews come to pray at the Wailing Wall, rocking back and forth in their customary way and raising their voices in chants and cries. Some write down their requests or the names of loved ones and stick the folded paper in the wall’s cracks. Surely God will remember his people, just as they remember him.

“The Lord will rebuild Jerusalem,” the psalm promises, and theologians have long debated just when and how that will happen. Physically? Spiritually? Through the church? In the end times? We won’t settle the questions in these few paragraphs, but we can still learn something from these verses.

God is still at work. He will reveal his glory. He can rebuild cities, and he can rebuild people’s lives. People come to wail at the Wailing Wall because they are convinced that God is still working. We can have the same assurance as we kneel in faithful prayer.

Lord, teach us how to pray aright

With reverence and with fear;

Though weak and sinful in your sight,

We may, we must draw near.

JAMES MONTGOMERY

A Word on Words

The main verbs of verses 16-17 are translated as future tense. The context of the passage requires that. But in the original Hebrew the verbs are present—God is building, appearing, listening, and not rejecting. The psalmist is so sure of this that he speaks of these future events as already taking place.

Notable Quotable

“A man that is destitute knows how to pray. He needs not an instructor. His miseries indoctrinate him wonderfully in the art of prayer. Let us know ourselves destitute that we might know how to pray.”

STEPHEN MARSHALL