What does Psalms Chapter 101 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The afflicted prayer uses smoke, fuel, birds, ashes and weeping imagery. Sion’s building, future glory and purposes of release retain distinct tenses. The note preserves alternative speakers and strength explanations.

Chapter breakdown

Domine, exaudi is the incipit; the heading calls this an afflicted person's prayer and fifth penitential psalm. The inscription describes an anxious poor man's poured supplication. He asks hearing, his cry admitted, face not turned away, ear inclined in trouble and speedy hearing when he calls. Days vanished like smoke, bones dried like fuel, heart withered like grass because bread was forgotten and bone cleaved to flesh with groaning. This is not reversed to skin cleaving to bones or diagnosed as dehydration.

He compares himself with wilderness pelican and night raven in a house; the note explains grief resembling birds seeking solitude and darkness. He watched like a solitary housetop sparrow. Enemies reproached all day and those who praised him swore against him. He ate ashes like bread and mixed drink with weeping, attributing his fall after elevation to anger and indignation; days declined like shadow and he withered like grass. Owl and abandoned ruin are not substituted.

God endures forever and memorial through generations. He shall arise and have mercy on Sion because time has come; stones pleased servants and they shall pity its earth. Gentiles shall fear the name and kings glory. The Lord has built Sion and shall be seen in glory, has regarded humble prayer and not despised petition. These things are to be written for another generation and a people yet to be created shall praise, because God looked from heavenly sanctuary to hear fettered groans and release children of slain, that His name and praise may be declared in Sion and Jerusalem when peoples and kings assemble. Purpose and future assembly are not completed release of every captive.

He answered in strength, asking declaration of few days. The note offers the people or penitent as speaker and strength as best effort or flower of age, asking whether restoration would be lived to see. These alternatives remain. He asks not to be called away in mid-days, contrasts divine years through generations and the founded earth and heavens with their future aging and changing like garments, while God stays selfsame and years do not fail. Servants' children shall continue and seed be directed forever. It does not certify an already achieved physical recovery.

The story inside

Opening: The afflicted prayer uses smoke, fuel, birds, ashes and weeping imagery. Development: Sion’s building, future glory and purposes of release retain distinct tenses. Conclusion: The note preserves alternative speakers and strength explanations.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The afflicted prayer uses smoke, fuel, birds, ashes and weeping imagery.
2
Sion’s building, future glory and purposes of release retain distinct tenses.
3
The note preserves alternative speakers and strength explanations.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 64038–64045
101:2. Hear, O Lord, my prayer: and let my cry come to thee. 101:3. Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am in trouble, incline thy ear to me. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, hear me speedily. 101:4. For my days are vanished like smoke, and my bones are grown dry like fuel for the fire.
Lines 64074–64078
101:13. But thou, O Lord, endurest for ever: and thy memorial to all generations. 101:14. Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Sion: for it is time to have mercy on it, for the time is come.
Lines 64121–64131
101:26. In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands. 101:27. They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. 101:28. But thou art always the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail. 101:29. The children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be directed for ever.