Verses 1–2
Early - Speedily; as soon as I am seated in the throne.
Verses 3–4
An hearth - An hearth is heated or burnt by the coals which are laid upon it.
Verse 5
Skin - My flesh being quite consumed.
Verses 6–8
A pelican - Is a solitary and mournful bird.
Verse 9
Bread - The sense is, dust and ashes are as familiar to me as the eating of my bread; I cover my head with them; I sit, yea, lie down in them, as mourners often did.
Verses 10–11
Lifted me - As a man lifts up a thing as high as he can, that he may cast it to the ground with greater force.
Verse 12
Remembrance - Thy name, Jehovah, which is called by this very word, God's remembrance, or memorial, and that unto all generations, Exod 3:15.
Verses 13–17
The set time - The end of those seventy years which thou hast fixed.
Verse 18
This - This wonderful deliverance shall be carefully recorded by thy people.
Verse 19
Looked - From heaven.
Verse 20
To loose - To release his poor captives out of Babylon, and from the chains of sin and eternal destruction.
Verse 21
To declare - That they might publish the name and praises of God in his church.
Verse 22
When - When the Gentiles shall gather themselves to the Jews, and join with them in the worship of the true God.
Verse 23
He - God. The way - In the midst of the course of our lives. Some think the psalmist here speaks of the whole commonwealth as of one man, and of its continuance, as of the life of one man.
Verses 24–25
I said - Do not wholly destroy thy people Israel. In the midst - Before they come to a full possession of thy promises and especially of that fundamental promise of the Messiah. Thy years - Though we die, yet thou art the everlasting God.
Verses 26–27
Perish - As to their present nature and use.
Verse 28
Continue - Though the heavens and earth perish, yet we rest assured that our children, and their children after them, shall enjoy an happy restitution to, and settlement in their own land.