to be alert · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
sparrow
כְּ֝צִפּ֗וֹרke.tzi.Por
H6833
a little bird (as hopping) · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
alone
בּוֹדֵ֥דbo.Ded
H909
to divide · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
top
גָּֽגGag
H1406
a roof · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 77:4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
Lamentations 3:28-30 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
Mark 14:33-37 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;
Deuteronomy 28:66-67 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:
Job 7:13-16 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;
Psalms 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Psalms 38:11 My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.
Psalms 130:6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 102:1-11
The title of this psalm is very observable; it is a prayer of the afflicted. It was composed by one that was himself afflicted, afflicted with the church and for it; and on those that are of a public spirit afflictions of that kind lie heavier than any other. It is calculated for an afflicted state, and is intended for the use of others that may be in the like distress; for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written designedly for our use. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but here, as often elsewhere, the Holy Ghost has drawn up our petition for us, has put words into our mouths. Hos 14:2, Take with you words. Here is a prayer put into the hands of the affli…
I watch,.... Night after night, and take no sleep; cannot get any by reason of thoughtfulness, care, and trouble:
and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop; or, "as a bird" (o); for there is no necessity of limiting it to a sparrow, to which the account does not seem so well to agree; for sparrows will not only perch on housetops and solitary places, but will make their nests in dwelling houses, and in places of public resort, as temples; hence David speaks of the sparrow finding an house near the altars of God, Psalm 84:3 and Herodotus (p) makes mention of sparrows and other birds making their nests in the temple at Branchides; which may serve to illustrate the text last mentioned: where…
Psalm 102:3-7
3. For my days are consumed like smoke [135] and my bones are burnt up as a hearth. [136] 4. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass, because I have forgotten to eat my bread. 5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my flesh. [137] 6. I have become like a pelican [138] of the wilderness; I have become like an owl [139] of the deserts. 7. I have watched, and have been like a sparrow which is alone upon the house-top. [140]
3 For my days are consumed like smoke These expressions are hyperbolical, but still they show how deeply the desolation of the Church ought to wound the hearts of the people of God. Let every man, therefore, carefully examine himsel…
The Church Fathers
...Let us not pass over what is said, or even read, of this bird, that is, the pelican; not rashly asserting anything, but yet not passing over what has been left to be read and uttered by those who have written it. Do ye so hear, that if it be true, it may agree; if false, it may not hold. These birds are said to slay their young with blows of their beaks, and for three days to mourn them when slain by themselves in the nest: after which they say the mother wounds herself deeply, and pours forth her blood over her young, bathed in which they recover life. This may be true, it may be false: yet if it be true, see how it agreeth with Him, who gave us life by His blood. It agreeth with Him in that the mother's flesh recalleth to life her young with her blood; it agreeth well. For He calleth Himself a hen brooding over her young. ...If, then, it be so truly, this bird doth closely resemble the flesh of Christ, by whose blood we have been called to life. But how may it agree with Christ, that the bird herself slays her own young? Doth not this agree with it? "I will slay, and I will make alive: I will wound, and I will heal." Would the persecutor Saul have died, unless he were wounded from heaven; or would the preacher be raised up, unless by life given him from His Blood? But let those who have written on the subject see to this; we ought not to allow our understanding of it to rest upon doubtful ground. Let us rather recognise this bird in the wilderness; as the Psalm expresseth it, "A pelican in the solitude." I suppose that Christ born of a Virgin is here meant. He was born in loneliness, because He alone was thus born. After the nativity, we come to His Passion. ...Born in the wilderness, because alone so born; suffering in the darkness of the Jews as it were in night, in their sin, as it were in ruins: what next? "I have watched:" and "am become even as it were a sparrow, that sitteth alone upon the house-top" (ver. 7). Thou hadst then slept amid the ruins, and hadst said, "I laid me down, and slept." What meaneth, "I slept"? Because I chose, I slept: I slept for love of night: but, "I rose again," followeth. Therefore "I watched," is here said. But after He watched, what did He? He ascended into heaven, He became as a sparrow by flying; that is, by ascending; "alone on the house-top;" that is, in heaven. He is therefore as the pelican by birth, as the…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Sparrow — Mentioned among the offerings made by the very poor. Two sparrows were sold for a farthing (Matt. 10:29), and five for two farthings (Luke 12:6). The Hebrew word thus rendered is tsippor, which…
Watchfulness · 36:18-21; — 36:18-21;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
קאת (construct of קאת or קאת from קאה, vid., Isaiah, at Isa 34:11-12), according to the lxx, is the pelican, and כּוס is the night-raven or the little horned-owl.
(Note: The lxx renders it: I am like a pelican of the desert, I am become as a night-raven upon a ruined place (οἰκοπέδῳ). In harmony with the lxx, Saadia (as also the Arabic version edited by Erpenius, the Samaritan Arabic, and Abulwald) renders קאת by Arab. qûq (here and in Lev 11:18; Deu 14:17; Isa 34:17), and כוס by Arab. bûm; the latter (bum) is an onomatopoetic name of the owl, and the former (k[uk[) does not even signify the owl or horned-owl (although the small horned-owl is called um kuéik in Egypt, and in Africa abu…
The psalmist cannot sleep (see 63:6-8). Like a bird on the roof, he feels isolated from both friends (see 88:8) and enemies.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 102:7
I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the house top: I keep a solitary vigil as the lone sentry of my nation; my fellows are too selfish, too careless to care for the beloved land, and so like a bird which sits alone on the housetop, I keep up a sad watch over my country. The Psalmist compared himself to a bird, —a bird when it has lost its mate or its young, or is for some other reason made to mope alone in a solitary place. Probably he did not refer to the cheerful sparrow of our own land, but if he did, the illustration would not be out of place, for the sparrow is happy in company, and if it were alone, the sole one of its speci…
