Psalm 102:18 NKJV
This will be written for the generation to come,
That a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.
Spurgeon
“This shall be written for the generation to come.” A note shall be made of it, for there will be destitute ones in future generations,—”the poor shall never cease out of the land, “—and it will make glad their eyes to read the story of the Lord’s mercy to the needy in former times. Registers of divine kindness ought to be made and preserved; we write down in history the calamities of nations,—wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes are recorded; how much rather then should we set up memorials of the Lord’s lovingkindness! Those who have in their own souls endured spiritual destitution, and have been delivered out of it, cannot forget it; they are bound to tell others of it, and especially to instruct their children in the goodness of the Lord.
“And the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD. “The Psalmist here intends to say that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be a fact in history for which the Lord would be praised from age to age. Revivals of religion not only cause great joy to those who are immediately concerned in them, but they give encouragement and delight to the people of God long after and are indeed perpetual incentives to adoration throughout the church of God. This verse teaches us that we ought to have an eye to posterity, and especially should we endeavor to perpetuate the memory of God’s love to his church and to his poor people, so that young people as they grow up may know that the Lord God of their fathers is good and full of compassion. Sad as the Psalmist was when he wrote the dreary portions of this complaint, he was not so absorbed in his own sorrow, or so distracted by the national calamity, as to forget the claims of coming generations; this, indeed, is a clear proof that he was not without hope for his people, for he who is making arrangements for the good of a future generation has not yet despaired of his nation. The praise of God should be the great object of all that we do, and to secure him a revenue of glory both from the present and the future is the noblest aim of intelligent beings.
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Enduring Word
This will be written for the generation to come: God’s goodness to Zion and the whole earth is a testimony for the future, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD. (Guzik)
i. This will be written:“This wonderful deliverance shall not be lost nor forgotten, but carefully recorded by thy people.” (Poole)
ii. “Nothing is more tenacious than man’s memory when he suffers an injury; nothing more lax if a benefit is conferred. For this reason, God desires lest his gifts should fall out of mind, to have them committed to writing.” (Le Blanc, cited in Spurgeon)
iii. The idea that God considers and plans for those yet to be created is an interesting revelation. We don’t first enter into the consciousness of God when we are conceived in our mother’s womb, but when we are conceived in His heart and mind. (Guzik)
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Barnes
This shall be written for the generation to come – It shall be recorded for the instruction and encouragement of future ages. The fact that God has heard the prayer of his people in a time of trial shall be so recorded and remembered that it may be referred to in similar circumstances in all time to come, for he is an unchanging God. What he has done now, he will always be willing to do hereafter.
And the people which shall be created – Future generations. Each successive generation is in fact a new “creation;” each individual is also; for the essential idea in creation is that of bringing something into existence where there was nothing before. There is a “beginning” of existence in every human being. Man is not in any proper sense a “development” from former being, nor is his life merely a “continuance” of something which existed before.
Shall praise the Lord – Shall praise the Lord for what he has now done; shall learn, from the great principles now illustrated in regard to his administration, to praise him.
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John Gill
This shall be written for the generation to come,…. This prayer, as the Targum paraphrases it, is a directory to saints in distressed circumstances; or that which was just now said, that the Lord will regard, and not despise the prayer of the destitute; this shall stand on record, for the encouragement of praying souls in all generations; or this whole prophecy, concerning the glory of the church in the latter day; this shall be written for the next generation, and so on until it is accomplished, to keep up the faith and expectation of the fulfillment of it:
and the people which shall be created: born at the time when all this shall be done; or who shall become new creatures; be created in Christ Jesus, and made new men;
these shall praise the Lord, when he shall arise and have mercy on Zion; when he shall favor and rebuild her, in answer to the prayers of his people; then their prayers will be turned into praise; then will those voices be heard among them, hallelujah, salvation, glory, honor, and power unto the Lord our God, Revelation 19:1.
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Matthew Henry
This instance of God’s favor to his praying people, though they are destitute, will be a lasting encouragement to prayer (v. 18): This shall be written for the generation to come, that none may despair, though they be destitute, nor think their prayers forgotten because they have not an answer to them immediately. The experiences of others should be our encouragements to seek unto God and trust in him. And, if we have the comfort of the experiences of others, it is fit that we should give God the glory of them: The people who shall be created shall praise the Lord for what he has done both for them and for their predecessors. Many that are now unborn shall, by reading the history of the church, be wrought upon to turn proselytes. The people that shall be created anew by divine grace, that are a kind of first-fruits of his creatures, shall praise the Lord for his answers to their prayers when they were more destitute.
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Clarke
Verse Psalms 102:18. The people which shall be created — “The Gentiles, who shall be brought to the knowledge of salvation by Christ,” as the Syriac states in its inscription to this Psalm: how often the conversion of the soul to God is represented as a new creation, no reader of the New Testament need be told. See Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 4:24; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15. Even the publication of the Gospel, and its influence among men, is represented under the notion of “creating a new heaven and a new earth,” Isaiah 65:17-18.
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Geneva Bible 1560
Psalm 102:18
18 This shalbe written for the generation to come: and the people, which shalbe n created, shal praise the Lord.
n The deliverance of the Church is a most excellent benefit and therefore he compares it to a new creation: for in their banishment the body of the Church seemed to have been dead, which by deliverance was as it were created anew.
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“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”
Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV
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