For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.
God's servants love Zion even when she lies ruined and broken amid captivity and distress, taking pleasure in her stones and cherishing and favoring even her dust. That delight in stones and dust is delight in the interest of His church and care for the church in its ruined state. It is love for Jerusalem in her favoring and rebuilding, and hope for its restoration.
The verse belongs to a plea for mercy that every true believer may adopt as his own. It comes after distressed crying to God for help in trouble over sin and helplessness. It stands together with wholehearted seeking of the Lord and turning from worldliness and self-seeking and from sin and vanity, and with declaring His name and singing His praise before the people.
Such love and seeking marks the heart that brings God's appointed set time to favor Zion. At that set time the Lord arises to favor her and show mercy to her, to rebuild her and appear in glory. Then Jerusalem becomes a secure, lasting dwelling place where the people will live. That set time is millennial time, and the promise joined to a millennial description shows Christ's coming is before the millennium, when the Lord builds up Zion and appears in His glory. It involves the favoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem, whether understood as the literal rebuilding of Jerusalem and restoration of the Jews or at least as the conversion and restoration of the Jews.
At that time the heathen fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth His glory, and peoples and kingdoms are gathered together to serve the Lord in Zion and Jerusalem. Then He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise it, hears the groaning of the prisoner and looses those appointed to death to declare His name in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. The same sentiment is illustrated by modern explorers who take pleasure in Zion's ruins and return saying the Bible is written across the face of the Holy Land, with the remains of the land offering physical confirmation of biblical history.
God's servants love Zion even when she lies ruined and broken amid captivity and distress, taking pleasure in her stones and cherishing and favoring even her dust. That delight in stones and dust is delight in the interest of His church and care for the church in its ruined state. It is love for Jerusalem in her favoring and rebuilding, and hope for its restoration.
The verse belongs to a plea for mercy that every true believer may adopt as his own. It comes after distressed crying to God for help in trouble over sin and helplessness. It stands together with wholehearted seeking of the Lord and turning from worldliness and self-seeking and from sin and vanity, and with declaring His name and singing His praise before the people.
Such love and seeking marks the heart that brings God's appointed set time to favor Zion. At that set time the Lord arises to favor her and show mercy to her, to rebuild her and appear in glory. Then Jerusalem becomes a secure, lasting dwelling place where the people will live. That set time is millennial time, and the promise joined to a millennial description shows Christ's coming is before the millennium, when the Lord builds up Zion and appears in His glory. It involves the favoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem, whether understood as the literal rebuilding of Jerusalem and restoration of the Jews or at least as the conversion and restoration of the Jews.
At that time the heathen fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth His glory, and peoples and kingdoms are gathered together to serve the Lord in Zion and Jerusalem. Then He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise it, hears the groaning of the prisoner and looses those appointed to death to declare His name in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. The same sentiment is illustrated by modern explorers who take pleasure in Zion's ruins and return saying the Bible is written across the face of the Holy Land, with the remains of the land offering physical confirmation of biblical history.