Ps. 102.1 (the realm of Yhwh)

Yhwh / listen to my prayer
let my cry for help / reach you. 

It is important that the first word of the psalm is ‘Yhwh’. This psalm is a complaint, a plea for help and healing. As we will see the gravitational center of the psalm is the absolute centrality of Yhwh’s permanence. Everything in this psalm strives toward making this reality present. Indeed the concluding line of the psalm is: “The sons of your servants will go on living here, their posterity secure in your presence.” As we will see, these ‘sons of your servants’ have entered into the ‘permanence of Yhwh’; they have obtained (or, better, are living within) the goal of the psalm. My point in bringing this up is that this is the ‘realm’ that the psalmist is hoping his prayer will ‘enter’—the ‘realm of Yhwh’. There is a clear sense in this and the following two verses of his prayer ‘entering’ this realm, of it ‘going somewhere’. Of it being regarded like a petitioner before a king. Notice how, in verse 1, the psalmist asks Yhwh to “listen to my cry” while in verse 2, it is “do not turn your face from me”. And, then, “turn your ear toward me”. The prayer itself and the psalmist are merged. Prayer is, in fact, key later in the psalm in regard to the re-building of Zion. There, Yhwh will rebuild Zion “having regard for the prayer of the destitute, instead of despising their prayer.” (vs. 17). These prayers, regarded by Yhwh, are what ‘activate’ the ‘realm of Yhwh’ and bring deliverance. As we will see, they are what initiate the ‘rebuilding’ of both the psalmist and Zion. They initiate their ‘resurrection’. In other words, prayer is the portal through which the realm of Yhwh comes to earth.