John Calvin Commentary Psalms 102:1

"Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, And let my cry come unto thee." — Psalms 102:1 (ASV)

O Jehovah! hear my prayer. This earnestness shows, again, that these words were not intended to be spoken by the careless and light-hearted, as doing so would have grossly insulted God. In speaking this way, the captive Jews testify to the severe and excruciating distress they endured, and to the ardent desire for some relief that burned within them.

No person could speak these words without profaning the name of God, unless he was, at the same time, moved by a sincere and earnest feeling of the heart. We should particularly note the fact already mentioned: that we are in this way stirred up by the Holy Spirit to the duty of prayer on behalf of the common welfare of the Church.

While each person adequately cares for his own individual interests, there is scarcely one in a hundred affected as he should be by the calamities of the Church. Therefore, we have all the more need for encouragement, just as we see the prophet here trying, by an accumulation of words, to correct our coldness and laziness.

I admit that the heart should move and direct the tongue to prayer; but, as it often weakens or is slow and sluggish in its duty, it needs to be helped by the tongue. There is a reciprocal influence here. Just as the heart, on the one hand, should precede the words and shape them, so the tongue, on the other, aids and remedies the coldness and lethargy of the heart.

True believers may indeed often pray not only earnestly but also fervently, even though not a single word is spoken. There is, however, no doubt that by crying the prophet means the intense expression that grief compels us to utter.