קאת (construct of קאת or קאת from קאה, vid., Isaiah, at Isaiah 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 Leviticus 11:18; Deuteronomy 14:17; Isaiah 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 kuéik; vid., the dictionaries of Bocthor and Marcel s.v. chouette), but the pelican, the "long-necked water-bird" (Damiri after the lexicon el-‛Obâb of Hasan ben-Mohammed el-Saghani). The Graeco-Veneta also renders קאת with πελεκάν, - the Peshito, however, with Syr. qāqā'. What Ephrem on Deuteronomy 14:17 and the Physiologus Syrus (ed. Tychsen, p. 13, cf. pp. 110 f). say of Syr. qāqā', viz., that it is a marsh-bird, is very fond of its young ones, dwells in desolate places, and is incessantly noisy, likewise points to the pelican, although the Syrian lexicographers vary. Cf. also Oedmann, Vermischte Sammlungen, Heft 3, Cap. 6. (Fleischer after a communication from Rodiger.))

דּמה obtains the signification to be like, equal (aequalem esse), from the radical signification to be flat, even, and to spread out flat (as the Dutch have already recognised). They are both unclean creatures, which are fond of the loneliness of the desert and ruined places. To such a wilderness, that of the exile, is the poet unwillingly transported. He passes the nights without sleep (שׁקד, to watch during the time for sleep), and is therefore like a bird sitting lonesome (בּודד, Syriac erroneously נודד) upon the roof whilst all in the house beneath are sleeping. The Athnach in Psalm 102:8 separates that which is come to be from the ground of the "becoming" and the "becoming" itself. His grief is that his enemies reproach him as one forsaken of God. מהולל, part. Poal, is one made or become mad, Ecclesiastes 2:2 : my mad ones equals those who are mad against me. These swear by him, inasmuch as they say when they want to curse: "God do unto thee as unto this man," which is to be explained according to Isaiah 65:15; Jeremiah 29:22.

Psalm 102:14 Parallel Commentaries

Psalm 79:1,7-10 O God, the heathen are come into your inheritance; your holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps...

Psalm 137:5,6 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning...

Ezra 1:5 Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites...

Ezra 3:1-3 And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities...

Ezra 7:27 Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which has put such a thing as this in the king's heart...

Nehemiah 1:3 And they said to me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach...

Nehemiah 2:3,17 And said to the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city...

Nehemiah 4:2,6,10 And he spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves...

Daniel 9:16 O LORD, according to all your righteousness, I beseech you, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem...