God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
Parallel Translations
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God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
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O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
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A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; they have defiled Thy holy temple; they have made Jerusalem into heaps.
Cross-references (22)
Passages linked to Psalms 79:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Chronicles 36:19 They burned God’s house, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels.
- Psalms 74:1-4 God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance: Mount Zion, in which you have lived. Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs.
- Lamentations 1:10 The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.
- Micah 3:12 Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Psalms 74:7-8 They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.” They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.
- Jeremiah 26:18 “Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’
- 2 Kings 24:13 He carried out from there all the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold, which Solomon king of Israel had made in Yahweh’s temple, as Yahweh had said.
- 2 Kings 25:4-10 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah. But the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him. They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire. All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 36:3-4 The king of Egypt removed him from office at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.
- 2 Chronicles 36:6-7 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of Yahweh’s house to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.
- 2 Chronicles 36:17 Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.
- Jeremiah 52:13 He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.
- Exodus 15:17 You will bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, the place, Yahweh, which you have made for yourself to dwell in; the sanctuary, Lord, which your hands have established.
- 2 Kings 21:12-16 therefore Yahweh the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of Ahab’s house; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will become a prey and a plunder to all their enemies, because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’ ” Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; in addition to his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.
- Jeremiah 39:8 The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.
- Psalms 78:71 from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
- Psalms 80:12-13 Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it? The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.
- Isaiah 47:6 I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.
- Ezekiel 7:20-21 As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things therein. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing. I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they will profane it.
- Ezekiel 9:7 He said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” They went out, and struck in the city.
- Luke 21:24 They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- Revelation 11:2 Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1. O God! the heathen have come into thy…
1. O God! the heathen have come into thy inheritance. Here the prophet, in the person of the faithful, complains that the temple was defiled, and the city destroyed. In the second and third verses, he complains that the saints were murdered indiscriminately, and that their dead bodies were cast forth upon the face of the earth, and deprived of the honor of burial. Almost every word expresses the cruelty of these enemies of the Church. When it is considered that God had chosen the land of Judea to be a possession to his own people, it seemed inconsistent with this choice to abandon it to the heathen nations, that they might ignominiously trample it under foot, and lay it waste at their pleasure. The prophet, therefore, complains that when the heathen came into the heritage of God, the order of nature was, as it were, inverted. The destruction of the temple, of which he speaks in the second clause, was still less to be endured; for thus the service of God on earth was extinguished, and religion destroyed. He adds, that Jerusalem, which was the royal seat of God, was reduced to heaps. By these words is denoted a hideous overthrow. The profanation of the temple, and the destruction of the holy city, involving, as they did, heaven-daring impiety, which ought justly to have provoked the wrath of God against these enemies — the prophet begins with them, and then comes to speak of the slaughter of the saints. The atrocious cruelty of these persecutions is pointed out from the circumstance that they not only put to death the servants of God, but also exposed their dead bodies to the beasts of the field, and to birds of prey, to be devoured, instead of burying them. Men have always had such a sacred regard to the burial of the dead, as to shrink from depriving even their enemies of the honor of sepulture. Whence it follows, that those who take a barbarous delight in seeing the bodies of the dead torn to pieces and devoured by beasts, more resemble these savage and cruel animals than human beings. It is also shown that these persecutors acted more atrociously than enemies ordinarily do, inasmuch as they made no more account of shedding human blood than of pouring forth water. From this we learn their insatiable thirst for slaughter. When it is added, there was none to bury them, this is to be understood as applying to the brethren and relatives of the slain. The inhabitants of the city were stricken with such terror by the indiscriminate butchery perpetrated by these ruthless assassins upon all who came in their way, that no one dared to go forth. God having intended that, in the burial of men, there should be some testimony to the resurrection at the last day, it was a double indignity for the saints to be despoiled of this right after their death. But it may be asked, Since God often threatens the reprobate with this kind of punishment, why did he suffer his own people to be devoured of beasts? We must remember, what we have stated elsewhere, that the elect, as well as the reprobate, are subjected to the temporal punishments which pertain only to the flesh. The difference between the two cases lies solely in the issue; for God converts that which in itself is a token of his wrath into the means of the salvation of his own children. The same explanation, then, is to be given of their want of burial which is given of their death. The most eminent of the servants of God may be put to a cruel and ignominious death — a punishment which we know is often executed upon murderers, and other despisers of God; but still the death of the saints does not cease to be precious in his sight: and when he has suffered them to be unrighteously persecuted in the flesh, he shows, by taking vengeance on their enemies, how dear they were to him. In like manner, God, to stamp the marks of his wrath on the reprobate, even after their death, deprives them of burial; and, therefore, he threatens a wicked king, “He shall be buried with the burial of all ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem,” (Jeremiah 22:19; see also Jeremiah 36:30.) When he exposes his own children to the like indignity, he may seem for a time to have forsaken them; but he afterwards converts it into the means of furthering their salvation; for their faith, being subjected to this trial, acquires a fresh triumph. When in ancient times the bodies of the dead were anointed, that ceremony was performed for the sake of the living whom they left behind them, to teach them, when they saw the bodies of the dead carefully preserved, to cherish in their hearts the hope of a better life. The faithful, then, by being deprived of burial, suffer no loss, when they rise by faith above these inferior helps, that they may advance with speedy steps to a blessed immortality.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The people cry unto God against the barbarous tyranny…
The people cry unto God against the barbarous tyranny of the Babylonians, who spoiled God’s inheritance, polluted his Temple, destroyed his religion, and murdered his people.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 79:1 « A Psalm of Asaph. » O…
Psa 79:1 « A Psalm of Asaph. » O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
A Psalm] Of like subject with Psa 74:1-23, bewailing the same calamity of the Jews, whether under Nebuchadnezzar or Antiochus is uncertain; but foreseen by Asaph, or described by some other prophet, and committed to some of Asaph’s successors to be sung. Cantant iusti etiam in adversis; as birds in the spring tune most sweetly when it raineth most sadly.
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Ver. 1. O God, the heathen] Ex abrupto orditur; q.d. Canst thou endure it? Is it not high time for thee to set in? Lo, they have filled the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel, Isa 8:8, that is, O thou who art God with us, who givest with the Father, who prayest with the suitor ( Cum parte dater, inter nos petitor. Aug.), and who in all our afflictions art afflicted.
Thy holy temple have they defiled] Spoliando, funestando, et omnia profana impiaque munera obeundo. See Psa 74:7.
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps] In rudera, into an orchard keeper’s cottage, saith the Vulgate, οπωροφυλακιον (Sept.). An elegant hypotyposis.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Are come, as invaders and conquerors. Into thine inheritance;…
Are come, as invaders and conquerors. Into thine inheritance; into Canaan and Judea, which thou didst choose for thine inheritance. Defied, by entering into it, and touching and carrying away its holy vessels, and shedding blood in it, and burning of it. Heaps, made of the ruins of those goodly houses which they burned, or threw down.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here a sad complaint exhibited in the…
We have here a sad complaint exhibited in the court of heaven. The world is full of complaints, and so is the church too, for it suffers, not only with it, but from it, as a lily among thorns. God is complained to; whither should children go with their grievances, but to their father, to such a father as is able and willing to help? The heathen are complained of, who, being themselves aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, were sworn enemies to it. Though they knew not God, nor owned him, yet, God having them in chain, the church very fitly appeals to him against them; for he is King of nations, to overrule them, to judge among the heathen, and King of saints, to favour and protect them.
I. They complain here of the anger of their enemies and the outrageous fury of the oppressor, exerted,
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1. Against places, Psa 79:1. They did all the mischief they could, (1.) To the holy land; they invaded that, and made inroads into it: "The heathen have come into thy inheritance, to plunder that, and lay it waste." Canaan was dearer to the pious Israelites as it was God's inheritance than as it was their own, as it was the land in which God was known and his name was great rather than as it was the land in which they were bred and born and which they and their ancestors had been long in possession of. note, Injuries done to religion should grieve us more than even those done to common right, nay, to our own right. We should better bear to see our own inheritance wasted than God's inheritance. This psalmist had mentioned it in the foregoing psalm as an instance of God's great favour to Israel that he had cast out the heathen before them, Psa 78:55. But see what a change sin made; now the heathen are suffered to pour in upon them. (2.) To the holy city: They have laid Jerusalem on heaps, heaps of rubbish, such heaps as are raised over graves, so some. The inhabitants were buried in the ruins of their own houses, and their dwelling places became their sepulchres, their long homes. (3.) To the holy house. That sanctuary which God had built like high palaces, and which was thought to be established as the earth, was now laid level with the ground: They holy temple have they defiled, by entering into it and laying it waste. God's own people had defiled it by their sins, and therefore God suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence.
2. Against persons, against the bodies of God's people; and further their malice could not reach. (1.) They were prodigal of their blood, and killed them without mercy; their eye did not spare, nor did they give any quarter (Psa 79:3): Their blood have they shed like water, wherever they met with them, round about Jerusalem, in all the avenues to the city; whoever went out or came in was waited for of the sword. Abundance of human blood was shed, so that the channels of water ran with blood. And they shed it with no more reluctancy or regret than if they had spilt so much water, little thinking that every drop of it will be reckoned for in the day when God shall make inquisition for blood. (2.) They were abusive to their dead bodies. When they had killed them they would let none bury them. Nay, those that were buried, even the dead bodies of God's servants, the flesh of his saints, whose names and memories they had a particular spite at, they dug up again, and gave them to be meat to the fowls of the heaven and to the beasts of the earth; or, at least, they left those so exposed whom they slew; they hung them in chains, which was in a particular manner grievous to the Jews to see, because God had given them an express law against this, as a barbarous thing, Deu 21:23. This inhuman usage of Christ's witnesses is foretold (Rev 11:9), and thus even the dead bodies were witnesses against their persecutors. This is mentioned (says Austin, De Civitate Dei, lib. 1 cap. 12) not as an instance of the misery of the persecuted (for the bodies of the saints shall rise in glory, however they became meat to the birds and the fowls), but of the malice of the persecutors.
3. Against their names (Psa 79:4): "We that survive have become a reproach to our neighbours; they all study to abuse us and load us with contempt, and represent us as ridiculous, or odious, or both, upbraiding us with our sins and with our sufferings, or giving the lie to our relation to God and expectations from him; so that we have become a scorn and derision to those that are round about us." If God's professing people degenerate from what themselves and their fathers were, they must expect to be told of it; and it is well if a just reproach will help to bring us to a true repentance. But it has been the lot of the gospel-Israel to be made unjustly a reproach and derision; the apostles themselves were counted as the offscouring of all things.
II. They wonder more at God's anger, Psa 79:5. This they discern in the anger of their neighbours, and this they complain most of: How long, Lord, wilt thou be angry? Shall it be for ever? This intimates that they desired no more than that God would be reconciled to them, that his anger might be turned away, and then the remainder of men's wrath would be restrained. Note, Those who desire God's favour as better than life cannot but dread and deprecate his wrath as worse than death.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain O God, the Heathen are come into thine inheritance,....…
O God, the Heathen are come into thine inheritance,.... The land of Canaan, divided among the children of Israel by lot and line for an inheritance, out of which the Heathen were cast, to make room for them; but now would come into it again; see Psa 89:35, and this is called the Lord's inheritance, because he gave it as such to the people of Israel, and dwelt in it himself; and the rather this is observed as something marvellous, that he should suffer Heathens to possess his own inheritance; or the city of Jerusalem, which was the place the Lord chose to put his name in; or the temple, where he had his residence, called the mountain of his inheritance, Exo 15:17, and into which it was always accounted a profanation for Heathens to enter; see Act 21:28, into each of these places the Heathen came; the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar; the Syrians under Antiochus, as in the Apocrypha:
"Insomuch that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled because of them: whereupon the city was made an habitation of strangers, and became strange to those that were born in her; and her own children left her.'' (1 Maccabees 1:38)
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"Now Jerusalem lay void as a wilderness, there was none of her children that went in or out: the sanctuary also was trodden down, and aliens kept the strong hold; the heathen had their habitation in that place; and joy was taken from Jacob, and the pipe with the harp ceased.'' (1 Maccabees 3:45)
the Romans under Pompey, Vespasian, and Titus; and the Papists have since entered among the people of God, who are his heritage or inheritance, and have lorded it over them, and made havoc of them, and who are called Heathens and Gentiles, Psa 10:16,
thy holy temple have they defiled: this was done in the times of Antiochus, by entering into it, taking away the holy vessels out of it, shedding innocent blood in it, and setting up the abomination of desolation on the altar, and sacrificing to it, as in the Apocrypha:
"Every bridegroom took up lamentation, and she that sat in the marriage chamber was in heaviness,'' (1 Maccabees 1:27)
"Thus they shed innocent blood on every side of the sanctuary, and defiled it:'' (1 Maccabees 1:37)
"And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:'' (1 Maccabees 1:46)
"And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death.'' (1 Maccabees 1:57)
"For thy sanctuary is trodden down and profaned, and thy priests are in heaviness, and brought low.'' (1 Maccabees 3:51)
"And they called upon the Lord, that he would look upon the people that was trodden down of all; and also pity the temple profaned of ungodly men;'' (2 Maccabees 8:2)
and by burning it in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus; see Psa 74:7, and the church, which is the holy temple of God, has been defiled by antichrist sitting in it, and showing himself there as if he was God, by his dreadful blasphemies, idolatrous worship, and false doctrines, Th2 2:4,
they have laid Jerusalem on heaps; the walls and buildings being pulled down, and made a heap of stones and rubbish: in the times of Antiochus and of the Maccabees, it was set on fire, and the houses and the walls pulled down on every side, and was greatly defaced, and threatened to be laid level with the ground, as in the Apocrypha:
"And when he had taken the spoils of the city, he set it on fire, and pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side.'' (1 Maccabees 1:31)
"And that he would have compassion upon the city, sore defaced, and ready to be made even with the ground; and hear the blood that cried unto him,'' (2 Maccabees 8:3)
"That the holy city (to the which he was going in haste to lay it even with the ground, and to make it a common buryingplace,) he would set at liberty:'' (2 Maccabees 9:14)
and this was thoroughly done in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, when the city was broke up and burnt with fire, and laid utterly desolate; so the Targum renders the word for "desolation"; it sometimes signifies a grave; see Job 30:24, and the sense may be here, that the city of Jerusalem was made graves to many; and multitudes were buried under the ruins of it. Aben Ezra interprets it, low places which were dug to find hidden things; the Septuagint translate it "a watch", or cottage "for apple orchards", and so the versions that follow it; signifying to what a low condition the city was reduced. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret the word as we do, "heaps": this, as it is true of Jerusalem, which has been trodden under foot by the Gentiles, and remains so to this day, Luk 21:24, so likewise of mystical Jerusalem, the holy city, given to the Gentiles or Papists, to be trodden down for the space of forty and two months, the exact time of the reign of antichrist, Rev 11:2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain This psalm seems to have been written by the…
This psalm seems to have been written by the later Asaph, upon the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. It contains, a representation of the deplorable condition of the Jews, ver. 1-5. And a petition for deliverance, ver. 6-13. A psalm of Asaph.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The psalmist complains of the cruelty of his enemies…
PSALM LXXIX
The psalmist complains of the cruelty of his enemies and the
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desolations of Jerusalem, and prays against them, 1-7.
He prays for the pardon and restoration of his people, and
promises gratitude and obedience, 8-13.
NOTES ON PSALM LXXIX
The title, A Psalm of Asaph, must be understood as either applying to a person of the name of Asaph who lived under the captivity; or else to the family of Asaph; or to a band of singers still bearing the name of that Asaph who flourished in the days of David; for most undoubtedly the Psalm was composed during the Babylonish captivity, when the city of Jerusalem lay in heaps, the temple was defiled, and the people were in a state of captivity. David could not be its author. Some think it was composed by Jeremiah; and it is certain that the sixth and seventh verses are exactly the same with Jer 10:25: "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him; and have made his habitation desolate."
Verse 1. The heathen are come into thine inheritance] Thou didst cast them out, and take thy people in; they have cast us out, and now taken possession of the land that belongs to thee. They have defiled the temple, and reduced Jerusalem to a heap of ruins; and made a general slaughter of thy people.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 79:1. O God, the heathen are come —…
Psa 79:1. O God, the heathen are come — As invaders and conquerors; into thine inheritance — Into Canaan and Judea, which thou didst choose for thine inheritance. Thy holy temple have they defiled — By entering into it, and touching and carrying away its holy vessels, and shedding blood in it, and burning of it; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps — Made of the ruins of those goodly houses which they have burned and thrown down. Thus, in this verse, the psalmist enumerates three deplorable calamities which were come upon God’s people: “the alienation of God’s inheritance, the profanation of his sanctuary, and the desolation of the beloved city.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance…
O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance - The nations; a foreign people. See Psa 2:1, note; Psa 2:8; note; Psa 78:55, note. The term is one that would be applicable to the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, and the probable allusion here is to their invasion of the holy land under Nebuchadnezzar. 2Ch 36:17-21.
Thy holy temple have they defiled - They have polluted it. By entering it; by removing the sacred furniture; by cutting down the carved work; by making it desolate. See 2Ch 36:17-18. Compare the notes at Psa 74:5-7.
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They have laid Jerusalem on heaps - See 2Ch 36:19 : “And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Psalms 79
Psalms 79
A Psalm of Asaph
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1 O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance;
Thy holy temple have they defiled;
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
2 The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven,
The flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
3 Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem;
And there was none to bury them.
4 We are become a reproach to our neighbours,
A scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
5 How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry forever?
Shall thy jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee,
And upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob,
And laid waste his dwelling-place.
8 O remember not against us former iniquities:
Let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us;
For we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name:
And deliver us and purge away our sins,
For thy name’s sake.
10 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?
Let him be known among the heathen in our sight
By the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.
11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee;
According to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;
12 And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom
Their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.
13 So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture
Will give thee thanks forever:
We will show forth thy praise to all generations.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Contents and Composition.—The Psalm begins by a complaint addressed to God, that Jerusalem has been destroyed amidst the profanation of the Temple, and the pouring out of the blood of His servants (Psa_79:1-4). Upon this there follows, based upon the question as to how long God’s anger was to continue, a prayer that this wrath might be turned against the heathen (5–7). This prayer then takes the form of a supplication for God’s favor and aid (8, 9), that He would avenge upon the heathen the dishonor which they had inflicted upon His name and His servants (10–12), and passes over into a vow that the Church shall offer up to Him thanksgiving to the praise of His glory (13). The points of resemblance to Psalms 74, and to Jeremiah, are so numerous that they have always been the subject of remark. This Psalm is, however, usually (Delitzsch in his last edition also), connected with the devastations in the times of the Seleucidæ, regarded either as a prophecy (many of the old commentators) or as recording actual events (most of the moderns since Rudinger). But against this there is especially the circumstance that in the first book of Maccabees already translated from the Hebrew, the massacre described in chap. 7 Psalm 79:17, is regarded as a fulfilment of a passage of Scripture, and that Psa_79:2-3 of our Psalm are cited as the passage in question. For the objections to the force of this circumstance, see Ehrt, Abfassungszeit und Abschluss des Psalters, 1869, pp. 13 ff. The desecration mentioned is not indeed to be directly taken as a process of destruction (Hengstenberg, Hupfeld) and yet Eze_25:3 does not exclude the latter. But just as in Psa_74:7 the emphasis is laid upon the profanation on account of the religious feelings of the Israelites. The circumstance, however, that Psa_79:6-7 stand in manifest dependence upon Jer_10:25 must be admitted not to be against a composition in the Chaldean period. [English commentators usually favor the earlier composition. Perowne is as undecided in this case as he is with regard to Psalms 74. Yet he says: “It has not, I believe, been noticed, and yet it appears to me almost certain that the prayer of Daniel (Psa_9:16), contains allusions to the language of this Psalm.”—J. F. M.] The Jews read Psalms 79, 137 on the 9th of Abib, the day on which they call to remembrance the Chaldean and Roman destructions of Jerusalem.
Psa_79:1. Inheritance usually means the holy people,Psa_74:2; Psa_78:64; Psa_78:71, but here as in Exo_15:17 it means the Holy Land, including the City and Temple. The circumstance that the corpses were not buried, is not merely mentioned on account of their great numbers, but also on account of the disgrace connected with such an indignity, in accordance with Deu_28:26. This was still further heightened by the circumstance that it was the heathen who were pouring out the blood of God’s servants like water (Deu_15:23), as though it were worthless and unworthy of regard, and that they were blaspheming the name of God, whom they did not know, by deriding Him as impotent, since they had laid in ruins the city which was known as His dwelling-place (Mic_3:12; Jer_26:18).
Psa_79:7 f. Instead of the scarcely tolerable singular אָכַל between unmistakable plurals, 16 codices of Kennicott, and 9 of De Rossi, have the plural אָֽכְלוּ, which is also found in Jer_10:25. Is the singular a mutilation? Or are the enemy thus intentionally made prominent as a collective? However this may be, nothing decisive as to the priority of the passages can be inferred from this difference. This difference consists in these points: (1) in Jer_10:25, the עַל which alone agrees with the construction, is here replaced by אֶל. (2). The prayer for vengeance in Jeremiah is more clearly united to the context, and in a connection of thought which is found also in Jer_30:11; Jer_46:28. In Psa_79:7 b it is not the sanctuary (Targ.) that is referred to, nor the place generally (Sept., Vulg.) nor the pasture specially (J. H. Michaelis and others), but the resting-places of the Shepherd with an allusion to the name “flock” of God applied to Israel in Psa_79:13. In Psa_79:8 mention is not made of former sins (the ancient translators, Luther, Geier), nor the sins of former days (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, as an alternative) but of the sins of the forefathers (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, J H. Michaelis, and the recent expositors), Jer_11:10; Exo_20:5; Lev_26:39. It is a genitive of possession. The masculine adjective termination could not agree with the feminine noun. Their own sins are not thereby denied, for in Psa_79:9 they are, expressly mentioned. But the weakening mentioned in Psa_79:8 c is not moral deterioration consequent upon guilt (Aben Ezra) but want of physical ability to rise from their defeat. The preventing mercy, Psa_79:8 b, was implored for the help of those who confessed that their punishment was deserved.
Psa_79:10 ff. The first stich of Psa_79:10 is taken literally from Joe_2:17, after Exo_32:12; Num_14:13 f.; Deu_9:28. The wish expressed in the following verse is based upon Deu_32:43; the seven-fold retribution upon Gen_4:15; Gen_4:24 as the “exhaustion of judicial punishment, seven being the number of the completed process” (Delitzsch). Instead of the expression, “children of death,” 1Sa_20:31; 1Sa_26:16, there are used here the words: children of slaughter (Hitzig); not: children of one who dies=the dying (Hengstenberg).2—[E. V., Those who are appointed to die].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. It is, as it were, “an inversion of the order of nature” (Calvin) when God’s inheritance falls into the power of the heathen, and when men who know not God, nor honor His name, tread under foot the sanctuary devoted to His worship and profane it, make the city of God a heap of stones (Sept. wrongly: “a lodge of the garden-watcher,” comp. Isa_1:8), and give over to dishonor and death its inhabitants, who have been called to life and to a participation in the Divine glory.
2. In such appalling calamities we are to recognize the avenging wrath of God, in which the sins of the fathers are punished together with the sins of the children. For the sins of the forefathers are visited (2Ki_23:26; Lam_5:7) not upon their innocent descendants (Deu_24:16; 2Ki_14:6) but upon those who are guilty like themselves (Exo_20:5). The destruction which ever keeps increasing by united transgressions, breaks forth at last, and makes it manifest that only a heaping up of wrath for the day of judgment is to be expected by those who will not be led to repentance by God’s patience, long-suffering, and goodness.
3. Yet in this there is included also the possibility of a change of destiny. For God does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live. The infliction of His judgment upon His people has for its ultimate aim not their destruction, but their purification, that they may be saved. His punishments are to be a chastisement for them for righteousness. If they were regarded and received as such by the Church, then they would lead to confession of common and personal guilt and sinfulness; and likewise to a search after and apprehension of the mercy which comes forth to meet them. But those whose part is to aid in the execution of God’s judgment, and yet have neither known Him nor honored His name, nor spared His people, will be condemned to taste, in its unrestrained intensity and fulness, that wrath, whose blind instruments they had chosen to become (Jer_10:24; Jer_30:11; Jer_46:28).
[Hengstenberg: The people of God have, in every time of need, the joyful privilege of discerning in former deliverances the pledges of those yet to come, and thus possess a sure ground of confidence. The world, when it prays, prays only tentatively, and is dissevered entirely from the lessons of history.—J. F. M.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
God does not desire the destruction, but the return and deliverance of His people, when He visits them with the punishment of His wrath.—No one need presume to feel secure on account of mercy before received: yet none need doubt its reality on account of his sin.—The punishment which attends sin, and the mercy that comes forth to meet the repenting.—If the judgment upon the house of God is already so awful, how will it be with the unconverted world?—It makes a great difference whether we desire to avenge ourselves and our sufferings, or whether we are concerned for God’s honor and the sanctifying of His name.—When our own sins and those of others conspire together, then there comes a deep and awful fall.—The sins of our forefathers may indeed increase our misfortunes, but they cannot lessen our own guilt.—It is true that God is the Shepherd of His people, but it is for this very reason that He needs not only the staff of comfort, but that of pain.—God will not be contemned, either by friend or foe.
Starke: The primary source of all wars is God’s anger.—The heavier the thunder and the greater the storm, the sooner are they over.—The pious deplore the sins of their fathers, as well as of their cotemporaries.—It is no good sign when God allows the number of the pious and upright to decrease. Over such a place His judgments are surely impending.—It would be a foolish thing to expect mercy and help from God and yet not to become converted; but it would be presumptuous to make boast of a conversion by one’s own strength, without the preventing mercy of God.
Arndt: The corruption and adulteration of the true service of God is the great calamity of the country, and the beginning of all misfortune.—Frisch: Supplication against the cruel persecutors of God’s Church: (1) Lamentation over the woes inflicted by the cruelty of her enemies: (2) earnest prayer to God for mercy and the turning away of the punishment, that He may hear, and help, and take vengeance upon those enemies; (3) promise of the gratitude that is due.—Renschel: The Church of God, though it has been already sorely troubled, yet remains His people, His servant, His flock, and his inheritance.—Rieger: The distressing circumstances of our Church proclaim to ourselves, that nothing but judgment is before us, and that in no other way can room be made for what is good. Let us therefore continue ever to know God’s name, and to exercise the joyful privilege of keeping it before Him.—Vaihinger: Sins are a dam which obstruct the flow of God’s river of mercy, and only when that is cleared away can His help and blessing be made to appear.—Guenther: The prayers of the righteous can turn away God’s anger from them like a stream of water, and cause it to pour forth upon the ungodly. But understand it well; it is the prayers of the humble and peaceable, not the imprecations of the revengeful and presumptuous.—Diedrich: Let this be our consolation, that after our enemies have done with us they have still to do with God.—Taube: The cry for help is natural for us in distress, but not the shriek for mercy; this is the reason why so many acts of God in behalf of the sinner are received without a blessing.—The Lord, who is the God of our salvation, has given, in the honor of His name, the strongest weapon into the very hands of His people.
Footnotes:
[2][Both of these explanations of תְּמוּתָה appear to me to be wrong, and the common rendering “death” to be correct. The former meaning is entirely without a parallel in similar cases in the formation of nouns. That given by Hengst. supposes that the word is formed from the 3d sing. fem. pl. This arbitrary method of assuming a distinct principle of formation for each special case is not to be recommended. It may be taken as a rule that words of this form are abstracts, and this will, I believe, be found to be true of all the cases when their primary significations are considered. Alexander here compares מוּת and תּמוּתָה to mors and mortalitas, agreeing with E. V. see Green, Heb. Gr., § 192, 2, Ewald, Heb. Gr., § 161 a.—J. F. M.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. O God, the heathen are come into thine…
1. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance—True to his Hebrew heart, the religious aspects of the desolation first meet his eye. The phrase, “The heathen are come into thine inheritance,” means, they have possessed themselves of what belonged to God, namely, the land and the people of the covenant. This unveiled at once the greatness of their calamity, the severest point of which was, they had defiled the temple of his holiness—a desecration implying utter demolition. as in Psa_74:7.
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps—Instead of the idea of waste masses thrown together, the Septuagint reads, “They have made Jerusalem a storehouse of fruits;” and the Vulgate has followed, in pomorum custodian: as if the idea were, that of heaps of guarded commissary stores. But this, says Furst, is by an incorrect reading of the Hebrew.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. Cp. Jer_51:51; Lam_1:10; and for the desecration of…
1. Cp. Jer_51:51; Lam_1:10; and for the desecration of the Temple cp. Psa_74:7; Eze_7:21-22.
the heathen] Lit. as in Psa_79:6; Psa_79:10, the nations: but where, as here, the nations are in antagonism to God and His people, the rendering heathen may be retained. thine inheritance] Here of the holy land (cp. Exo_15:17): more commonly of the people (Psa_74:2; Psa_78:62; Psa_78:71).
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on heaps] I.e. in ruins: perhaps an allusion to the prophecy of Micah (Mic_3:12; cp. Jer_26:18). For the archaic use of ‘on,’ Wright (Bible Word-Book, p. 436) quotes Shakespeare, Henry V, v. 2. 39;
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps.
1–4. The Psalmist tells his grief to God: His land is overrun by heathen, His temple is desecrated, His city is in ruins, His people are slaughtered, the survivors are the scorn of their neighbours.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Inheritance.—Probably intended to embrace both land and people.…
(1) Inheritance.—Probably intended to embrace both land and people. (Exo_15:17; Psa_74:2, &c.)
Heaps—i.e., ruins. (Comp. Mic_3:12; Jer_26:18; and in singular, Mic_1:6.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain THIS is "a psalm of complaint, closely parallel to…
THIS is "a psalm of complaint, closely parallel to Ps 74." (Cheyne), and must, like that psalm, be referred to the time of the Babylonian conquest (see above, p. 81). It shows us the Holy Land occupied by the heathen, the temple desecrated, Jerusalem laid in ruins, the special servants of God put to death, and the whole nation of the Israelites become an object of scorn and reproach to their neighbours (vers. 1-4). Some critics have supposed that it might have been written after the invasion of Shishak; but the condition of things is far worse than can be reasonably supposed to have been reached at that period. Others incline to assign it to the age of the Maccabees; but Jerusalem was not then destroyed, much less "laid on heaps" (ver. 1). Hence the general voice of commentators is in favour of the date here advocated.
The psalm consists of four strophes of four verses each, together with an epilogue consisting of one verse only. In vers. 1-4 the situation is described. In vers. 5-8 and vers. 9-12 prayer is made to God for deliverance, and for vengeance upon the cruel enemy. Ver. 13 is an expression of confidence in God, and a promise of perpetual thankfulness.
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O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. (comp. Psa_74:2 Psa_78:62) Israel alike the people and the land is "God"s inheritance." Thy holy temple have they defiled. The Babylonians defiled the temple by breaking into it, seizing its treasures and ornaments, (Jer_52:17-23) and finally setting fire to it. (Jer_52:13) They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. This was certainly not done either by Shishak or by Antiochus Epiphanes; but was done, as prophesied, (Jer_9:11 Jer_26:18 Mic_3:12) by the Babylonians.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY Vers. 1-13. An imprecatory psalm.
We need not be at pains to fix the date of this psalm, whether it belongs to the period of the Exile or of Antiochus Epiphanes. The words to some extent suit either. But we note in it
I WHAT IS RIGHT FOR EVERY ONE. The writer is in sore trouble, but he takes his trouble to God. One purpose of all such trouble has already been won the heart has been brought nearer God.
II WHAT WAS NATURAL AND NOT WRONG FOR ISRAEL, BUT WOULD BE VERY WRONG FOR US. We refer especially to the vengeful utterances which we find in vers. 6, 10, 12, 13. Now, concerning them we note:
1. That there are very many such in the Psalms. The comminatory, and especially the imprecatory psalms, have ever been a stumbling block to Christian readers. But there they are, and we cannot get rid of them.
2. They are very natural. The spirit of resentment and revenge is a definite part of human nature; it may manifest itself in varied forms, more or less barbaric, according to the degree of civilization which has been reached, but it exists in all.
3. And in Israel of old it was not wrong. For it must ever be remembered that to them no revelation of the future life, still less of the future judgment, had been given. Had there been any Scripture plainly teaching this doctrine which Christians know so well from the New Testament, our Lord, in showing to the Sadducees who believed no such doctrine, would not have appealed to a text which, unless he had told us so, we should never have regarded as teaching that doctrine at all. Before our Lord so explained it, it had not been recognized that the oft-repeated words, "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac," etc., involved the truth of the future life. But there was no more evident text, or it would have been appealed to. Hence, and for many other reasons, we conclude that the truth of the future life and immortality, still less of judgment to come, had not been brought to light when these psalms were written. If this were so, then such as the psalmist could only vindicate the righteousness of God by appealing to his visible acts of judgment and retribution here and now. Were they not seen, who would believe in a righteous God at all? Hence was it that so often, and so prominently, not to say so fiercely, the ancient psalmists and prophets appealed to God as in this psalm. Had they known what we do, there would have been no such appeals made. It was not mere personal revenge or national hate, but jealousy for the honour of God"s Name, and therefore we say that, however wrong such sentiments would be for us, in them they were not wrong.
4. But for us they would be wrong, being altogether opposed to the Spirit of Christ.
5. All this does not condemn either national or personal self-defence.
III HOW WE MAY LAWFULLY ADOPT FOR OURSELVES THIS WHOLE PSALM AND ALL SUCH PSALMS. By turning all these prayers for the destruction of enemies against the hosts of spiritual wickedness, "the gates of hell" which do sore assail, and seek to prevail over the people of God. They are the heathen, the defilers, the destroyers, the shedders of blood, the mockers, the oppressors. Not against our fellow men, but against them, we may and should thus pray. The devil and his angels are no mere myth or superstition, but terrible realities, and every faithful soul knows sadly well their cruel tyranny, and seemingly invincible might. S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1-4. Times of persecution.
Such times have been repeated over and over again. They must be recognized as parts of the Divine administration, and we must inquire how they are made to bear on the spiritual interests of God"s Church in the world. They are not merely historical incidents. They are not merely isolated calamities. They are only seen and apprehended aright when they are seen to be Divine permissions, and even taken up and used for high moral ends by Divine power. They are one form in which God"s Church is disciplined, and, through discipline, perfected. Illustrate from the Book of Revelation, which deals so largely with the persecution of Christ"s Church, but shows us the Church being sanctified through its tribulation. Illustrative cases of persecution may be taken from
(1) Old Testament history; e.g. the times of Jezebel.
(2) New Testament history; e.g. the time succeeding Stephen"s martyrdom.
(3) Early Church history; e.g. the persecution under Diocletian.
(4) Middle Age history: give some account of the work of the Inquisition in Spain.
(5) Modern Age history: see the persecution of the native Christians in Madagascar, under the Queen Ranavalona.
The historical associations of this psalm with the seventy-fourth, which is singularly like it, cannot be certainly assured. It is generally agreed that it must refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, or to the sack of the city by Antiochus Epiphanes. If the latter is referred to, we must recognize that some of the psalms belong to the Maccabean period. The details of these two sieges may be given, and the psalm treated as helping us to realize the misery and distress of God"s people at such a time. The points which may be opened out profitably are these:
1. Judgments on the wicked bring disabilities on the righteous. The invasion of Nebuchadnezzar was a distinct Divine judgment on the Israelite nation. The Babylonians did but execute the Divine judgment, as Israel itself had, in previous ages, executed the Divine judgments on the Canaanites. Sometimes God was pleased to spare the few faithful ones, as in the case of Noah; the prophets preserved by Obadiah; and the Christians at the Roman siege of Jerusalem. But usually the judgments affected the pious and the wicked; and the attitude of the pious under the judgment became an appeal and an example. It should, however, be noticed that judgments on the wicked are only chastisements to the righteous.
2. The trouble of the righteous is the insult offered to God, rather than the damage done to themselves. Here the defiling of God"s temple is the chief complaint. This better suits an association with Antiochus Epiphanes. In all times of public calamity, the good man is chiefly concerned about God"s honour, as Joshua was when he cried, "What wilt thou do unto thy great Name?" Such concern for God"s honour is one of the surest signs of right heartedness. R.T.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-13. Prayer for deliverance from suffering.
"Written in a time of the deepest distress; the city is desolate and the whole nation oppressed by the cruel thraldom of their heathen oppressors. They are apparently deserted by God, and their bitterness enhanced by the feeling that God was exacting from them the penalty for the iniquity of their forefathers.
I SUFFERING.
1. God"s Church seemed in danger of being entirely overthrown. (Vers. 15) Nothing causes profounder sadness to good men than the apparent triumph of the cause of unrighteousness and injustice.
2. This seemed a retributive penalty for the sins of themselves and their forefathers. (Ver. 8) Nothing aggravates our sufferings so much as the knowledge that we, and those connected with us, have been the real causes of them; that they are Divine punishments.
II THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 8, 9, 12) Contains three pleas.
1. Their own misery. "We are brought very low;" we are come to great misery (vers. 8, 12). It is the cry for mercy to a compassionate Father; and God has taught us to make this appeal.
2. For the sake of God"s own Name. His Name or nature is that he is the God of salvation, and that for his own sake, as well as for the sake of his guilty sons and daughters, he will, deliver. It is his nature to help and save; his glory is his goodness, as we are taught in Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7. But this is more wonderfully brought out in the incarnation and the life and death of Christ. God"s Name or nature is love.
3. Because of their close relation to God. (Ver. 13) They are his people, nourished and cared for and led by him. The Lord will not abandon those that are so closely related to him. "The Lord is my Shepherd; therefore I shall not want." Christ, as the good Shepherd, is his Representative. S.
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Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Title and Subject. A Psalm of Asaph. A Psalm…
Title and Subject. A Psalm of Asaph. A Psalm of complaint such as Jeremiah might have written amid the ruins of the beloved city. It evidently treats of times of invasion, oppression, and national overthrow. Asaph was a patriotic poet, and was never more at home than when he rehearsed the history of his nation. Would to God that we had national poets whose song should be of the Lord.
Division. From Ps 79:1-4 the complaint is poured out, from Ps 79:5-12 prayer is presented, and, in the closing verse, praise is promised.
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Ver. 1. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. It is the cry of amazement at sacrilegious intrusion; as if the poet were struck with horror. The stranger pollutes thine hallowed courts with his tread. All Canaan is thy land, but thy foes have ravaged it.
Thy holy temple have they defiled. Into the inmost sanctuary they have profanely forced their way, and there behaved themselves arrogantly. Thus, the holy land, the holy house, and the holy city, were all polluted by the uncircumcised. It is an awful thing when wicked men are found in the church and numbered with her ministry. Then are the tares sown with the wheat, and the poisoned gourds cast into the pot.
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. After devouring and defiling, they have come to destroying, and have done their work with a cruel completeness. Jerusalem, the beloved city, the joy of the nation, the abode of her God, was totally wrecked. Alas! alas! for Israel! It is sad to see the foe in our own house, but worse to meet him in the house of God; they strike hardest who smite at our religion. The psalmist piles up the agony; he was a suppliant, and he knew how to bring out the strong points of his case. We ought to order our case before the Lord with as much care as if our success depended on our pleading. Men in earthly courts use all their powers to obtain their ends, and so also should we state our case with earnestness, and bring forth our strong arguments.
Whole Psalm. This Psalm is, in every respect, the pendant of Psalm 74. The points of contact are not merely matters of style (Ps 79:5, "how long for ever?" with Ps 74:1, 10 79:10, edwy, with Ps 74:5 79:2, the giving over to the wild beasts, with Ps 74:19, 14 79:13, the conception of Israel as of a flock, in which respect Psalm 79 is judiciously appended to Ps 78:70-72, with Ps 74:1 and also with Ps 74:19.) But the mutual relationships lie still deeper. Both Psalms have the same Asaphic stamp, both stand in the same relation to Jeremiah, and both send forth their complaints out of the same circumstances of the time, concerning a destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, such as only the age of the Seleucidae (1 Maccabees 1:31 3:45 2 Maccabees 8:3), together with the Chaldean period can exhibit, and in conjunction with a defiling of the Temple and a massacre of the servants of God, of the Chasidim (1 Maccabees 7:13 14:6), such as the age of the Seleucidae exclusively can exhibit. The work of the destruction of the Temple which was in progress in Ps 74:1-23, appears in Ps 79:1-13 as completed, and here, as in the former Psalm, one receives the impression of the outrages, not of some war, but of some persecution: it is straightway the religion of Israel for the sake of which the sanctuaries are destroyed and the faithful are massacred. Franz Delitzsch.
Ver. 1. Thy holy temple have they defiled. This was not only the highest degree of the enemy's inhumanity and barbarity, ...but also a calamity to the people of God never to be sufficiently deplored. For by the overthrow of the temple the true worship of God, which had been instituted at that temple alone, appeared to be extinguished, and the knowledge of God to vanish from among mankind. No pious heart could ponder this without the greatest grief. Mollerus.
Ver. 1. They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. They have made Jerusalem to be nothing but graves. Such multitudes were cruelly slain and murdered, that Jerusalem was, as it were, but one grave. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 1-4. In the time of the Maccabees, Demetrius, the son of Seleuces, sent Bacchides to Jerusalem; who slew the scribes, who came to require justice, and the Assideans, the first of the children of Israel who sought peace of them. Bacchides "took of them threescore men, and slew them in one day, according to the words which he wrote, the flesh of thy saints have they cast out, and their blood have they shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them." And in that last and most fearful destruction, when the eagles of Rome were gathered round the doomed city, and the temple of which God had said, "Let us depart hence; "when one stone was not to be left upon another, when the fire was to consume the sanctuary, and the foundations of Sion were to be ploughed up; when Jerusalem was to be filled with slain, and the sons of Judah were to be crucified round her walls in such thick multitudes that no more room was left for death; when insult, and shame, and scorn was the lot of the child of Israel, as he wandered an outcast, a fugitive in all lands; when all these bitter and deadly things came upon Jerusalem, it was as a punishment for many and long repeated crimes; it was the accomplishment of a warning which had been often sent in vain. Yea, fiercely did thy foes assault thee, O Jerusalem, but thy sins more fiercely still! "Plain Commentary."
Ver. 1,4-5. Entering the inhabited part of the old city, and winding through some crooked, filthy lanes, I suddenly found myself on turning a sharp corner, in a spot of singular interest; the "Jews' place of Wailing." It is a small paved quadrangle; on one side are the backs of low modern houses, without door or window; on the other is the lofty wall of the Haram, of recent date above, but having below five courses of bevelled stones in a perfect state of preservation. Here the Jews are permitted to approach the sacred enclosure, and wail over the fallen temple, whose very dust is dear to them, and in whose stones they still take pleasure. Ps 102:14. It was Friday, and a crowd of miserable devotees had assembled--men and women of all ages and all nations dressed in the quaint costumes of every country of Europe and Asia. Old men were there, --pale, haggard, careworn men tottering on pilgrim staves; and little girls with white faces, and lustrous black eyes, gazing wistfully now at their parents, now at the old wall. Some were on their knees, chanting mournfully from a book of Hebrew prayers, swaying their bodies to and fro; some were prostrate on the ground, pressing forehead and lips to the earth; some were close to the wall, burying their faces in the rents and crannies of the old stones; some were kissing them, some had their arms spread out as if they would clasp them to their bosoms, some were bathing them with tears, and all the while sobbing as if their hearts would burst. It was a sad and touching spectacle. Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their hearts' affections, or deadened their feelings of devotion. Here we see them assembled from the ends of the earth, poor, despised, down trodden outcasts, --amid the desolations of their fatherland, beside the dishonoured ruins of their ancient sanctuary, --chanting now in accents of deep pathos, and now of wild woe, the prophetic words of their own psalmist, --O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled...We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry for ever? J. L. Porter, in "The Giant Cities of Bashan." 1865.
None.
"Prodromus, or the Literal Destruction of Jerusalem as it is described in the 79th Psalm...1613" (By JOHN DUNSTER.)
Psalms 79:2*
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 79:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 79:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-4. See Psalms on "Ps 79:1" for further information.
Ver. 1, 4-5. See Psalms on "Ps 79:1" for further information.
Ver. 1, 4-5. See Psalms on "Ps 79:1" for further information.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance.
Psa_79:1-13
O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance.
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The inhumanity of man and the mixture of good and evil
I. Here is a fact revealing the inhumanity of man and the permissive government of God.
1. What inhumanity is here! (Psa_79:1-3).
(1) It is opposed to our a priori ideas of God, as a Being of infinite love.
(2) It is repugnant to that moral sense that is implanted in every man.
2. What Divine permission is hotel Why does the Almighty allow such enormities to occur?
(1) Perhaps because of the respect He has for that liberty of action with which He has endowed mankind.
(2) Because of the existence of that state of retribution which He has appointed to succeed the present life.
II. Here is a prayer revealing the mixture of good and evil in human piety.
1. Mark the good that is in this prayer (verses 8, 9, 11). In these sentences there is--
(1) A prayer to be delivered from the iniquities of froward men, that is, the bad influence of their sinful lives.
(2) A prayer that Heaven would vouchsafe His compassion to us. Let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us; which means, hasten to meet us with Thy mercy.
(3) A prayer for these of our fellow-men who are in distress. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee. All these aspirations command our admiration and are worthy of our imitation.
2. Mark the evil that is in this prayer (verses 6, 10, 12). In all these clauses there is the hot flame of revenge, and this certainly is an evil. (Homilist.)
Good men Gods inheritance
Good men are here, as in many other places in the Bible, spoken of as the inheritance of God. They are His property, His portion.
I. He has no property to which He has a stronger right. Whilst good men are His, as all things are His in the universe, by creation, they are His also--
1. By special restoration. They were lost as slaves, aye, as prisoners condemned to death are lost; but He redeemed them by a stupendous sacrifice. Ye are not your own, etc.
2. By voluntary consecration. They have given themselves up to Him, body, soul, and spirit, which they felt to be their reasonable service. This is the one constant act of religion.
II. He has no property that is more valuable.
1. A soul is more valuable in itself than the material universe. A soul can think upon its Creator and love Him, can alter its course, can change its orbit, but matter cannot.
2. A soul is more serviceable to its Owner than the material universe.
(1) It gives Him a higher revelation. There is more of God seen in one soul than in all the orbs of immensity.
(2) It renders Him a higher homage--of free-thought, conscience, heart, life. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Psalms 79
Psalms 79
THE same national agony which was the theme of Psalms 74, forced the sad strains of this psalm from the singers heart. There, the profanation of the Temple and here, the destruction of the city, are the more prominent. There, the dishonour to God; here, the distresses of His people, are set forth. Consequently, confession of sin is more appropriate here, and prayers for pardon blend with those for deliverance. But the tone of both psalms is the same, and there are similarities of expression which favour, though they do not demand, the hypothesis that the author is the same. Such similarities are the "how long" (Psa_74:10; Psa_79:5); the desecration of the Temple (Psa_74:3; Psa_74:7; Psa_79:1) the giving over to wild beasts (Psa_74:19; Psa_79:2); the reproach of God (Psa_74:10; Psa_74:18; Psa_74:22; Psa_79:12). The comparison of Israel to a flock is found in both psalms, but in others of the Asaph group also.
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The same remarks which were made as to the date of the former psalm apply in this case. Two arguments have, however, been urged against the Maccabean date. The first is that drawn from the occurrence of Psa_79:6-7, in Jer_10:25. It is contended that Jeremiah is in the habit of borrowing from earlier writers, that the verse immediately preceding that in question is quoted from Psa_6:1, and that the connection of the passage in the psalm is closer than in the prophet, and, therefore, that the words are presumably in situ here, as also that the verbal alterations are such as to suggest that the prophet rather than the psalmist is the adapter. But, on the other hand, Hupfeld maintains that the connection in Jeremiah is the closer. Not much weight can be attached to that point, for neither prophet nor poet can be tied down to cool concatenation of sentences. Delitzsch claims the verbal alterations as indubitable proofs of the priority of the prophet, and maintains that "the borrower betrays himself" by changing the prophets words into less accurate and elegant ones, and by omissions which impair "the soaring fulness of Jeremiahs expressions." The critics who hold that the psalm refers to the Chaldean invasion, and that Jeremiah has borrowed from it, have to face a formidable difficulty. The psalm must have been written after the catastrophe: the prophecy preceded it. How then can the prophet be quoting the psalm? The question has not been satisfactorily answered, nor is it likely to be.
A second argument against the Maccabean date is based upon the quotation of Psa_79:3 in RAPC 1Ma 7:16, which it introduces by the usual formula of quotation from Scripture. It is urged that a composition so recent as the psalm would be, if of Maccabean date, would not be likely to be thus referred to. But this argument confuses the date of occurrence recorded in 1 Maccabees with the date of the record; and there is no improbability in the writer of the book quoting as Scripture a psalm which had sprung from the midst of the tragedy which he narrates.
The strophical division is not perfectly clear, but it is probably best to recognise three strophes of four verses each, with an appended verse of conclusion. The first spreads before God His peoples miseries. The second and third are prayer for deliverance and confession of sin; but they differ, in that the former strophe dwells mainly upon the wished for destruction of the enemy, and the latter upon the rescue of Israel, while a subordinate diversity is that ancestral sins are confessed in the one, and those of the present generation in the other. Psa_79:13 stands out of the strophe scheme as a kind of epilogue.
The first strophe vividly describes the ghastly sights that wrung the psalmists heart, and will, as he trusts, move Gods to pity and help. The same thought as was expressed in Psalms 74 underlies the emphatic repetition of "Thy" in this strophe-namely, the implication of Gods fair name in His peoples disasters. "Thine inheritance" is invaded, and "Thy holy Temple" defiled by the "heathen." The corpses of "Thy servants" lie unburied, torn by vultures beaks and jackals claws. The blood of "Thy favoured Ones" saturates the ground. It was not easy to hold fast by the reality of Gods special relation to a nation thus apparently deserted, but the psalmists faith stood even such a strain, and is not dashed by a trace of doubt. Such times are the test and triumph of trust. If genuine, it will show brightest against the blackest background. The word in Psa_79:1 rendered "heathen" is usually translated "nations," but here evidently connotes idolatry (Psa_79:6). Their worship of strange gods, rather than their alien nationality, makes their invasion of Gods inheritance a tragic anomaly. The psalmist remembers the prophecy of Micah {Mic_3:12} that Jerusalem should become heaps, and sadly repeats it as fulfilled at last. As already noticed, Psa_79:3 is quoted in RAPC 1Ma 7:16,17, and Psa_79:4 is found in Psa_44:13, which is by many commentators referred to the Maccabean period.
The second strophe passes to direct petition, which, as it were, gives voice to the stiffened corpses strewing the streets, and the righteous blood crying from the ground. The psalmist goes straight to the cause of calamity-the anger of God-and, in the close of the strophe confesses the sins which had kindled it. Beneath the play of politics and the madness of Antiochus, he discerned Gods hand at work. He reiterates the fundamental lesson, which prophets were never weary of teaching, that national disasters are caused by the anger of God, which is excited by national sins. That conviction is the first element in his petitions. A second is the twin conviction that the "heathen" are used by God as His instrument of chastisement, but that, when they have done their work, they are called to account for the human passion-cruelty, lust of conquest, and the like-which impelled them to it. Even as they poured out the blood of Gods people, they have Gods wrath poured out on them, because "they have eaten up Jacob."
The same double point of view is frequently taken by the prophets: for example, in Isaiahs magnificent prophecy against "the Assyrian" (Isa_10:5 seq.), where the conqueror is first addressed as "the rod of Mine anger," and then his "punishment" is foretold, because, while executing Gods purpose, he had been unconscious of his mission, and had been gratifying his ambition. These two convictions go very deep into "the philosophy of history." Though modified in their application to modern states and politics, they are true in substance still. The Goths who swept down on Rome, the Arabs who crushed a corrupt Christianity, the French who stormed across Europe, were Gods scavengers, gathered vulture-like round carrion, but they were each responsible for their cruelty, and were punished "for the fruit of their stout hearts."
The closing verse of the strophe (Psa_79:8) is intimately connected with the next, which we take as beginning the third strophe; but this connection does not set aside the strophical division, though it somewhat obscures it. The distinction between the similar petitions of Psa_79:8-9, is sufficient to warrant our recognition of that division, even whilst acknowledging that the two parts coalesce more closely than usual. The psalmist knows that the heathen have been hurled against Israel because God is angry; and he knows that Gods anger is no arbitrarily kindled flame, but one lit and fed by Israels sins. He knows, too, that there is a fatal entail by which the iniquities of the fathers are visited on the children. Therefore, he asks first that these ancestral sins may not be "remembered," nor their consequences discharged on the childrens heads. "The evil that men do lives after them," and history affords abundant instances of the accumulated consequences of ancestors crimes lighting on descendants that had abandoned the ancient evil, and were possibly doing their best to redress it. Guilt is not transmitted, but results of wrong are; and it is one of the tragedies of history that "one soweth and another reapeth" the bitter fruit. Upon one generation may, and often does, come the blood of all the righteous men that many generations have slain. {Mat_23:35}
The last strophe (Psa_79:9-12) continues the strain begun in Psa_79:8, but with significant deepening into confession of the sins of the existing generation. The psalmist knows that the present disaster is no case of the fathers having eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth being set on edge, but that he and his contemporaries had repeated the fathers transgressions. The ground of his plea for cleansing and deliverance is the glory of Gods name, which he emphatically puts at the end of both clauses of Psa_79:9. He repeats the same thought in another form in the question of Psa_79:10, "Why should the heathen say, Where is their God?" If Israel, sinful though it is, and therefore meriting chastisement, is destroyed, there will be a blot on Gods name and the "heathen" will take it as proof, not that Israels God was just, but that He was too feeble or too far off to hear prayers or to send succours. It is bold faith which blends acknowledgment of sins with such a conviction of the inextricable intertwining of Gods glory and the sinners deliverance. Lowly confession is wonderfully wedded to confidence that seems almost too lofty. But the confidence is in its inmost core as lowly as the confession, for it disclaims all right to Gods help, and clasps His name as its only but sufficient plea.
The final strophe dwells more on the sufferings of the survivors than the earlier parts of the psalm do, and in this respect contrasts with Psalms 74, which is all but entirely silent as to these. Not only does the spilt blood of dead confessors cry for vengeance since they died for their faith, as "Thy servants," but the groans and sighs of the living who are captives, and "sons of death"-i.e., doomed to die, if unrescued by God-appeal to Him. The expressions "the groaning of the captive" and "the sons of death" occur in Psa_102:20, from which, if this is a composition of Maceabean date they are here quoted. The strophe ends with recurring to the central thought of both this and the companion psalm-the reproach on God from His servants calamities-and prays that the enemies taunts may be paid back into their bosoms sevenfold-i.e., in fullest measure.
The epilogue in Psa_79:13 has the image of a flock, so frequent in the Asaph psalms, suggesting tender thoughts of the shepherds care and of his obligations. Deliverance will evoke praise, and, instead of the sad succession of sin and suffering from generation to generation, the solidarity of the nation will be more happily expressed by ringing songs, transmitted from father to son, and gathering volume as they flow from age to age.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Superscription.—“A Psalm of Asaph. “See Introduction to Psalms 74.…
INTRODUCTION
Superscription.—“A Psalm of Asaph. “See Introduction to Psalms 74. Occasion.—This Psalm is closely related to the 74th, and both most probably refer to the devastation and desecration wrought by the Chaldeans.
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A SORROWFUL COMPLAINT, AN EARNEST PRAYER, AND A DEVOUT RESOLUTION
I. A sorrowful complaint. The Psalmist complains—
1. Of the devastation of Jerusalem, and especially of the desecration of the temple. “O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.” The reference is to the havoc wrought by Nebuchadnezzar and his army. The strongholds of the city were cast down; the palace of Solomon, the temple of God, with all its courts, its roofs of cedar and of gold, were levelled to the earth, or committed to the flames; the sacred vessels, the ark of the covenant itself, with the cherubim, were pillaged by profane hands. (See 2Ch_36:18-19.) Great, indeed, must have been the distress of those Jews who were religious and patriotic. Their distress must have been the more keen by reason of their knowledge that the heathen could never have laid Jerusalem in ruins and desecrated the temple of God, had not the chosen people themselves first desecrated that holy place. (See 2Ch_36:14-21.) Their continued pursuit of evil, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of God by His prophets, led Him to abandon them for a time to their foes.
2. Of the cruelties inflicted upon the people of God. “The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.” Here is a picture of wide-spread slaughter and misery. The words of the poet are a graphic commentary on the brief statement of the inspired chronicler. (See 2Ch_36:17.) The bloodshed was great and terrible. Men were slain without compunction, and their conquerors hastened away with their captives, leaving the dead bodies to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey.
3. Of the reproaches cast upon the people of God. “We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.” They were treated by surrounding peoples as unworthy of respect, and were derided by them as a people vanquished by their foes and forsaken by their God. They were conquered, were made captives, and in their subjection were despised and reproached. They had great reason for sorrowful complaint. Their sorest grief must have sprung from their knowledge of the fact that their own sins caused their sufferings. The intense sorrow of the pious and patriotic amongst them may be known by considering the plaintive mournings of the prophet Jeremiah. “Never did city suffer a more miserable fate, never was ruined city lamented in language so exquisitely pathetic.” Vide The Lamentations.
II. An earnest prayer. The Psalmist in his prayer—
1. Manifests a consciousness of the sins of the people. The inquiries, “Wilt Thou be angry for ever? Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire?” imply on the part of the inquirer the consciousness that there had been human provocations, that there had been a cause for God’s anger and jealousy. In the Scriptures, idolatry, of which they had been greatly guilty, is represented as spiritual adultery. God was not jealous without reason. And their manifold sins had aroused His anger against them. The Psalmist is right, God was angry with them on account of their sins, and their conquered and captive and suffering state was a sign of His anger.
2. Petitions God for various favours for His people. Here is a prayer for pardon. “O remember not against us the iniquities of them that were before us: and purge away our sins.” The effects of sin frequently descend from one generation to another. God declared Himself a “jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate” Him. As a matter of fact men do suffer in many ways from the sins of their ancestors. Prayer is here offered that God would remove from them the judgment of the sins of them that had gone before them; that they might not suffer by reason of them any more. Prayer is offered for the forgiveness of their own sins. “Purge away our sins.” Cleanse us from our transgressions, and from all impurity of soul. It is well when the soul in trouble cries out not for the removal of the suffering alone, but for the removal of the sin also. To those who sincerely seek Him, God is ever ready to grant pardon and purity. Here is a prayer for speedy help and deliverance. “Let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name; and deliver us for Thy name’s sake.” As sinners their hope is in the mercy of God. There is great beauty and force in the phrase, “tender mercies”. It comes from the religious heart, and appeals to the heart. To the tender mercy of the Lord His unworthy and afflicted people look for help. The captive Jews were beyond the aid of human resources. In man they could find no adequate assistance. So they directed their prayer to Him who is equal to the utmost need of His people, and who if He pleased could help them, and deliver them from their enemies. They prayed God to come quickly to their aid; that His “tender mercies” might “speedily prevent” them. Prevent does not signify hinder, but anticipate. “God’s mercy must anticipate, ‘come to meet,’ man’s necessity.” They felt that if God did not speedily interpose for them their utter ruin must be the result. Their salvation depended upon Him, and upon His prompt interposition on their behalf. Here is a prayer on behalf of the captive and the dying. “Let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee; according to the greatness of Thy power preserve Thou those that are appointed to die.” Whether the whole of the people are thus spoken of, or the terms “prisoner” and “appointed to die” are to be taken literally, cannot, we think, be determined. In either case there is an appeal made to the Divine compassion; that God would graciously regard “the sighing of those that are bound.” And to the Divine strength; that He would by the greatness of His energy save from death those who were appointed thereunto. Here is a prayer for judgment. “Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Thy name. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? Let Him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of Thy servants which is shed. And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom, wherewith They have reproached Thee, O Lord.” We are by no means sure that the spirit expressed in these petitions is a commendable one. The verses certainly require a great deal of explanation when viewed in the light of the teachings, life, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps, however, it is illogical and unfair to view them in that light. If the petitions in the text are simply a prayer for justice, then are they right, and such as may fitly be presented at the throne of grace. If the strong desire was that God would assert His own presence and power and glory before the heathen who said, “Where is their God?” then the desire is commendable. The time came when He did interpose in judgment. “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.”
3. Urges his petition with powerful pleas. On two grounds the Psalmist urges his prayer. He pleads the greatness and urgency of the people’s need. “We are brought very low.” Their affliction and helplessness was an appeal to His pity. Their numbers were diminished, their condition was deplorable; if He did not quickly come to their aid they would be utterly undone. He pleads the glory of the Divine name. “For the glory of Thy name; … for Thy name’s sake.” The idea is, that as they were His redeemed people, His professed people, His honour was involved in the question of their salvation or their destruction. There is no plea so mighty with God as that of His own honour, when it is sincerely urged. If He left them to perish, the heathen would say that He could not or would not save them. If He delivered them, the mockers would be silenced, and His name would be feared. In ancient time God had proclaimed His name to Moses, and there is in this plea, probably, an allusion to that proclamation. If so, there is an appeal to His faithfulness, that He would maintain that name.
III. A devout resolution. “So we Thy people and sheep of Thy pasture will give Thee thanks for ever: we will show forth Thy praise to all generations.” This is the language of—
1. Confidence. With assured faith they looked forward to the salvation of God. They anticipated deliverance and blessing.
2. Gratitude. With thankful hearts they would ascribe unto Him the praise and glory of their redemption. And they would transmit the story of His wondrous doings on their behalf to coming generations, that they also might praise Him.
3. Service. It is implied here that they would no more turn aside to idols or decline from His ways, but would serve Him with glad and grateful hearts.
CONCLUSION.—
1. Blessed are they who, having tasted that He is gracious, have not by sin exiled themselves from God’s favour and fellowship. Brethren, prize your blessedness. “Walk in the light, as He is in the light,” so shall your path be cheered by His presence and conduct you to His throne.
2. Let those who have departed from God return unto Him with earnest prayer and devout resolution. Your hope is in the tender mercy of the Lord. (See Jer_3:12; Jer_3:22.)
PROFANE INTRUDERS IN SACRED PLACES
(Psa_79:1.)
“The holy land, the holy house, and the holy city were all polluted by the uncircumcised.” We have in this an illustration of what is taking place in this day—
I. In Christian churches. The Church is God’s “inheritance.” “The Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” The Church is the abode of God, His “temple.” He dwells in it by His Spirit. Desecrating intruders have entered into it.
1. Ritualism. Forms, ceremonies, genuflexions, pictures, symbols, instead of the worship of God “in spirit and in truth.” Superstition instead of faith. Sacraments instead of the living, personal Saviour.
2. Rationalism. Human philosophies instead of the Gospel of Christ. Theories of self-culture instead of the regenerating and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.
3. Selfish religionism. The church is desecrated by men who are religious that they might escape a coarse, materialistic hell, and gain an inglorious and vulgar heaven. Their spiritual state is the very opposite of that expressed in Xavier’s beautiful hymn—
“My God, I love Thee, not because
I hope for heaven thereby;” &c.
But the spirit which should animate our churches is not that “of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” The Christian spirit is not self-seeking, but self-sacrificing.
II. In human spirits. The human spirit is the “inheritance” of God, which He has redeemed. “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price.” The human spirit is also the “temple” of God. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?” What intruders have defiled and desecrated this temple? Worldliness, carnality, selfishness, hatred, impurity, have defiled God’s holy temple. The human soul has too often resembled a “whited sepulchre” or “a cage of every unclean and hateful bird” rather than the dwelling place of God. Even amongst religious men there are some in whose soul a human formula or creed has usurped the place of God; they are theologians, not Christians. There are others in whose soul some ecclesiastical system has usurped the place of God; they are more devoted to “the church,” or to “our denomination,” or to “our body,” than to the Lord of all.
These desecrating intruders must be expelled from the Church, or they will lay it in ruins. These unholy spirits that have entered the human soul must be cast out, or that “temple of God” will become a “synagogue of Satan.”
On the contrast exhibited in this verse and Psa_78:55 of the preceding Psalm a useful discourse might be made. Subject,—What God does for man, and what man does for God. I. God casts out the heathen for His people, His people by their sins admit the heathen to destroy His city. II. God gave to His people an inheritance, His people suffer His inheritance to be invaded by foes. III. God provided dwelling-places for His people, His people defiled His dwelling-place, and allowed others to defile it also, &c. Or the contrast might be exhibited thus,—
I. God’s faithfulness, man’s unfaithfulness.
II. God’s goodness, man’s ingratitude.
III. God’s conquering power, man’s cowardly weakness, &c.
A MODEL PRAYER
(Psa_79:9.)
I. The Person addressed. “O God of our salvation.” “Our God, even when He is most severely angry, is not the God of destruction, but of salvation.”
1. God was their only Saviour. They were brought so very low as to be beyond the help of all others.
2. God was their sufficient Saviour. He who delivered their fathers from the Egyptians could deliver them from the Chaldeans.
II. The Prayer offered. Three requests they make to God.
1. For Pardon. “Purge away our sins.”
2. For Deliverance. “Deliver us” from our afflictions, from our enemies.
3. For Assistance. “Help us” to bear our troubles, to serve Thee in our lives.
III. The plea urged. “For the glory of Thy name, … for Thy name’s sake.” The honour of His name would be affected by His treatment of their prayer. If He did not deliver them, the heathen would say that He could not or would not help them. If He delivered them, the display of His mercy would excite admiration, the exhibition of His power would beget awe. His name would be feared. “The choicest mercies God’s people have are for His name’s sake: they have pardon of sin for His name’s sake” (Psa_25:11; 1Jn_2:12); “purging of sin for His name’s sake; leading in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psa_23:3); “quickening of their dead and dull hearts for His name’s sake” (Psa_143:11). “Though His people offend Him, yet He forsakes them not, for His great name’s sake.”
Let us ask for spiritual blessings of God, urging in faith this plea, and we shall receive, and our joy will be full.
THE AFFLICTIONS OF MAN AND THE HELP OF GOD
(Psa_79:11.)
The prisoners are those of the Hebrews who were in bondage and suffering. “Those that are appointed to die might apply to those who were condemned to death; or to those who were sick and in danger of death; or to those who were prisoners and captives, and who were, by their sufferings, exposed to death.”
I. The afflictions of man. “The prisoner, … those that are appointed to die.” To be a prisoner is to be deprived of light, of liberty, &c. How many and varied are the afflictions of man. The sighs and cries of the suffering are ever arising from our world.
“Each new morn
New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
Like syllable of dolour.”—Shakespeare.
II. The help of God. It is His “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” As a helper He is—
1. Quick to hear. The sigh of a prisoner in the dungeon reaches His ear in an instant.
2. Strong to save. “The greatness of Thy power.” His energy is more than equal to the extremest human need. And His tenderness is as great as His strength.
III. The connecting link between the two. Prayer is the means whereby suffering man obtains the help of God. Prayer implies in the suppliant felt need and faith in God. To the ear of God a sigh may be a devout and earnest prayer.
Let distressed and dying men direct their sighs to God and obtain relief.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain The plea against the invasion of the enemy.
The plea against the invasion of the enemy.
A psalm of Asaph.
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The seventy-ninth psalm is strikingly similar to the seventy-fourth; and these occupy the same position in their respective sections. The one is the second psalm of the first section, as the other is of the second. In both it is the invasion of the enemy that is the subject, and in both they have profaned the very sanctuary of God. But in the seventy-fourth this and the similar destruction of the places of assembly in the land are the whole topic, while here it is still more the slaughter of the people of God themselves. But both are before us, and we have evidently such a state of things as that in the last psalm, when God removed His tabernacle from Shiloh, and His people were oppressed and slaughtered by the Philistine foe. Here it is the time of the end, and the desolation is still worse, and plainly hopeless, save to God Himself. But the greater the distress the greater the remedy; and as in the former case God raised up David, it is now a greater than David that is to be their resource, as we have seen in the psalms that follow. In the present we have only their prayer, the pleading which shows the ground they are on in their souls with God, and what is effectual with Him. Essentially, this ground is always in Himself, and the utter break-up of self-confidence it is which gives us a bolder and more confident appeal to Him.
There are thirteen verses in the psalm; which is divided otherwise as a twelve-versed psalm would be; the additional verse finding its place in the first section.
1. We have first the occasion of their prayer, the case spread out before God. It concerns Him. The nations have invaded His inheritance, defiled His temple, laid Jerusalem in heaps. They have given the dead bodies of His servants as food to the birds and beasts of prey. No doubt their sins -and they own it to be so -have provoked the Lord to anger; but here are enemies to Himself who have come in to slaughter those who at least were His servants, worshipers of His, and "saints," sanctified by His Name upon them. Their blood has been shed like water round the city of peace, so that none was left to bury them. Yet thus they were left to appeal to God in the open sight of heaven, -the crime manifested, earth refusing to cover it (comp. Job 16:18; Eze 24:8). But so too was the reproach of their helplessness to those round about but without pity for them.
2. They now impute this rightly to Jehovah’s anger: but will it be, then, perpetual 2 These are aliens who disown Him altogether: will He not rather pour it out on these? these who have shown their hostility by devouring Jacob, and laying waste his habitation?
3. Thus for the glory of His Name they can appeal to Him to come in. They acknowledge the sins of their fathers and their own: but the glory of His Name still appeals for their salvation. The nations taunt Him as One not to be found in the day of need: let the avenging of the blood of His servants make Him known.
4. The last section pleads their helplessness. They are as prisoners shut up and under the death sentence: they plead that His mercy may give them life, and that He render seven-fold the reproach with which His adversaries have reproached Him. As His people, the sheep of His pasture, their thankful hearts, from generation to generation, shall show forth His praise.
The psalm is of the simplest character, and needs little labor to make it plain.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain For the occasion and date of this Ps. see…
For the occasion and date of this Ps. see intro. to Psalms 74. It gives a pathetic picture of the calamities that have fallen upon God's people (Psa_79:1-4), entreats God to withdraw His anger from them, to forgive their sins, and to avenge them on the heathen (Psa_79:5-12), that they may give Him perpetual praise (Psa_79:13).
1. Jerusalem on heaps] This is truer of the Babylonian captivity than of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
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6. Quoted from Jer_10:25.
8. Former iniquities] RV 'the iniquities of our forefathers,' which are regarded as justly punished by the present calamities. Prevent] in the Old English sense of 'go before,' anticipate our need.
9. Here as in Psalms 74 God's.regard for His own glory is the Psalmist's chief plea.
10b. RV'Let the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed be known among the heathen in our sight.'
11. The sighing of the prisoner] Some of the people had been carried into captivity.
12. The prayer for vengeance expresses a moral sentiment less advanced than that of the NT. It springs, however, not from mere personal or national vindictiveness, but from a sincere religious indignation at the dishonour done to God's name.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 79
Psalm 79
Lamentation and Prayer on Account of the Enemy
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1. The Enemy in Jerusalem (Psa 79:1-4)
2. How Long, Lord? (Psa 79:5-13)
Zion, the place He loves, mentioned in the preceding Psalm, is here prophetically seen in desolation. The nations have come into the inheritance, Jerusalem is become a heap of ruins, the temple is defiled. The dead bodies of His servants and His saints lie unburied, and the people are a reproach, a scorn and a derision. A similar prophecy we found in the Seventy-fourth Psalm, which should be compared with this Psalm. While Jerusalem and the temple has seen more than once such desolations, we must view these predicted calamities as being the final disaster which is yet to overtake the city. Read Dan 9:27; Mat 24:15; Rev 11:1-19, and Rev 13:11-18. And in that day of calamity where shall the faithful turn? They cry to Him whose faithfulness is proven by the dealings of the past and assured by the Davidic covenant. How long, Lord? Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations and the kingdoms, the ten kingdoms and the little horn of Dan 7:1-28. They pray, “Remember not our former iniquities--Help us, God of our Salvation.” Then when the answer comes they will give Him never ceasing praise.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Prayer in the Midst of Oppression.
Prayer in the Midst of Oppression.
A psalm of Asaph, similar in tone and content to Psalms 74, though any special event which might have occasioned the writing of this hymn is not known.
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v. 1. O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance, the Holy Land, including both the city of the Sanctuary and the Temple itself, Exo 15:17, being referred to; Thy holy Temple have they defiled, by introducing some form of heathen pollution; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. The psalmist, in prophetic spirit, sees Jerusalem laid waste and the Temple a heap of ruins, an event which came to pass when the city was taken by Nebuchadnezzar.
v. 2. The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the vultures feeding on the carcasses, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth, jackals and hyenas performing their gruesome work on the forsaken fields of battle. The description is typical of the desolation which has occasionally come upon the Church of Christ when the enemies have gained the upper hand.
v. 3. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, considering it utterly worthless, not feeling a single twinge of conscience on account of their violence; and there was none to bury them, all inhabitants being either dead or in exile.
v. 4. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, objects of jeering on account of their trust in Jehovah, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us, whose blasphemy really struck the name of God, deriding Him as powerless to help the city of His Sanctuary. In like manner the enemies of the Church have ever behaved in times of persecution.
v. 5. How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire? His zeal in punishing His people for their sins.
v. 6. Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee, who were willingly estranged from Him, hostile to His Church, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Thy name, refusing to accept Jehovah as the only true God.
v. 7. For they have devoured Jacob, the spiritual Israel, the Church of God suffering under the oppression of its enemies, and laid waste his dwelling-place. The enemies are purposely spoken of in the singular, in a collective sense; for no matter what form the enmity against Christ’s Church takes, it always has the same object.
v. 8. O remember not against us former iniquities, those of the forefathers, this statement including a confession of guilt, of apostasy in the past; let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us, coming to meet the believers, in order to bring them proper assistance with the greatest haste; for we are brought very low, they were unable, without the mercy of God, to rise from their defeat.
v. 9. Help us, O God of our salvation, in whom alone the believers of all times place their hope of redemption, for the glory of Thy name, for the performance of His merciful promises would redound to His glory; and deliver us and purge away our sins for Thy name’s sake; for the granting of such remission always serves to set forth the most beautiful traits and attributes of God, His love, grace, and mercy.
v. 10. Wherefore should the heathen, in taking note of the desolation of the Church, say, Where is their God? the doubt expressed in their derision being a form of blasphemy. Let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of Thy servants which is shed, that is, vengeance for the blood of the Lord’s servants, as shed by the enemies, should come upon them in the sight of the believers, so that these would have evidence of the fact that God will not be mocked.
v. 11. Let the sighing of the prisoner, the moaning of those kept in captivity by the enemies, come before Thee; according to the greatness of Thy power, the arm of His omnipotence stretched out in behalf of His children, preserve Thou those that are appointed to die, literally, "the children of slaughter"; for death is thought of as having fatherly authority to the extent of putting men to death;
v. 12. and render unto our neighbors, the enemies spoken of throughout, sevenfold into their bosom, in exhausting His judicial punishment upon them, in making them feel the severity of His anger, their reproach, wherewith they have reproached Thee, O Lord. Thus would the Lord save His honor, reestablish His position of honor and power before the world.
v. 13. So we, Thy people and sheep of Thy pasture, who have submitted themselves absolutely to the guidance of their great Shepherd, trusting implicitly in His power for protection, will give Thee thanks forever; we will show forth Thy praise to all generations. The same trust in Jehovah, together with the attitude of perpetual praise must be found in all believers.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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A psalm of Asaph
"This is a psalm that Asaph wrote." See how this is translated in Psalms 50:1.
your inheritance
"the land that was to be yours forever" See how this is translated in Psalms 68:9.
They have shed their blood like water
The word "blood" is a metonym for innocent life. To shed blood is to kill innocent people. Most people saw water every day, so for blood to be as common as water, many innocent people would have to die. AT: "They have killed so many innocent people that the blood is everywhere, like water after it rains" (See: Metonymy and Simile)
translationWords
psalm
Asaph
God
alien
nation
inherit
defile
holy
temple
Jerusalem
ruin
body
servant
heaven
blood
bury
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ps 79 This lament describes the occasion of Jerusalem’s…
Ps 79 This lament describes the occasion of Jerusalem’s fall in 586 BC. The early history of Israel’s rebellions described in Ps 78 provoked God’s wrath, resulting in the desolation of Zion described here as the defilement of the Temple and the disgraced bodies that littered the landscape. The psalmist then prays for forgiveness and rescue (79:8-9), as well as for God to pay back the nation’s enemies (79:12-13). Other psalms lamenting the Exile include Pss 42–44, 102, 107, 126, 137.
79:1-4 The poet laments the desecration of the Temple and the success of the enemy.
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79:1 your special possession: This phrase might refer to the land, the Temple (see 61:5), or the people (see 79:2; 78:71).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.