Psalm 79
13 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Jeremiah 14×2Psalms 89×2Psalms 74×3Jeremiah 16×2Lamentations 1×12 Chronicles 36×1
Summary
Chapter summary
Jerusalem in ruins: 'O God, the nations are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled.' The dead bodies of thy servants given to the birds; blood shed like water round about Jerusalem, and none to bury. 'How long, O Jehovah?' Remember not against us the iniquities of our forefathers; 'help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name… wherefore should the nations say, Where is their God?' Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee. 'So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 79The history
The opening is a survivor's report. The nations have come into God's inheritance, defiled the temple, and laid Jerusalem in heaps — the mound a destroyed mudbrick city becomes. The bodies of God's servants have been left as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there was nobody to bury them.
That detail is the heart of the horror. Burial was a sacred duty, and family tombs mattered enormously; leaving the dead in the open was the final humiliation an army could impose, and Assyrian and Babylonian palace reliefs show corpses and scavenging birds deliberately included in victory scenes. The psalm is not exaggerating for effect.
Wherefore should the heathen say, where is their God, is a diplomatic argument. In that world a defeated nation's god was assumed to have been defeated too, and the winners said so publicly. The psalm turns Israel's plea on God's own reputation rather than on Israel's deserving.
It does not claim innocence. Remember not against us former iniquities — the guilt is admitted in the same prayer that asks for mercy. And the sighing of the prisoner and those appointed to die name the deportation columns: captives roped together and marched hundreds of miles, with the weak killed on the road.
What it meant to them
This gave national grief a liturgy. Israel could sing its worst day in public without pretending it was undeserved and without letting go of the claim that it was still God's people.
That claim is the last line: we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever. Sung standing in the ruins.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 79. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.