Psalm 80

The vine is a description of real work. Growing grapes in the hill country meant terracing a slope, clearing the stones into retaining walls, cutting a winepress into the rock, building a watchtower for the harvest season, and hedging the plot. Years of labour went in before the first serious crop came out. So when the psalm asks why the hedges have been broken down so that everyone passing the road picks the fruit, it means the wall — and losing the wall means losing everything the wall protected.

The boar out of the wood was a real menace, not a symbol invented for the song. Wild boar came down from the scrub at night and could destroy a vineyard in a few hours.

The three tribes named — Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh — are the tribes that camped together on the west side of the tabernacle and marched as one division in the wilderness. They are also the heart of the northern kingdom. A prayer that names those three, and asks God to stir up his strength for them, fits the years when Assyria was dismantling the north, ending with the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. The psalm does not date itself, so that stays the likely occasion rather than a stated one.

Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth is a throne-room address. The ark's cover carried two winged figures facing each other, and God's presence was pictured above them. The psalm is speaking to a specific address inside the sanctuary.