7.03. Introductory

Introductory

Psalms 80:1-19, about the Shepherd of Israel and His erring flock, is one of the most striking and comprehensive scriptures in the Bible; it has reference to the past, present, and yet future dealings of God with the people whom He has chosen for the express purpose that in and through them “His way” might become known on all the earth, and “His saving health” among all nations. As I take up my pen to write out an exposition of it, my heart goes out in prayer that the same Holy Spirit who first inspired the prophetic writer to utter this sacred oracle may also illumine and guide and help His servant in the attempt to unfold it, so that my readers—whether Jews or Christians—may be constrained to give glory to God, and exclaim with Israel’s great law-giver:

“The Rock! His work is perfect; For all His ways are judgment; A God of truth [or faithfulness], and without iniquity, Just and right is He.”

I must touch only very briefly in passing on the question of date and origin; “definiteness” with regard to which (as is generally admitted by almost all commentators) “is unattainable.” Some commentators suppose this psalm to have been originanally a prayer of Judah for their brethren of the Northern Kingdom, after the latter were carried away captive by Shalmaneser into Assyria; because the only tribes mentioned in the invocation are Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, the greater part of which also joined with those tribes which broke away from the house of David, while part remained with Judah. Probability is supposed to be added to this view by the fact that in the Septuagint the words ὑπέρ τοῦ Ἀσσυρίου (“concerning the Assyrian”) are added to the inscription which forms the title, and may be taken as an indication that the translators of that version, in the third or early in the second century before Christ, have regarded it as primarily a prayer for those who had been carried away into Assyria. But there is another, and to my mind a truer, explanation why these tribes are specially named.

There are in this psalm touching allusions to Israel’s past history, and particularly to the wonders connected with the Exodus and the journey through the wilderness; when, with the cloud of glory—which subsequently “dwelt between the Cherubim”—and the pillar of fire, He led His people “like a flock,” till the “vine” which He brought “out of Egypt,” was safely planted on the promised holy soil, where it took root and flourished. Now, in that memorable march of God at the head of His people from Egypt to Canaan, the three tribes which walked immediately in rear of the Tabernacle, with which the symbols of Jehovah’s special presence in their midst were connected, were “Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh” (Num_2:17-22); and as this psalm is an inspired prophetic prayer that, in keeping with His theocratic relation to them, God might once again come and take His place at the head of His people, and bring them out of a greater bondage than that of Egypt, and through this greater and more terrible wilderness than that of Sinai, therefore—in keeping with the historic foreground—these three tribes are especially named. But whatever may have been the time and circumstances which occasioned its original composition, whatever the historic foreground to which it had but a very partial reference, there can be no doubt that the Spirit of God, who inspired its utterance, has preserved for us in the 80th psalm a permanent picture of Israel’s woeful condition when banished from God’s presence and scattered among the nations; while in the fervent cry for help in the invocation and in the thrice repeated refrain, which contains the real theme and fundamental prayer of this psalm, we have also a prophecy as to how and whence Israel’s final deliverance and full salvation will yet come. To repeat, then, this psalm is a prophetic prayer which shall yet ascend from the heart and soul of the godly remnant of Israel on behalf of the whole nation at the time of the end. But till then—until the Spirit of Grace and of Supplication is poured out on Israel, and they learn to pray in the name of Him through whom alone their prayer shall be heard—it is well pleasing to God that Christians, whose privilege it is to be “watchmen on the walls of Zion,” should pray for them after the manner, and more especially in the spirit, of this inspired model prayer; and let me assure the reader that in seeking to lift up holy hands of intercession on behalf of this people, who, in spite of all, are still “beloved” of God “for the fathers’ sakes,” he himself shall be blessed.