Psalms 79

Psalms 79:1-13

The plea against the invasion of the enemy. A psalm of Asaph. 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; Ezekiel 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.