Psalms 74

1 A maskil of Asaf: Why have you rejected us forever, God, with your anger smoking against the sheep you once pastured?

2 Remember your community, which you acquired long ago, the tribe you redeemed to be your very own. Remember Mount Tziyon, where you came to live.

3 Hurry your steps to these endless ruins, to the sanctuary devastated by the enemy.

4 The roar of your foes filled your meeting-place; they raised their own banners as a sign of their conquest.

5 The place seemed like a thicket of trees when lumbermen hack away with their axes.

6 With hatchet and hammer they banged away, smashing all the carved woodwork.

7 They set your sanctuary on fire, tore down and profaned the abode of your name.

8 They said to themselves, "We will oppress them completely."They have burned down all God's meeting-places in the land.

9 We see no signs, there is no prophet any more; none of us knows how long it will last.

10 How much longer, God, will the foe jeer at us? Will the enemy insult your name forever?

11 Why do you hold back your hand? Draw your right hand from your coat, and finish them off!

12 God has been my king from earliest times, acting to save throughout all the earth.

13 By your strength you split the sea in two, in the water you smashed sea monsters' heads,

14 you crushed the heads of Livyatan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.

15 You cut channels for springs and streams, you dried up rivers that had never failed.

16 The day is yours, and the night is yours; it was you who established light and sun.

17 It was you who fixed all the limits of the earth, you made summer and winter.

18 Remember how the enemy scoffs at ADONAI, how a brutish people insults your name.

19 Don't hand over the soul of your dove to wild beasts, don't forget forever the life of your poor.

20 Look to the covenant, for the land's dark places are full of the haunts of violence.

21 Don't let the oppressed retreat in confusion; let the poor and needy praise your name.

22 Arise, God, and defend your cause; remember how brutish men insult you all day.

23 Don't forget what your foes are saying, the ever-rising uproar of your adversaries.

Psalms 74 Commentary

Chapter 74

The desolations of the sanctuary. (1-11) Pleas for encouraging faith. (12-17) Petitions for deliverances. (18-23)

Verses 1-11 This psalm appears to describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans. The deplorable case of the people of God, at the time, is spread before the Lord, and left with him. They plead the great things God had done for them. If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to believe, that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Infidels and persecutors may silence faithful ministers, and shut up places of worship, and say they will destroy the people of God and their religion together. For a long time they may prosper in these attempts, and God's oppressed servants may see no prospect of deliverance; but there is a remnant of believers, the seed of a future harvest, and the despised church has survived those who once triumphed over her. When the power of enemies is most threatening, it is comfortable to flee to the power of God by earnest prayer.

Verses 12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.

Verses 18-23 The psalmist begs that God would appear for the church against their enemies. The folly of such as revile his gospel and his servants will be plain to all. Let us call upon our God to enlighten the dark nations of the earth; and to rescue his people, that the poor and needy may praise his name. Blessed Saviour, thou art the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Make thy people more than conquerors. Be thou, Lord, all in all to them in every situation and circumstances; for then thy poor and needy people will praise thy name.

Chapter Summary

Maschil of Asaph. Some think that Asaph, the penman of this psalm, was not the same that lived in the times of David, but some other of the same name, a descendant of his {k}, that lived after the Babylonish captivity, since the psalm treats of things that were done at the time the Jews were carried captive into Babylon, or after; but this hinders not that it might be the same man; for why might he not, under a spirit of prophecy, speak of the sufferings of the church in later ages, as well as David and others testify before hand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow? The psalm is called "Maschil," because it gives knowledge of, and causes to understand what afflictions should befall the church and people of God in later times. The Targum is, "a good understanding by the hands of Asaph."

Some think the occasion of the psalm was the Babylonish captivity, as before observed, when indeed the city and temple were burnt; but then there were prophets, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and after them Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; which is here denied, Psalm 74:9, others think it refers to the times of Antiochus Epiphanes; but though prophecy indeed had then ceased, and the temple was profaned, yet not burnt. The Jews apply it to their present captivity, and to the profanation of the temple, by Titus {l}, and to the destruction both of the city and temple by him; so Theodoret: the title of it in the Syriac version is, "when David saw the angel slaying the people, and he wept and said, on me and my seed, and not on these innocent sheep; and again a prediction of the siege of the city of the Jews, forty years after the ascension, by Vespasian the old man, and Titus his son, who killed multitudes of the Jews, and destroyed Jerusalem; and hence the Jews have been wandering to this day."

But then it is not easy to account for it why a psalm of lamentation should be composed for the destruction of that people, which so righteously came upon them for their sins, and particularly for their contempt and rejection of the Messiah. It therefore seems better, with Calvin and Cocceius, to suppose that this psalm refers to the various afflictions, which at different times should come upon the church and people of God; and perhaps the superstition, wickedness, and cruelty of the Romish antichrist, may be hinted at.