Psalm 79:1

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Whole Psalm. This Psalm is, in every respect, the pendant of Psalm 74. The points of contact are not merely matters of style ( Psalms 79:5 , "how long for ever?" with Psalms 74:1 Psalms 74:10 79:10, [dwy, with Psalms 74:5 79:2, the giving over to the wild beasts, with Psalms 74:19 Psalms 74:14 79:13, the conception of Israel as of a flock, in which respect Psalm 79 is judiciously appended to Psalms 78:70-72 , with Psalms 74:1 and also with Psalms 74:19 .) But the mutual relationships lie still deeper. Both Psalms have the same Asaphic stamp, both stand in the same relation to Jeremiah, and both send forth their complaints out of the same circumstances of the time, concerning a destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, such as only the age of the Seleucidae (1 1:31 3:45 2 8:3 ), together with the Chaldean period can exhibit, and in conjunction with a defiling of the Temple and a massacre of the servants of God, of the Chasidim (1 7:13 14:6), such as the age of the Seleucidae exclusively can exhibit. The work of the destruction of the Temple which was in progress in Psalms 74:1-23 , appears in Psalms 79:1-13 as completed, and here, as in the former Psalm, one receives the impression of the outrages, not of some war, but of some persecution: it is straightway the religion of Israel for the sake of which the sanctuaries are destroyed and the faithful are massacred. Franz Delitzsch.

Verse 1. Thy holy temple have they defiled. This was not only the highest degree of the enemy's inhumanity and barbarity, ... but also a calamity to the people of God never to be sufficiently deplored. For by the overthrow of the temple the true worship of God, which had been instituted at that temple alone, appeared to be extinguished, and the knowledge of God to vanish from among mankind. No pious heart could ponder this without the greatest grief. Mollerus.

Verse 1. They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. They have made Jerusalem to be nothing but graves. Such multitudes were cruelly slain and murdered, that Jerusalem was, as it were, but one grave. Joseph Caryl.

Verse 1-4. In the time of the Maccabees, Demetrius, the son of Seleuces, sent Bacchides to Jerusalem; who slew the scribes, who came to require justice, and the Assideans, the first of the children of Israel who sought peace of them. Bacchides "took of them threescore men, and slew them in one day, according to the words which he wrote, the flesh of thy saints have they cast out, and their blood have they shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them." And in that last and most fearful destruction, when the eagles of Rome were gathered round the doomed city, and the temple of which God had said, "Let us depart hence;" when one stone was not to be left upon another, when the fire was to consume the sanctuary, and the foundations of Sion were to be ploughed up; when Jerusalem was to be filled with slain, and the sons of Judah were to be crucified round her walls in such thick multitudes that no more room was left for death; when insult, and shame, and scorn was the lot of the child of Israel, as he wandered an outcast, a fugitive in all lands; when all these bitter and deadly things came upon Jerusalem, it was as a punishment for many and long repeated crimes; it was the accomplishment of a warning which had been often sent in vain. Yea, fiercely did thy foes assault thee, O Jerusalem, but thy sins more fiercely still! "Plain Commentary."

Verse 1,4-5. Entering the inhabited part of the old city, and winding through some crooked, filthy lanes, I suddenly found myself on turning a sharp corner, in a spot of singular interest; the "Jews' place of Wailing." It is a small paved quadrangle; on one side are the backs of low modern houses, without door or window; on the other is the lofty wall of the Haram, of recent date above, but having below five courses of bevelled stones in a perfect state of preservation. Here the Jews are permitted to approach the sacred enclosure, and wail over the fallen temple, whose very dust is dear to them, and in whose stones they still take pleasure. Psalms 102:14 . It was Friday, and a crowd of miserable devotees had assembled -- men and women of all ages and all nations dressed in the quaint costumes of every country of Europe and Asia. Old men were there, -- pale, haggard, careworn men tottering on pilgrim staves; and little girls with white faces, and lustrous black eyes, gazing wistfully now at their parents, now at the old wall. Some were on their knees, chanting mournfully from a book of Hebrew prayers, swaying their bodies to and fro; some were prostrate on the ground, pressing forehead and lips to the earth; some were close to the wall, burying their faces in the rents and crannies of the old stones; some were kissing them, some had their arms spread out as if they would clasp them to their bosoms, some were bathing them with tears, and all the while sobbing as if their hearts would burst. It was a sad and touching spectacle. Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their hearts' affections, or deadened their feelings of devotion. Here we see them assembled from the ends of the earth, poor, despised, down trodden outcasts, -- amid the desolations of their fatherland, beside the dishonoured ruins of their ancient sanctuary, -- chanting now in accents of deep pathos, and now of wild woe, the prophetic words of their own psalmist, -- O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled ... We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry for ever? J. L. Porter, in "The Giant Cities of Bashan." 1865.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

None.

WORKS WRITTEN ABOUT THE SEVENTY-NINTH PSALM IN SPURGEON'S DAY

"Prodromus, or the Literal Destruction of Jerusalem as it is described in the 79th Psalm ... 1613" (By JOHN DUNSTER.)