Psalm 74

1 Wherefore hast thou rejected us, O God, for ever? wherefore is thy wrath kindled against the sheep of thy pasture?

2 Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased from the beginning; thou didst ransom the rod of thine inheritance; this mount Sion wherein thou hast dwelt.

3 Lift up thine hands against their pride continually; because of all that the enemy has done wickedly in thy holy places.

4 And they that hate thee have boasted in the midst of thy feast; they have set up their standards for signs,

5 ignorantly as it were in the entrance above;

6 they cut down its doors at once with axes as in a wood of trees; they have broken it down with hatchet and stone cutter.

7 They have burnt thy sanctuary with fire to the ground; they have profaned the habitation of thy name.

8 They have said in their heart, even all their kindred together, Come, let us abolish the feasts of the Lord from the earth.

9 We have not seen our signs; there is no longer a prophet; and God will not know us any more.

10 How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? shall the enemy provoke thy name forever?

11 Wherefore turnest thou away thine hand, and thy right hand from the midst of thy bosom for ever?

12 But God is our King of old; he has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

13 Thou didst establish the sea, in thy might, thou didst break to pieces the heads of the dragons in the water.

14 Thou didst break to pieces the heads of the dragon; thou didst give him for meat to the Ethiopian nations.

15 Thou didst cleave fountains and torrents; thou driedst up mighty rivers.

16 The day is thine, and the night is thine; thou hast prepared the sun and the moon.

17 Thou hast made all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and spring.

18 Remember this thy creation: an enemy has reproached the Lord, and a foolish people has provoked thy name.

19 Deliver not to the wild beasts a soul that gives praise to thee: forget not for ever the souls of thy poor.

20 Look upon thy covenant: for the dark places of the earth are filled with the habitations of iniquity.

21 let not the afflicted and shamed one be rejected: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.

22 Arise, O God, plead thy cause: remember thy reproaches that come from the foolish one all the day.

23 Forget not the voice of thy suppliants: let the pride of them that hate thee continually ascend before thee.

Psalm 74 Meaning and Commentary

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.