The Bible: Psalms Chapter 79: with Audio and Commentary.

Version: World English Bible.

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Psalms Chapter 79 A Psalm by Asaph.

1 God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

2 They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth.

3 They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.

4 We have become a reproach to our neighbours, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.

5 How long, LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?

6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don't know you, on the kingdoms that don't call on your name;

7 for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

8 Don't hold the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your tender mercies speedily meet us, for we are in desperate need.

9 Help us, God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name's sake.

10 Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let it be known amongst the nations, before our eyes, that vengeance for your servants' blood is being poured out.

11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you. According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.

12 Pay back to our neighbours seven times into their bosom their reproach with which they have reproached you, Lord.

13 So we, your people and sheep of your pasture, will give you thanks forever. We will praise you forever, to all generations.

Footnotes

Version: World English Bible

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Psalms Chapter 79 A Psalm by Asaph. Guide

This is a cry of distress. The conditions described are those of overwhelming national calamity. The country and the city of God are overrun and spoiled by ruthless enemies. The people have been slain and left without burial. Out of the midst of these circumstances the psalmist prays to God for pardon, help, and deliverance.

There is no present note of praise in the psalm, but there is an undertone of confidence in God. This is the quality of these old songs of the men of faith which makes them living and powerful in an age utterly different from the one in which makes them living and powerful in an age utterly different from the one in which they were written. A careful perusal of this song will show three things as most evidently forming the deepest conviction of the singer’s hope. First there is the sense that all the calamity which has overtaken the power and goodness of God. These things need not have been had they been faithful, for God is strong and tender. Again there is the passion for the glory of the Divine Name,

"Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name;
And deliver us, and purge away out sins, for Thy name’s sake.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?"

Finally, the very fact of the song is a revelation of the underlying confidence in God. In distress the heart seeks its way back to some hiding-place, and finds it in the Name of God, Who, by suffering is dealing with them.

From "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.

Psalms Chapter 79 Commentary

Chapter Outline

  1. The deplorable condition of the people of God. -- (1-5)
  2. A petition for relief. -- (6-13)

Verses 1-5

God is complained to: whither should children go but to a Father able and willing to help them? See what a change sin made in the holy city, when the heathen were suffered to pour in upon them. God's own people defiled it by their sins, therefore he suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence. They desired that God would be reconciled. Those who desire God's favour as better than life, cannot but dread his wrath as worse than death. In every affliction we should first beseech the Lord to cleanse away the guilt of our sins; then he will visit us with his tender mercies.

Verses 6-13

Those who persist in ignorance of God, and neglect of prayer, are the ungodly. How unrighteous soever men were, the Lord was righteous in permitting them to do what they did. Deliverances from trouble are mercies indeed, when grounded upon the pardon of sin; we should therefore be more earnest in prayer for the removal of our sins than for the removal of afflictions. They had no hopes but from God's mercies, his tender mercies. They plead no merit, they pretend to none, but, Help us for the glory of thy name; pardon us for thy name's sake. The Christian forgets not that he is often bound in the chain of his sins. The world to him is a prison; sentence of death is passed upon him, and he knows not how soon it may be executed. How fervently should he at all times pray, O let the sighing of a prisoner come before thee, according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die! How glorious will the day be, when, triumphant over sin and sorrow, the church beholds the adversary disarmed for ever! while that church shall, from age to age, sing the praises of her great Shepherd and Bishop, her King and her God.

From the "Concise Commentary on the Bible" by Matthew Henry.