Psalms 74
Butler1. O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?
Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
2. Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old,
Which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thine inheritance;
And mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.
3. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual ruins,
All evil the enemy hath done in the sanctuary.
4. Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine assembly;
They have set up their ensigns for signs.
5. They seemed as men that lifted up
Axes upon a thicket of trees.
6. And now all the carved work thereof
They break down with hatchet and hammers.
7. They have set thy sanctuary on fire;
They have profaned the dwelling place of thy name even to the ground.
8. They said in their heart, Let us make havoc of them altogether:
They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.
9. We see not our signs:
There is no more any prophet;
Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.
10. How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach?
Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?
11. Why drawest thou back thy hand, even thy right hand?
Pluck it out of thy bosom and consume them.
12. Yet God is my King of old,
Working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength:
Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
14. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,
Thou gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
15. Thou didst cleave fountain and flood:
Thou driedst up ever-flowing rivers.
16. The day is thine, the night also is thine:
Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
17. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth:
Thou hast made summer and winter.
18. Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached the LORD,
And that a foolish people have blasphemed thy name.
19. O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the wild beast:
Forget not the life of thy poor for ever.
20. Have respect unto the covenant:
For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.
21. O let not the oppressed return ashamed:
Let the poor and needy praise thy name.
22. Arise, O God, plead thine own cause:
Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day.
23. Forget not the voice of thine adversaries:
The tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.
THE title mentions Asaph as the author. But it cannot be the elder Asaph, who was contemporary with David. For the description here given cannot apply to any event earlier than the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans, recorded in 2 Chron. 36: 19. To this period it is assigned by De Wette, Hengstenberg, Hupfeld, Moll. But in several important particulars it does not correspond with the historic details of the Chaldean invasion, especially in vs. 3, 4, 8, 9. Olshausen, Hitzig, and Delitzsch connect it with the atrocities of the Syrian invasion under Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 167. The only objection lies in v. 7, which is taken to mean that the temple was utterly destroyed, which is not in accordance with the historic statement in the Books of the Maccabees. Yet the porch of the temple was burned 2 Macc. 1: 8), and the whole interior so thoroughly stripped and desecrated (1 Macc. 1: 21-
- that they cried to God in their misery, “Behold, our sanctuary and our beauty and our glory are laid waste, and the heathen have profaned them!” (1 Macc. 2 : 12). It is one of the most spirited and graphically descriptive Psalms in the Psalter, and its appeals to God, referring to past interventions of His Almighty power in behalf of Israel, are magnificent. De Witt.
This Psalm and the seventy-ninth both refer to the same calamity, and were, it may reasonably be conjectured, written by the same author. Both Psalms deplore the rejection of the nation, the occupation of Jerusalem by a foreign army, and the profanation of the sanctuary; but the seventy-fourth dwells chiefly on the destruction of the temple; the seventy-ninth on the terrible slaughter of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Assuming that both Psalms refer to the same event, we have to choose between two periods of Jewish history and only two, to which the language of the sacred poet could reasonably refer. The description might apply either to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, or to the insolent oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes; and with one or other of these two occasions it has been usually connected. No presumption can be raised against the latter of these dates from the history of the canon; and there are, more particularly in this Psalm, some expressions which are most readily explained on the supposition that it was composed in the time of the Maccabees. On the whole, I incline to think that this Psalm may be most naturally explained by events that took place at that time. P.—Since nearly everything in both Psalms fits in with the Maccabean period, we base both Psalms upon the situation of the Jewish people under Antiochus and Demetrius. Their purport coincides with the prayer of Judas Maccabeus in 2 Macc. 8 : 1-4. D.
There is one singularity in this Psalm which reminds one strongly of Psalm 44; there is not one mention of national or personal sin throughout, no allusion to the Lord’s righteous dealing in their punishment, no supplication for pardon and forgiveness; and yet one can hardly doubt that the writer of the Psalm, be he who he may, must have felt as keenly as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or any other prophet of the captivity, the sins and iniquities which had brought all this sore evil upon them. But still, though there be expostulation, there is no complaint; though there be mourning, there is no murmuring; there is far more the cry of a smitten child, wondering and grieving that his father’s face is so turned away from him in displeasure, and a father’s hand so heavy on the child of his love. Or, as we might almost say, it is like the cry of one of those martyred ones beneath the altar, wondering at the Lord’s continued endurance of His heritage thus trampled under foot of the marauder and oppressor, and exclaiming, “How long, O Lord, how long?” Bouchier.
1. Sheep of Thy pasture.** A favorite figure in those Psalms which are ascribed to Asaph. The name contains in itself an appeal to the compassion and tender care of the shepherd. Can the shepherd slay his sheep? P.
2. “Remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast purchased of old.” What a mighty plea is redemption. O God, canst Thou see the blood-mark on Thine own sheep, and yet allow grievous wolves to devour them? The Church is no new purchase of the Lord; from before the world’s foundation the chosen were regarded as redeemed by the Lamb slain; shall ancient love die out, and the eternal purpose become frustrate? The Lord would have His people remember the Paschal Lamb, the bloodstained lintel, and the overthrow of Egypt; and will He forget all this Himself? Let us put Him in remembrance, let us plead together. Can He desert His blood-bought and forsake His redeemed? S.
3-7. This is his greatest grief. His country has been laid waste with fire and sword, his friends slain or carried into captivity, but there is no thought so full of pain as this, that the holy and beautiful house wherein his fathers worshipped has been plundered and desecrated by a heathen soldiery. Instead of the Psalms, and hymns, and sacred anthems which once echoed within those walls, has been heard the brutal shout of the fierce invaders, roaring like lions (such is the meaning of the word in the next verse) over their prey. Heathen emblems, military and religious, have displaced the emblems of Jehovah. The magnificent carved work of the temple, such as the cherubims, and the palms, and the pillars, with pomegranates and lily-work which adorned it, have been hewed down as remorselessly as a man would cut down so much wood in the forest. And then that splendid pile, so full of sacred memories, so dear to the heart of every true Israelite, has been set on fire, and left to perish in the flames. Such is the scene as it passes again before the eyes of his mind. P.
Their cities had been laid waste, their provinces, their farms, their vineyards, their olive-yards. They themselves had been everywhere cut down without striking a blow in defence, and their means of life had been snatched away without resistance. Yet they speak not of these things, because those things which threatened the extinction of religion and the worship of God, overtopped the feeling of all these other misfortunes with an intolerable sorrow. Musculus.
4. The word signs does not necessarily denote either military or religious ensigns, but rather signifies in general the insignia of sovereignty. For all that once marked the presence and authority of God the impious enemy had substituted the signs or tokens of their own ascendancy. In other words, they had usurped God’s place in His very sanctuary, the spot which He had chosen for His earthly residence. A.
5. This verse does not describe the preparation once made for building the temple, by hewing down cedars in the forest of Lebanon, but it compares the scene of ruin in the interior, the destruction of the carved work, etc., to the wide gap made in some stately forest by the blows of the woodman’s axe. (See the use of the same figure, Jer. 46 : 22.)
8. All the houses of God in the land; literally, “all the assemblies,” which must here mean “places of assembly,” as in v. 4. The work of devastation does not stop short with the temple. The plain meaning of the words is, that there were many other places for religious worship in the land beside the temple, and that these, as well as the temple, were destroyed. Even before the exile there must have been buildings where it was customary to meet, especially on the Sabbath, and to pray, turning toward Jerusalem. There must surely have been some public worship beyond the limits of the family, and if so, places, houses, for its celebration. If, however, the Psalm be of the age of the Maccabees, there is no difficulty, for before that time there can be little doubt synagogues were established. P. —The words point to places for religious assemblies, to houses of God, i.e., to synagogues—a weighty argument in favor of the Maccabean origin of the Psalm. D.
The existence of such places before the Babylonish captivity has been much disputed; and most writers, arguing from the silence of the Old Testament, incline to the opinion that they originated in Babylon, and that after the restoration similar oratories were opened in the land of Israel; and hence some infer that the seventy-fourth Psalm, which says in the eighth verse, “They have burned up all the synagogues in the land,” was written in the post-Babylonian times. The argument from silence is, however, far from conclusive. The translation synagogues, might fairly lead to a similar translation in some other passages which were confessedly written before the captivity; and the circumstances, character, and necessities of the Israelites, the great body of whom were far removed from the temple, prove indisputably that in their towns and villages they must have had some locality where they assembled on their Sabbaths, new moons, and other solemn days, for the purpose of receiving instruction in the law, and for public prayer. That locality, however different from subsequent arrangements, was the origin of the synagogue. How such assemblies were conducted before the captivity it is now impossible to say. M’Caui.
- “How long, O Lord, how long!” was heard daily during the two centuries of African slavery and the slave trade. The feudal system, the corn laws, Russian serfdom, religious persecution, barbarous laws and penalties, and a score of systems of traditional savagery, all in the midst of Christian peoples, have survived for centuries, and then were only thrown off by the most determined and violent efforts. Every kind of transformation is slow, as measured by human time—but rapid enough when put in the measure of endless duration. Religion and reform are no exceptions. They are of slow growth and slow to decay—but each new manifestation of the living principle, which never grows weary or infirm or death-stricken, is higher and nobler than that which went before. From our dead ashes another generation will draw greater strength and refinement and purity. Nothing that we do for righteousness’ sake is lost either to us personally, or to our race. Nothing is lost. God knows what He is doing, and how all things work to the consummation of His splendid designs. Interior.
11. How bold is the suppliant! Does he err? Nay, verily, we who are so chill and distant, and listless in prayer are the erring ones. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and he who learns the art shall surely prevail with God by its means. It is fit that we should inquire why the work of grace goes on so slowly. When God seems to fold His arms we must not folds ours, but rather renew our entreaties that He would again put His hand to the work. We have here a model of pleading; humble, but very bold, eager, fervent, and effectual. The heart of God is always moved by such entreaties. When we bring forth our strong reasons, then will He bring forth His choice mercies. S.
12-17. The pleader now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel’s King unfolded in saving deeds the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel’s existence was imperilled; not only within the compass of the Holy Land, but also, e.g., within that of Egypt. It is really Egypt that he has present to his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (vs. 13-15) and then at the natural (vs. 16, 17) exhibitions of God’s power. D.
13-15. Appropriately the song reverts to the glorious works of God at the Red Sea, through the Arabian desert, and at the passage of the Jordan. “By Thy power Thou didst cleave the sea asunder; Thou didst shiver to atoms the heads of the great sea-monsters—said apparently to celebrate God’s absolute dominion over the sea and its mighty populations.” “Leviathan;” literally, a crooked serpent, but used like “dragon” for the largest class of sea animals. The poet represents the mighty hand of God at the Red Sea as shattering all the huge sea-monsters, and tossing them up upon the farther shore to become meat for the people dwelling there; but really it would seem with his eye on that proud host—Egypt’s horsemen and charioteers—sunk in its mighty waves and their dead carcasses washed upon the desert shore. “Thou didst cleave fountain and flood,” with probable allusion to the cleaving of the rocks under the rod of Moses, out of which waters ran as a river. “Thou driedst up mighty rivers,” looks to the passage of the Jordan. The word for “mighty” denotes rather a living, perennial stream, never naturally dry. Such was the Jordan, and moreover at the time of this miracle, at high flood, overflowing all its banks. These wonderful achievements of their Almighty King were good to think of in such seasons of sorrow and despondency as that of the writer of this Psalm and of His people. C.
15. (It is) Thou (that) didst cleave fount and flood (that) didst dry up rivers ever-flowing. Fountain and flood is a kind of proverbial expression for smaller and greater bodies of water. The primary historical allusion here is to the passage of the Jordan. The original construction of the last phrase is streams of perpetuity, perennial or unfailing streams, as distinguished from the winter torrents of the Holy Land, which disappear in summer. A.
16,17. From the wonders wrought by God on behalf of His people in their history, the poet rises to the wider view of His ever-continued, ever-displayed power and majesty in the world of nature. The miracle does not lead him to forget God’s power and goodness in that which is not miraculous. The one is rather a witness to, and an instance of, the other. P. —The God of Israel, who gave proof of Himself thus marvellously in history, is also the Creator and Lord of every created thing. Day and night and the luminaries of both are His creatures. D.
16. Day. Night.** These changes are according to a fixed law. Day and night are the ordinances of heaven upon earth for the growth of earth’s life, and, if we could trace the sunshine and the dark in every follower of God, we should see them arranged with equal wisdom. It is a more complex work, but be sure of this, there is order in it all, and the hand that rules the world in its orbit, and that makes it fulfil its course through light and shade, is governing our lives for a higher than earthly end. It is a law of alternation. It is day and night, and, let us thank God, it is also in due time night and day. Each has its time and use. Ker.
He that had power at first to settle, and still to preserve this course of nature by the diurnal and annual motions of the heavenly bodies, has certainly all power both to save and to destroy, and with Him nothing is impossible, nor any difficulties or oppositions insuperable. He that is faithful to His covenant with the day and with the night, and preserves the ordinances of heaven inviolable, will certainly make good His promise to His people, and never cast off those whom He has chosen (Jer. 31 : 35, 36 ; 33 : 20, 21). His covenant with Abraham and his seed is as firm as that with Noah and his sons (Gen. 8 : 21). Day and night, summer and winter, being counterchanged in the course of nature, throughout all the borders of the earth, we can expect no other than that trouble and peace, prosperity and adversity should be, in like manner, counterchanged in all the borders of the Church. We have as much reason to expect affliction as to expect night and winter. But we have then no more reason to despair of the return of comfort than we have to despair of day and summer. H.
17. Thou hast set (or established) all the bounds of earth; summer and winter—Thou hast formed them. This is the seventh emphatic repetition of the pronoun thou. The description of God’s power over nature is completed by referring to it the revolution of the seasons as not only appointed but created by Him. He is not only the ordainer of the change itself, but the author of the causes which produce it. A.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. The actual distribution of sea and land over the surface of the globe is of the highest importance to the present condition of organic life. If the ocean were considerably smaller, or if Asia and America were concentrated within the tropics, the tides, the oceanic currents, and the meteorological phenomenon on which the existence of the vegetable and animal kingdoms depend, would be so profoundly modified, that it is extremely doubtful whether man could have existed, and absolutely certain that he could never have risen to a high degree of civilization. The dependence of human progress upon the existing configuration of the globe necessarily leads us to the conclusion that both must be the harmonious work of the same Almighty power, and that a Divine and immutable plan has from all eternity presided over the destinies of our planet. It is almost superfluous to point out how largely the irregular windings and undulations of the coasts, the numerous islands scattered over the face of the waters, the promontories stretching far away into the domains of the sea, and the gulfs plunging deeply into the bosom of the land, have contributed to the civilization of the human race by multiplying its points of contact with the ocean, the great highway of nations. G. Hartwig.
Thou hast made summer. One of the chiefest charms of summer is its fulness. And in this fulness is its peace. Summer has the deep consciousness of fruitfulness. It knows it has done its work; it rejoices in its own fulness and wealth. Man’s content is in looking back and seeing that his beginning of things has now been led on to some fulfilment, however small, in having accomplished something of his aspiration, in producing some fruit. The real looking forward we should have, the real aspiration, is that which the summer has; and it is one of content, not of discontent. It is the looking forward to harvest, and it is founded on faith, which has its root in the fact that work has been already done. We believe in a harvest of our life, because the fields we have sown are whitening already for harvest. There is another contentment that summer images: it is the contentment of rest. The earth rests from her labor, and her works do follow her. There is only one way to win something of God’s peace. It is to learn the lesson nature gives us of daily self-forgetfulness. Content is its reward. It is the lesson summer gives and the reward she wins. Fruitfulness will follow on faith and love, and with fruitfulness there will be content; the deep content of duties fulfilled, of aspirations growing into fulfilment, of moral power secured. That is the summer life of the soul.
Thou hast made winter. Winter, and the snow, which is its universal exponent, is in truth one of the most efficient causes of civilization, and of the advancement of mankind, not only in the arts and comforts of life, and in power over the elements, but in mental and even moral development and progress. It is out of privation, difficulty, and disadvantage that the good, both temporal and spiritual, of our race grows; our progress is gained only by the stimulus of want, the compulsion of necessity. If there had been a genial summer clime the world round, or only the alternation of spring, summer, and autumn, mankind would have remained in a state of comparative indolence and barbarism; we should have been little better than cultivated animals. If we look round the world we see how almost all the true and permanent greatness of States and nations lies within the circle of a wintry zone. We find that those nations and races of the earth that have been nurtured in an indulgent summer clime and spontaneous abundance of nature all the year round, have had to borrow, or are now first receiving all their possessions of science, refinement, high knowledge, and moral and religious culture from the north. The apparent death of winter is the very bosom of the greatness of our life. In commerce, in the arts, in moral, economical, political, and social advancement we owe the greater part of our progress, and the whole world owes it, to the necessities impelling us, and the habitudes formed within us and upon us, by the various influences, immediate and secondary, of this vigorous season. G. B. C.
The moral benefit of winter is supereminently great in the contributions it makes to home-life, and the fine moral serenities of a close family state. Home is a northern word, not found in the languages of the tropical nations. It is only at the hearth where the winter fire is kindled and the family is gathered into close companionship, that fatherhood and motherhood, and the other tender relationships, become bonds of unity and consciously felt concern. There is no moral influence, not immediately religious, that is so essential to virtue and religion as this most untropical institution that we call home. H. B.
Winter drives us to our home. We make our life warm and bright within our walls. We forget the bitter days, save when we remember to give of our plenty to the poor and sorrowful. There are no times that may be happier than winter, if we will. We see in the frost-bound world the picture of death. Is there nothing but death there? Look beneath the surface of the earth, under the shroud of snow. Beneath the winding-sheet is, not death, but life in preparation, hidden, but in slow activity. The forces are being laid up which will be the green leaves of a thousand woods, the roses and lilies of a thousand gardens, the fountain rush of spring. That is what winter tells the man who knows. It is the story it tells also to the Christian, who has found and known the fatherhood of God. He has an inward life that refuses death. In the patient waiting and repose of a faithful age the spiritual forces which will make the form, and color, and power, and work of his coming life are gathering together into a store that waits but the touch of death to break into immortal energy. He will sleep beneath the snow, but it will be to awaken. S. A. Brooke.
The winter should, by the very circumstance of its unproductiveness, remind us of the care and bounty of Divine providence, in that other seasons are granted us which furnish supplies for this, and for the whole year. The winter has a character of inclemency and rigor, has ideas and feelings associated with it of hardship, infelicity, suffering. In this it should excite thoughtful and compassionate sentiments respecting the distress and suffering that are in the world. Winter shows the transitory quality of the beauty, variety, magnificence, and riches which had been spread over the natural world. This consideration easily carries our thoughts to parallel things in human life. There may be a resemblance to winter in the state of the mind in respect to its best interests. And truly the winter in the soul is worse than any season and aspect of external nature. Observe here one striking point of difference: the natural winter will certainly and necessarily, from a regular and absolute cause, pass away after awhile; not so the spiritual winter. It does not belong to the constitution of the human nature that the spiritual warmth and animation must come, must have a season. Note the resemblance of winter to old age. The old age of the wise and good resembles the winter in one of its most favorable circumstances—that the former seasons improved have laid in a valuable store; and they have to bless God that disposed and enabled them to do so. But the most striking point in the comparison is one of unlikeness. Their winter has no spring to follow it—in this world. But the servants of God say, “That is well!” There is eternal spring before them. What will they not be contemplating of beauty and glory while those who have yet many years on earth are seeing returning springs and summers? J. Foster.
Winter is not death, but sleep. The white cover of the snow is not a shroud for the dead, but a warm cloak hiding away a life that is to spring up after a time. Death and sleep have some points of likeness. But how unlike are they!—the cold, unmoving rigidity of the one, the softly breathing stillness of the other—the one to wake no more on earth, the other to rise in the dawn of the new day, refreshed for further work. Winter is sleep, not death. The seeds are covered up in the earth, the buds are folded with inimitable art in their russet cases, the streams “are lost amid the splendid blank” of the snow and ice, in whose chains all the world is bound. But, hidden away thus, is all the life of the coming year. J. A. Camden.
18-23. Now that the Psalmist has thus fortified himself by the contemplation of the power of God, which He has manifested as Redeemer in behalf of His own people and as Creator in behalf of the whole human family, he rises anew to prayer, but so much the more confidently and boldly.
19. The Church, which it is a custom of the Asaphic Psalms to designate with emblematical names taken from the animal world, finds itself like sheep among wolves, and seems to itself as if forgotten by God. The cry of prayer is raised out of a situation such as that of the Maccabees was. D.
Thy turtledove. God’s people are an harmless, innocent people, altogether unable and insufficient to help themselves against their enemies, who are numerous, cruel, and barbarous. Hence they are resembled to sheep, doves; called in the Word, fatherless, orphans, little ones, babes, poor, simple, needy. Langley.—How weak soever the Church be, and how many and strong soever the enemy be, yet cannot they all devour the Church, except the Lord should deliver His Church over into their hands, against which evil the Church hath ground of confidence to pray, “O deliver not the soul of Thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked;” for He hath given His Church wings, and a hiding-place too, as the comparison importeth, if He please to give her the use thereof also. Dickson.
20. Look upon the covenant. The appeal lies to that, not to anything in the Psalmist himself, or in his people. “This,” says Tholuck,