Psalms 80
Butler1. GIVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; Thou that sittest upon the cherubim, shine forth. 2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy might, And come to save us. 3 Turn us again, O God; And cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. 4 O LORD God of hosts, How long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? 5 Thou hast fed them with the bread of tears, And given them tears to drink in large measure. 6 Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: And our enemies laugh among themselves. 7 Turn us again, O God of hosts; And cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. 8 Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt: Thou didst drive out the nations, and plantedst it. 9 Thou preparedst room before it, And it took deep root, and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with the shadow of it,
And the boughs thereof were like cedars of God.
11. She sent out her branches unto the sea, And her shoots unto the River. 12 Why hast thou broken down her fences, So that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? 13 The boar out of the wood doth ravage it, And the wild beasts of the field feed on it. 14 Turn again, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: Look’ down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, 15 And the stock which thy right hand hath planted, And the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. 16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down: They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. 17 Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. 18 So shall we not go back from thee: Quicken thou us, and we will call upon thy name. 19 Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts; Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
As in the case of most of the historical Psalms, so in the case of this, it is impossible to say with certainty at what period it was written. The allusions are never sufficiently definite to lead to any positive conclusion. All that is certain is, that the time was a time of great disaster, that the nation was trampled down under the foot of foreign invaders. The poet turns to God with the earnest and repeated prayer for deliverance, and bases his appeal on the past. God had brought a vine out of Egypt, and planted it in Canaan. How could He give up that vine to be devastated by the wild beasts? Will he not appear at the head of the armies of Israel, as once He went before her sons in the desert with a pillar of fire?
Will He not, as of old, lift up the light of His countenance upon them?
The strophical division of the Psalm is marked by the refrain (vs. 3, 7, 19), with a variation of it in v. 14. The strophes are thus of very unequal length. The first has three verses; the second, four; the third, twelve; though this last, again, is partially broken by the imperfect refrain in v. 14. The first two of these strophes are, in fact, introductory, containing the cry for help and the lamentation over disaster. The third constitutes the principal part of the Psalm, where, under the figure of a vine, the history of Israel is portrayed. In the refrain we have even more emphatically repeated the burden of the Psalmist’s prayer; the emphasis being each time deepened by the name given to God : First, “God ;” then, “God of hosts ;” lastly, “Jehovah, God of hosts.” P.
Israel, thought of as a vine, transplanted from Egypt to Canaan and long time prosperous there, has now been sadly damaged; the enclosing, protecting hedge around her broken down; the wild beasts tearing her tendrils, plucking her fruit, and trampling it under foot; the fire has done its fearful work of destruction upon her. The Psalm is a prayer to God for help in this emergency—its thrice-recurring refrain (vs. 3, 7, 19) giving this keynote: “Turn us again; let Thy face shine; so shall we be saved.” C.
It is an Asaph-prayer again, full of pleas in Israel’s behalf. They call to His mind the days of Joseph, when the Lord miraculously fed them in Egypt. And then the tabernacle days, when (first, since the days of Eden) the Lord was known to dwell between the cherubim on the mercy-seat. They call to His mind wilderness times (v. 2), when their march was gladdened by His presence, “Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh” looking on the Pillar of Glory as it rose before them, the guide and partner of their way, “O God, bring us back again! Cause Thy face to shine, and all shall be well again.” A. A. Bonar.
1,2. Grand and touching as is this address, taken in its application to the latest decline of the Jewish kingdom, it is still more so, when we see in it the reflected image of the order of the ancient march, when the ark of God went forth, the pillar of fire shining high above it, surrounded by the armed Levites, its rear guarded by the warrior tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, the brother and the sons of Joseph, doubtless intrusted with the embalmed remains of their mighty ancestor. Stanley.
Every tribe kept its proper place in its own division, whether in rest or on the march. When the host moved, each tribe struck its tents, raised its banner, and fell in at its appointed station. Places were assigned to the sacred ark, and the parts and furniture of the tabernacle borne by the Levites. The descendants of Joseph, constituting the three tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, formed the division that followed the ark. Hence the prayer in vs. 1, 2. D. F.—In motion or at rest, the symbols of God’s visible presence were in front of these three tribes—before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh stood the emblem of Jehovah’s strength and glory. The prayer of this verse, therefore, reminds Jehovah of his local as well as spiritual relation to these tribes during the forty years of their wilderness life. C.—Whatever the national disaster here deplored, the prayer is, that these tribes may be restored to their ancient position, united as of old, and as of old led by God Himself, with the visible symbols of His presence.
3. Turn us again, or “restore us,” either from the exile, supposing the Psalm to have been written after the captivity of the ten tribes; or in the more general sense of recovery from disaster. Show the light of Thy countenance. Again an allusion to the history of the people in the wilderness. P.
Turn us, and cause Thy face to shine. To Thyself convert us, from the earthly to the heavenly; and when we are converted show Thy countenance that we may know Thee; show Thy power that we may fear Thee; show Thy wisdom that we may reverence Thee; show Thy goodness that we may love Thee; show them once, show them always, that through tribulation we may pass with a happy face and be saved. When Thou dost save we shall be saved; when Thou withdrawest Thy hand we cannot be saved. Savonarola.—It is not so much said, “turn our captivity,” but turn “us.” All will come right if we are right. The best turn is not that of circumstances, but of character. When the Lord turns His people He will soon turn their condition. The word may be read, “restore us;” verily, it is a choice mercy that “He restoreth my soul.” And cause Thy face to shine. Be favorable to us, smile upon us. This was the high-priest’s blessing upon Israel: what the Lord has already given us by our High-priest and Mediator we may right confidently ask of Him. S.
5. Strong words are these, that Thou givest Thy people their own tears for bread, and tears also for their drinking water, and that in large measure. Will not the God of love take these tears away and feed us with far other bread and water than such as this? C.
7. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and then cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. It is the burden of the song. They are conscious to themselves that they have gone astray from God and their duty and have turned aside into sinful ways, and that this was it that provoked God to hide His face from them and to give them up into the hand of their enemies; and therefore they desire to begin their work at the right end. “Lord, turn us to Thee in a way of repentance and reformation, and then Thou wilt return to us in a way of mercy and deliverance.” Observe: No salvation but from God’s favor. “Cause Thy face to shine, let us have Thy love and the light of Thy countenance, and then we shall be saved.” No obtaining favor with God unless we be converted to Him. We must turn again to God from the world and the flesh, and then He will cause His face to shine upon us. No conversion to God but by His own grace; we must frame our doings to turn to Him (Hos. 5:4), and then pray earnestly for His grace. Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned, pleading that gracious promise (Prov. 1:23). Turn you at My reproof, behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto you. H.
8. We have here (vs. 8-16) a beautiful parable, or shall we call it an allegory, admirably sustained throughout, in which Israel, brought forth from Egypt, is a vine transplanted from that soil to Canaan, and there under Divine culture for a long time prosperous, but at this present writing sadly desolate. Part of the beauty of the parable consists in the apt choice of the Hebrew words, e.g., the verb “hast brought,” i.e., a vine, might suggest the transplanting of a vine, or somewhat more readily, the moving of a nomadic caravan across a desert with allusion to Israel on his way to Canaan. “Thou didst root out the heathen,” pulling them out by the roots to make room for this vine in Canaan. Thus room was made all round about for its luxuriant growth till Israel (under David and Solomon) had finally possessed all the land promised to their fathers. C.
10. The spreading nature of the boughs of the cedar-tree is here called in aid of the description of the vine, first made use of to illustrate the rapid growth and luxuriance of Israel, but which seemed not sufficient to the Psalmist to denote the great ascendancy of the moral and political power of God’s people, which only this stately tree could adequately represent, by its conspicuous majesty and protecting umbrage. Anon.
10,11. One great vine (this is the conception) covered the hills of Palestine with its shadow; its towering boughs were tall like the cedars of God (Hebrew); her branches stretched out to the great sea on the west and to the great river (Euphrates) on the east. These were the natural boundaries of the land promised originally to the patriarchs. C.
12. Why hast Thou broken down her hedges? There was a good reason for this change in God’s way toward them; this noble vine was become the degenerate plant of a strange vine (Jer. 2:21), to the reproach of its great Owner, and then no marvel if He took away its hedge (Isa. 5:5); yet God’s former favors to this vine are urged as pleas in prayer to God, and improved as encouragements to faith, that for all this God would not wholly cast them off. H.
13. The boar out of the wood doth waste it. No image of a destructive enemy could be more appropriate than that which is used. We have read of the little foxes that spoil the vines, but the wild boar is a much more destructive enemy, breaking its way through fences, rooting up the ground, tearing down the vines themselves, and treading them under its feet. A single party of these animals will sometimes destroy an entire vineyard in a single night. J. G. Wood.
17. The man of Thy right hand. The Son of man. These striking expressions apply in the fullest and most perfect sense to Christ. If the man of God’s right hand be the man placed there, to whom can the title apply but to Him? for, “to which of the angels said God at any time, Sit on My right hand?” (Heb. 1:5); and much less has He said this of any Jewish king. As to the other appellation, The Son of man, it is one of Christ’s most definite titles, being given to Him in Scripture no less than seventy-one times; in sixty-seven instances by Himself; once by Daniel; once by the martyr Stephen; and twice by the Apostle John in the Revelation. He it is, too, whom the Father has made strong for the salvation of His Church, and who will yet turn away captivity from the chosen people, and restore them to a place in the Church, so that henceforth they “will not go back from God.” Anon.—The perpetuity of the Church, and the perseverance of the saints is founded upon the sufficiency of Christ; and the unfeigned believer may assure himself, as of the continuance of the Church, so of his own perseverance and constant communion with God through Him. “Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, so will not we go back from Thee.” Dickson.
18. It is in Christ that we abide faithful; because He lives we live also. There is no hope of our perseverance apart from Him. “Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name.” If the Lord gives life out of death, His praise is sure to follow. The Lord Jesus is such a leader that in Him is life, and the life is the light of men. He is our life. S.—If your hearts be cold, prayer is a more likely means to warm them than the omission of it. To ask whether you may pray while your hearts are cold and backward, is to ask whether you may labor or
come to the fire before you are warm. God’s Spirit is more likely to help you in duty than in the neglect of it. Baxter.—To depend upon feeling in religion is unsafe and dangerous. A man may as well think of holding fast to the clouds, building upon running sand, or relying on the wind. The clouds, the sand, the wind, are no more changeable and uncertain than our feelings. A change in circumstances, or a change in health, or a change in friends, will often produce an equal change in feeling. Our religion should be like the sun, which, cloud or no cloud, goes on in its shining course; like the earth which, wind or no wind, rolls on its orbit. We should “stand by faith,” “live by faith,” and “hold fast the profession of our faith.” Bates.