Psalm LXXIV
1 0 God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?
Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
2 Kemember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; The rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed;
This Mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt!
3 Lift up thy feet into the perpetual desolations i-Even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.
4 Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; They set up their ensigns for signs.
5 A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick
trees.
G But now they break down the carved work thereof ut once with axes and hammei-s.
7 They have cast fire into thy sanctuary,
They have defiled by casting down the dwelling-place of thy name to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together. 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 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?
Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?
11 Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of
thy bosom!
12 For 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 bi-eakest the heads of leviathan in pieces.
And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
15 Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty
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 .nnd
winter.
18 llemember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, And that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.
19 O deliver not the soul of thy turtle dove unto the multitude of the wicked: Forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.
20 Have respect unto the covenant:
For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
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 daily.
23 Forget not the voice of thine enemies:
The tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseih continually.
The title. “MascMl” refers us to something (as elsewhere remarked) in the mode of setting the Psahn to music, or playing it on the harp, of which we know nothing. As in the last Psalm, so in this, Asaph’s name appears. Some, however, suppose this Asaph to be a later individual of the same godly family. Patrick adopts the idea that he may have been the Asaph who was “the keeper of the king’s forest” (Neh. ii. 8), and hence some of the allusions to the cedar-trees and the like. It is arresting to the fancy to set before us Asaph led to compose this melancholy hymn amid some of the lonely woods of his now desolate Land! But all we can say is, that it certainly is the composition of an Asaph long after the days of David, who perhaps was one of the family mentioned in Ezra iii. 1 0 (for 2 Chron. XX. 14 is too early), and so possibly the very “keeper of the king’s forests.”
The desolation of Israel’s land and people are spread before the Lord. The Head of the Church, who wept over Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, and lamented their too sure ruin, could use these strains, and pour them into the Father’s ear. Every Israelite’s heart would thrill in singing such a solemn melody. Every believer’s soul should fully enter into the sorrow for ancient Israel which is taught us here.
“The signs” of verse 4 and verse 9, are the holy emblems. The significant pillars, “Boaz and Jachin,” the brazen sea, the altar, the lavers, mercy-seat with cherubims, candlestick, and the like, all had disappeared. The standards of the enemy appear in the sanctuary instead! Oh how unlike (in significance as in form) the vail that hid the ark because Jehovah was there, and the ensigns of Babylon that too surely proved that Jehovah had forsaken his heritage! The “synagogues” may mean places where the elders met to exhort and pray with the people. (Tholuck.)
In verse 5 some render the line to this effect: — “The enemy makes himself look like, and known as, one who lifts up the axe on the trees,” applying it to the same subject as verse 6. But our version gives the better meaning. When the temple was building, every man that cut down a cedar on Lebanon to help in the glorious erection was reckoned famous; whereas now, men have become renowned by using “chisel and club” in destroying the carved work and tracery of the sanctuary walls.*
Inverse 9, the “no prophet’ is like Lament, ii. 9. In verse ] 1 we have “Pluck (it) out of thy bosom” — literally, n^3, “finish — destroy.” It is meant to express something far more
* Barclay expresses the idea in another form: —” In former days of Jerubbaal,
An high renown was truly won,
liy hewing down the groves so tall,
Where foul idolatry was shewn.” (Judg. vii. 28 )
The tone
und plan
224 PSALM Lxxiv. — appp:al of the scattered heritage.
terrible than “plucking the hand, out of the bosom;” it is a cry for “destruction on foes;” and, as HengstenLerg says, “the annihilation proceeds from the bosom of God, when his right hand is at the moment reposing.” May we not add, “from that bosom whence came his Son! “just as the fire on Sodom was” out of heaven, from God.” This apjieal represents to our imagination the suppliant gazing upward on the bosom of his King, to see if that right hand begins to be plucked forth! Thereafter, reasons of confidence are rehearsed. No less than sevei times is the emphatic “rlrli” used, “the sevenfold thou” (Hengst), while his deeds are set forth; dividing the Red Sea, drying up the “ever flowing river” (ver. ] 8), and the like; and forthwith the suppliant, as if thus anew invigorated to hope, urges his plea —” Give not up thy turtle dove to the greedy host,’’ (Phillips). (Ver. 19.) Applicable to If this Psalm was written by a later Asaph, the verse 20, which
other times. “^
speaks of the covenant in connection with earth’s dark places, might tacitly refer to such predictions as Isaiah Ix. 1-3. The nations are said, in Rev. xi. 18, to be in the very condition spoken of here at the close, when the Lord arises to judge the earth, and to make the kingdoms become “The Kingdom of our God, and of his Christ.” Israel’s case will be attended to that day; Israel’s wrongs will be avenged; Israel’s sins forgiven; Israel’s sorrows relieved. That will be the day when this wailing appeal shall find at the hands of Him who hears the voice both of his own Son, our Head, and of the members of his Son, a full acknowledgment of this
The appeal of the scattered heritage to the mighty God of Israel.