Psalms 79King James Version
O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name.
A lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, identical in historical setting to Psalm 74. The heathen have come into the inheritance; the temple is defiled; bodies are given to birds and beasts; blood is shed like water; no one buries the dead. The living are a reproach to their neighbors. The prayer: remember not former iniquities, deliver us for thy name's sake, avenge the blood of thy servants, let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee.
When the people of God lie unburied and the nations mock 'where is their God?', the prayer is not for comfort but for vindication of the name that the nations are blaspheming.
verse: "Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?" The petition is grounded in God's own reputation: his silence damages the credibility of his name among the nations.
Superscription: 'A Psalm of Asaph.' Like Psalm 74, almost certainly composed in response to the 586 BC Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The unburied bodies (v2-3) are a specific horror of that event documented in Lamentations. Asaph collection, Book 3.
Asaph and the surviving congregation; the heathen who invaded and mock; God addressed to act for his own name's sake; the prisoners and those condemned to death; neighbors and generations to come.
Psalm 79 is echoed in the book of Lamentations and by later prophets as a response to the Babylonian destruction. The petition for vindication based on God's reputation among the nations (v10) is a form of theological argument that appears in Moses (Num 14:13-19) and Ezekiel 36. The psalm became a standard text for Jewish commemorations of national disasters.
For when communal suffering has become a spectacle for those who mock faith. The prayer is not for personal vindication but for the honor of the one in whom faith was placed.
1[A Psalm of Asaph.] O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
2The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
3Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.
4We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
5How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?
6Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.
7For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place.
8O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.
9Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.
10Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.
11Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;
12And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.
13So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.