This Psalm and Psalms 79 are closely connected in thought and language [37], and reflect the same historical situation. If they are not from the same pen, they must at least belong to the same period, and must be considered together. [37] Comp. Psalms 74:1; Psalms 74:9-10 with Psalms 79:5, _how lon... [ Continue Reading ]
_for ever_ God's rejection of His people seems to have become permanent. The same thought recurs in Psalms 74:3_; Psalms 74:10; Psalms 74:19_, Psalms 79:5. Cp. Lamentations 5:20; Psalms 44:23; Lamentations 3:31. _smoke_ A metaphor for the outward signs of the fire of wrath. Cp. Psal [ Continue Reading ]
An appeal to God, Who seems to have abandoned and forgotten the people and city of His choice.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Remember_ Cp. Psalms 74:18_; Psalms 74:22_; Lamentations 5:1; Isaiah 62:6. _purchased … redeemed_ Reminiscences of the Song of Moses (Exodus 15:13; Exodus 15:16). Cp. Psalms 77:15; Psalms 78:35; Deu [ Continue Reading ]
_Lift up thy feet_ Bestir Thyself: come in might and majesty to visit and deliver. _the perpetual desolations_ R.V. the perpetual ruins: a word found elsewhere only in Psalms 73:18. Cp. the threat, Jeremiah 25:9, and the promises, Isaiah 58:12; Isaiah 61:4. even _all_&c. Better as R.V., All the evi... [ Continue Reading ]
Render, Thine adversaries roared in the midst of thy meeting place. _Mô"çd_may mean either the place or the time at which God meets His people, as of old He met them at "the tent of meeting" (Exodus 29:42-44). Here probably the Temple is meant. Its courts were filled with heathen foes instead of rev... [ Continue Reading ]
A graphic picture of the desecration of the Temple by the heathen enemies of Israel.... [ Continue Reading ]
The R.V. gives the probable sense of these verses, but does not reproduce the pictorial tenses, which represent the work of destruction as though it were going on before the reader's eyes. Render: They seem as men that lift up Axes upon a thicket of trees. And now the carved work thereof together... [ Continue Reading ]
They have set thy sanctuary on fire; They have profaned the dwelling place of thy name even to the ground. (R.V.) The verse appears to speak of a complete destruction of the Temple by fire. This was done by Nebuzaradan (2 Kings 25:9-10) but not by the emissaries of Antiochus, for Judas found the m... [ Continue Reading ]
They said in their heart, Let us crush them altogether: They burned up all the meeting places of God in the land. For the form of expression cp. Psalms 83:4. The interpretation of this verse is specially important in its bearing on the date of the Psalm. It would be a strong argument for the late... [ Continue Reading ]
_our signs_ The outward and visible symbols of our religion, such as sabbath and festival, which God "had caused to be forgotten in Zion" (Lamentations 2:6). The sabbath is spoken of as a sign in Exodus 31:13; Exodus 31:17; Ezekiel 20:12; Ezekiel 20:20. The words would of course be specially appropr... [ Continue Reading ]
_How long_ Taking up the last words of Psalms 74:9, the Psalmist begins the second division of the Psalm with an appeal parallel to that in Psalms 74:1. There he entreats God to have pity on His people's need, here to have regard to His own honour. _reproach … blaspheme_ In act and word. Like the As... [ Continue Reading ]
Once more the Psalmist expostulates with God for His inaction.... [ Continue Reading ]
Why drawest thou back thy hand, even thy right hand? (Pluck it) out of thy bosom (and) consume (them). The right hand which in days of old was stretched out to annihilate the Egyptians (Exodus 15:12), is now as it were thrust idly into the folded garment. Cp. Lamentations 2:3.... [ Continue Reading ]
_For_ Better as R.V., Yet. In spite of His present inactivity God has been and still is Israel's King. The Psalmist speaks in the name of the nation. Cp. Exodus 15:18; Psalms 44:4; Habakkuk 1:12. _salvation_ Lit. _salvations_, manifold and great acts of deliverance. _in the midst of the earth_ As... [ Continue Reading ]
Yet God's mighty works of Redemption and Creation attest His power to interpose for the deliverance of His people. Cp. Psalms 77:10 ff.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou_ Psalms 74:13_; Psalms 74:17_all begin with an emphatic Thou; Psalms 74:16 with Thine. It is Thou and none other, Who didst and doest all these things. The Asaphite Psalms are full of references to the Exodus. _by thy strength_ Cp. Psalms 77:14; Exodus 15:13. _The dragons_or _sea monsters_, an... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou brakest_&c. Thou didst crush … thou didst give him &c. The dead bodies of the Egyptians were cast up on the shore (Exodus 14:30) to be devoured by the wild beasts of the desert. Cp. Ezekiel 29:3-5. For -people" applied to animals cp. Proverbs 30:25-26.... [ Continue Reading ]
Thou didst cleave fountain and torrent: Thou didst dry up perennial rivers. God's omnipotence was shewn alike in cleaving the rock so that water flowed out (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:8; Psalms 78:15; Isaiah 48:21), and in drying up the perennial stream of the Jordan (Joshua 3; Joshua 4:23).... [ Continue Reading ]
_The day_&c. Thine is the day and the night is thine. _the light and the sun_ Possibly equivalent to -the moon and the sun" (Psalms 104:19); but more probably -the luminaries and especially the sun." Cp. Genesis 1:14; Genesis 1:16.... [ Continue Reading ]
All the fixed laws and ordinances of the natural world were established and are maintained by God.... [ Continue Reading ]
_the borders of the earth_ The divisions of land and sea (Psalms 104:9; Job 38:8 ff.; Jeremiah 5:22), and the apportionment of the land among the nations (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26).... [ Continue Reading ]
_the foolish people_ R.V. a foolish people. The epithet denotes the moral perversity of opposition to God. Cp. Psalms 14:1, note. It is applied to the heathen in Deuteronomy 32:21.... [ Continue Reading ]
Emboldened by his contemplation of the power of God in history and in nature the Psalmist returns to prayer.... [ Continue Reading ]
The rendering of R.V., O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast, is preferable to that of R.V. marg., _O deliver not thy turtledove unto the greedy multitude_. The dove is an emblem of the defenceless people. _forget not_&c. Forget not the family of thine afflicted ones for eve... [ Continue Reading ]
_the covenant_ With the patriarchs, Genesis 9:9 ff; Genesis 17:2 ff.; with the nation at the Exodus, Exodus 24:8; with David, Psalms 89:3; Psalms 89:39. _the dark places of the earth_ The heathen lands where Israel was in exile. We might also render, the dark places of the land, i.e. the caves and... [ Continue Reading ]
_O let not the oppressed_&c. Let not the crushed or down-trodden (Psalms 9:9; Psalms 10:18) turn back from Thee unanswered and disappointed. _let the poor_&c. Let the afflicted have cause to praise Thee for answered prayer.... [ Continue Reading ]
A final appeal. Elsewhere the Psalmist prays -plead my cause" (Psalms 43:1), but Israel's cause is God's cause: His honour is at stake. _the foolish man_ The fool, the members of -the foolish people," Psalms 74:18. The Targ. paraphrases, "the reproach of thy people from the foolish king," but there... [ Continue Reading ]
_thine enemies_ Thine adversaries, as in Psalms 74:4. _increaseth_ Rather, ascendeth (R.V.), to heaven, challenging Thee to act. Cp. Isaiah 37:29.... [ Continue Reading ]