The Psalm begins with a prayer to the Shepherd of Israel once more to manifest His power and lead His people to victory (Psalms 80:1-3). How long, pleads the Psalmist, will God continue to be angry with His people and abandon them to the mockery of their enemies (Psalms 80:4-7)? He reminds God of... [ Continue Reading ]
The Psalmist addresses God (1) as _the Shepherd of Israel_, a title which is the correlative of the words in Psalms 79:13, _thy people and the flock of thy pasture_(cp. Psalms 74:1), and appeals to their claim on His protecting care: (2) as thou that leddest Joseph like a flock, recalling His provid... [ Continue Reading ]
A prayer for the restoration of God's favour to His people.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh were united by the tie of common descent from Jacob's beloved wife Rachel, who is regarded by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15) as the mother of the Northern Kingdom, and they are named as representatives of that Kingdom. According to Numbers 2:17 ff. these tribes encamped to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Turn us again_ Usually taken to mean _bring us back_from exile, or more generally, _restore us:_repair our broken fortunes. Cp. Psalms 60:1. But is it not rather an allusion to Ephraim's prayer in Jeremiah 31:18, interpreted in Lamentations 5:21 in a spiritual sense? National repentance is the cond... [ Continue Reading ]
_O Lord God_of _hosts Jehovah Elôhîm Tsebâôth_, as in Psalms 59:5. For the meaning see note on Psalms 46:7. There is a special significance in the repeated appeals to Jehovah (4, 14, 19) by the title which denotes His universal sovereignty, and therefore His ability to help Israel in its humiliation... [ Continue Reading ]
How long shall Israel continue to be the object of Jehovah's displeasure, and the scorn of neighbouring nations?... [ Continue Reading ]
Thou hast fed them with bread of tears, And given them tears to drink in large measure. i.e. made tears their daily portion: cp. Psalms 42:3; Psalms 102:9. _In large measure_, lit. _by the tierce_, or third part of some larger measure, probably the _bath_(_ephah_, in dry measure), and if so contai... [ Continue Reading ]
_a strife_&c. An object of contention (Jeremiah 15:10): the petty states round about (Psalms 79:4; Psalms 79:12), Edomites, Arabians, and the like, quarrel among themselves for our territory. Lagarde conjectures that we should read mânôd, _shaking_(of the head), for mâdôn, _strife_, as in Psalms 44:... [ Continue Reading ]
Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt (R.V.): the verb is one which can be applied to the transplantation of a vine, or the migration of a people, as in Psalms 78:52. Thou didst drive out the nations, and plantedst it. See Exodus 23:28 ff; Exodus 15:17; Psalms 44:2; Psalms 78:55.... [ Continue Reading ]
Under the figure of a vine, once carefully tended and spreading far and wide in luxuriant growth, but now exposed to the ravages of wild beasts, the Psalmist contrasts God's former care for His people with their present plight. The figure of the vine may have been suggested by Genesis 49:22. See Hos... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou preparedst_room _before it_ As the vinedresser prepares the ground for his vine by clearing away the stones and thorns and all that would hinder its free growth (Isaiah 5:2), so God prepared Canaan for Israel by the expulsion of its old inhabitants. _and didst cause it_&c. Rather, and it stru... [ Continue Reading ]
_The hills_ The mountains. _the goodly cedars_ Cedars of God (_El_), those "which he hath planted," the indigenous cedars of Lebanon, noblest of forest trees. Cp. "mountains of God" (Psalms 36:6). The alternative rendering of R.V. marg., _And the cedars of God with the boughs thereof_, gives the sa... [ Continue Reading ]
She sent out her branches unto the sea, And her shoots unto the River (R.V.), spreading westward to the Mediterranean, and eastward to the Euphrates, boundaries approximately realised in the time of David and Solomon. See Psalms 72:8; Genesis 15:18; Exodus 23:31; Deuteronomy 11:24; 2 Samuel 8:6; 1... [ Continue Reading ]
_Why_&c. The question is half expostulation, half inquiry, for Israel's present plight is a riddle to the Psalmist. _hedges_ R.V. fences. Vineyards were always carefully fenced to protect them (Isaiah 5:5). Almost the same words recur in Psalms 89:40-41.... [ Continue Reading ]
The boar out of the forest doth ravage it, And the wild beasts of the field feed on it. "Under Hermon," says Dr Tristram, "in the vineyard districts, we heard grievous lamentations of the damage done to the vines by the boars, which not only devour the grapes, but also munch up the bearing shoots.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Return_ Or, as R.V., Turn again. It is the intransitive form of the verb _turn us again in_Psalms 80:3_; Psalms 80:7; Psalms 80:19_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Repeated prayers for the restoration of God's favour to Israel.... [ Continue Reading ]
This verse presents serious ambiguities and difficulties. The first word may be rendered as a substantive, in close connexion with Psalms 80:14, _and the vineyard_, or better as R.V. and the stock: or, as in R.V. marg., as a verb: and protect (or maintain) that which thy right hand hath planted. The... [ Continue Reading ]
The gender of the word shews that _it_refers to the vine. _Cut down_, as fit for nothing but fuel. Cp. Isaiah 33:12; Ezekiel 15:4. _they perish_&c. The figure is dropped. The Israelites perish, for God has not merely hidden His face, but turned it upon them in anger. It has been conjectured that t... [ Continue Reading ]
A repetition of Psalms 80:15, dropping the metaphor. Extend Thy hand, put forth Thy power to protect the people which Thy right hand made into a nation and delivered from Egypt. _The son of man_describes it as affected by human frailty and therefore needing divine help. The personification of Israel... [ Continue Reading ]
So shall we not go back from thee (R.V.), bound to Thee by a fresh tie of allegiance. _quicken us_ The restoration of our national life (Hosea 6:2) will evoke a fresh response of grateful praise.... [ Continue Reading ]
_O Lord God_of _hosts_ There is a climax in the use of divine names in the refrains (3, 7, 19). The Psalmist clenches his appeal by the use of the covenant name Jehovah, along with the title expressive of universal sovereignty, God of hosts.... [ Continue Reading ]