Psalms 80:1

PSALM LXXX

A prayer for the captives, 1-3.

A description of their miseries, 4-7.

Israel compared to a vineyard, 8-14.

Its desolate state, and a prayer for its restoration, 15-19.

NOTES ON PSALM LXXX

The title: see Psalms 45:1; Psalms 60:1; Psalms 69:1, where every thing material is explained. This Psalm seems to have been written on the same occasion with the former. One ancient MS. in the public library in Cambridge writes the eightieth and the seventy-ninth all as one Psalm; the subject-matter is precisely the same-was made on the same occasion, and probably by the same author.

Verse Psalms 80:1. O Shepherd of Israel] The subject continued from the last verse of the preceding Psalm.

Leadest Joseph] Israel and Joseph mean here the whole of the Jewish tribes; all were at this time in captivity; all had been the people of the Lord; all, no doubt, made supplication unto him now that his chastening hand was upon them; and for all the psalmist makes supplication.

That dwellest between the cherubims] It was between the cherubim, over the cover of the ark, called the propitiatory or mercy-seat, that the glory of the Lord, or symbol of the Divine Presence, appeared. It is on this account that the Lord is so often said to dwell between the cherubim. Of these symbolical beings there is a long and painful account, or system of conjectures, in Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, of about twenty quarto pages, under the word כרב carab.

Shine forth.] Restore thy worship; and give us such evidences of thy presence now, as our fathers had under the first tabernacle, and afterwards in the temple built by Solomon.