Armenia in comments -- Book: Psalms (tPs) Սաղմոս
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tPs 79::2 The dead bodies of thy servants - It appears that in the destruction of Jerusalem the Chald:eans did not bury the bodies of the slain, but left them to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey. This was the grossest inhumanity. Psalms 79:3 tPs 79::3 There was none to bury them - The Chald:eans would not; and the Jews who were not slain were carried into captivity. Psalms 79:4 tPs 79::7 Laid waste his dwelling-place - The Chald:ee understands this of the temple. This, by way of eminence, was Jacob's place. I have already remarked that these two verses are almost similar to Jer 10:25, which has led many to believe that Jeremiah was the author of this Psalm. Psalms 79:8
psa 79:0
This psalm, also, purports to be a psalm of Asaph; that is, it was either composed by him or for him; or it was the composition of one of his descendants who presided over the music in the sanctuary, and to whom was given the general family name, Asaph. The psalm pertains to the same general subject as Ps. 74, and was composed evidently in view of the same calamities. Rudinger, DeWette, and some others, suppose that the reference in the psalm is to the persecutions under Antiochus Epiphanes. To this opinion, also, Rosenmuller inclines. The most common, and the most probable supposition, however, is that it refers to the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chald:eans.
The contents of the psalm are as follows:
I. A statement of the calamity which had come upon the nation. The pagan had come into the heritage of God; they had defiled the sanctuary; they had made Jerusalem desolate; they had murdered the inhabitants; and the nation had become a reproach before the world, Psa 79:1-4.
II. A prayer for the divine interposition, Psa 79:5-6.
III. Reasons for that prayer, or reasons why God should interpose in the case, Psa 79:7-13. These reasons are,
(a) that they had devoured Jacob, Psa 79:7;
(b) that the people, on account of their sins, had been brought very low, Psa 79:8;
(c) that the divine glory was at stake, Psa 79:9-10;
(d) that they were in a suffering and pitiable condition, many being held as captives, and many ready to die, Psa 79:11 :
(e) that justice demanded this, Psa 79:12; and
(f) that this interposition would lay the foundation for praise to God, Psa 79:13. Psalms 79:1
tPs 79::1 O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance - The nations; a foreign people. See Psa 2:1, note; Psa 2:8; note; Psa 78:55, note. The term is one that would be applicable to the Chald:eans, or Babylonians, and the probable allusion here is to their invasion of the holy land under Nebuchadnezzar. Ch2 36:17-21.
Thy holy temple have they defiled - They have polluted it. By entering it; by removing the sacred furniture; by cutting down the carved work; by making it desolate. See Ch2 36:17-18. Compare the notes at Psa 74:5-7.
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps - See Ch2 36:19 : "And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof." Psalms 79:2 tPs 79::2 The dead bodies of thy servants ... - They have slain them, and left them unburied. See Ch2 36:17. This is a description of widespread carnage and slaughter, such as we know occurred at the time when Jerusalem was taken by the Chald:eans. At such a time, it is not probable that the Chald:eans would pause to bury the slain, nor is it probable that they would give opportunity to the captive Hebrews to remain to bury them. That would occur, therefore, which often occurs in war, that the slain would be left on the field to be devoured by wild animals and by the fowls of heaven. Psalms 79:3 tPs 79::3 Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem - They have poured it out in such quantities that it seems to flow like water - not an uncommon occurrence in war. There was no event in the history of the Hebrews to which this description would be more applicable than to the Babylonian invasion. The language might indeed be applicable to the desolation of the city by Antiochus Epiphanes, and also to its destruction by the Romans; but, of course, it cannot refer to the latter, and there is no necessity for supposing that it refers to the former. All the conditions of a proper interpretation are fulfilled by supposing that it refers to the time of the Chald:ean invasion.
And there was none to bury them - The Chald:eans would not do it, and they would not suffer the Hebrew people to do it. Psalms 79:4
psa 79:0
Supplicatory Prayer in a Time of Devastation, of Bloodshed, and of Derision
This Psalm is in every respect the pendant of Ps 74. The points of contact are not merely matters of style (cf. Psa 79:5, how long for ever? with Psa 74:1, Psa 74:10; Psa 79:10, יוּדע, with Psa 74:5; Psa 79:2, the giving over to the wild beasts, with Psa 74:19, Psa 74:14; Psa 79:13, the conception of Israel as of a flock, in which respect Psa 79:1-13 is judiciously appended to Psa 78:70-72, with Psa 74:1, and also with Psa 74:19). But the mutual relationships lie still deeper. Both Psalms have the same Asaphic stamp, both stand in the same relation to Jeremiah, and both send forth their complaint out of the same circumstances of the time, concerning a destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, such as only the age of the Seleucidae (1 Macc. 1:31; 3:45, 2 Macc. 8:3) together with the Chald:aean period
(Note: According to Sofrim xviii. 3, Psa 79:1-13 and Psa 137:1-9 are the Psalms for the Knoth-day, i.e., the 9th day of Ab, the day commemorative of the Chald:aean and Roman destruction of Jerusalem.)
can exhibit, and in conjunction with a defiling of the Temple and a massacre of the servants of God, of the Chasdm (1 Macc. 7:13, 2 Macc. 14:6), such as the age of the Seleucidae exclusively can exhibit. The work of the destruction of the Temple which was in progress in Ps 74, appears in Psa 79:1-13 as completed, and here, as in the former Psalm, one receives the impression of the outrages, not of some war, but of some persecution: it is straightway the religion of Israel for the sake of which the sanctuaries are destroyed and the faithful are massacred.
Apart from other striking accords, Psa 79:6-7 are repeated verbatim in Jer 10:25. It is in itself far more probable that Jeremiah here takes up the earlier language of the Psalm than that the reverse is the true relation; and, as Hengstenberg has correctly observed, this is also favoured by the fact that the words immediately before viz., Jer 10:24, originate out of Psa 6:2, and that the connection in the Psalm is a far closer one. But since there is no era of pre-Maccabaean history corresponding to the complaints of the Psalm,
(Note: Cassiodorus and Bruno observe: deplorat Antiochi persecutionem tempore Machabeorum factam, tunc futuram. And Notker adds: To those who have read the First Book of the Maccabees it (viz., the destruction bewailed in the Psalm) is familiar.)
Jeremiah is to be regarded in this instance as the example of the psalmist; and in point of fact the borrower is betrayed in Psa 79:6-7 of the Psalm by the fact that the correct על of Jeremiah is changed into אל, the more elegant משׁפחות into ממלכות, and the plural אכלוּ into אכל, and the soaring exuberance of Jeremiah's expression is impaired by the omission of some of the words. Psalms 79:1
tPs 79::1 The Psalm begins with a plaintive description, and in fact one that makes complaint to God. Its opening sounds like Lam 1:10. The defiling does not exclude the reducing to ashes, it is rather spontaneously suggested in Psa 74:7 in company with wilful incendiarism. The complaint in Psa 79:1 reminds one of the prophecy of Micah, Mic 3:12, which in its time excited so much vexation (Jer 26:18); and Psa 79:2, Deu 28:26. עבדיך confers upon those who were massacred the honour of martyrdom. The lxx renders לעיים by εἰς ὀπωροφυλάκιον, a flourish taken from Isa 1:8. Concerning the quotation from memory in 1 Macc. 7:16f., vid., the introduction to Ps 74. The translator of the originally Hebrew First Book of the Maccabees even in other instances betrays an acquaintance with the Greek Psalter (cf. 1 Macc. 1:37, καὶ ἐξέχεαν αἷμα ἀθῷον κύκλῳ τοῦ ἁγιάσματος). "As water," i.e., (cf. Deu 15:23) without setting any value upon it and without any scruple about it. Psa 44:14 is repeated in Psa 79:4. At the time of the Chald:aean catastrophe this applied more particularly to the Edomites. Psalms 79:5
psa 79:0INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 79 A Psalm of Asaph. This psalm was not written by one Asaph, who is supposed to live after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chald:eans, or, according to some, even after the times of Antiochus, of whom there is no account, nor any certainty that there ever was such a man in those times; but by Asaph, the seer and prophet, that lived in the time of David, who, under a prophetic spirit, foresaw and foretold things that should come to pass, spoken of in this psalm: nor is it any objection that what is here said is delivered as an history of facts, since many prophecies are delivered in this way, especially those of the prophet Isaiah. The Targum is, "a song by the hands of Asaph, concerning the destruction of the house of the sanctuary (or temple), which he said by a spirit of prophecy.'' The title of the Syriac versions, "said by Asaph concerning the destruction of Jerusalem.'' The argument of the psalm is of the same kind with the Seventy Fourth. Some refer it to the times of Antiochus Epiphanes; so Theodoret; but though the temple was then defiled, Jerusalem was not utterly destroyed; and others to the destruction of the city and temple by Nebuchadnezzar; and why may it not refer to both, and even to the after destruction of both by Titus Vespasian? and may include the affliction and troubles of the Christians under Rome Pagan and Papal, and especially the latter; for Jerusalem and the temple may be understood in a mystical and spiritual sense; at least the troubles of the Jews, in the times referred to, were typical of what should befall the people of God under the New Testament, and in antichristian times. Psalms 79:1
tPs 79::1
O God, the Heathen are come into thine inheritance,.... The land of Canaan, divided among the children of Israel by lot and line for an inheritance, out of which the Heathen were cast, to make room for them; but now would come into it again; see Psa 89:35, and this is called the Lord's inheritance, because he gave it as such to the people of Israel, and dwelt in it himself; and the rather this is observed as something marvellous, that he should suffer Heathens to possess his own inheritance; or the city of Jerusalem, which was the place the Lord chose to put his name in; or the temple, where he had his residence, called the mountain of his inheritance, Exo 15:17, and into which it was always accounted a profanation for Heathens to enter; see Act 21:28, into each of these places the Heathen came; the Chald:eans under Nebuchadnezzar; the Syrians under Antiochus, as in the Apocrypha: "Insomuch that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled because of them: whereupon the city was made an habitation of strangers, and became strange to those that were born in her; and her own children left her.'' (1 Maccabees 1:38) "Now Jerusalem lay void as a wilderness, there was none of her children that went in or out: the sanctuary also was trodden down, and aliens kept the strong hold; the heathen had their habitation in that place; and joy was taken from Jacob, and the pipe with the harp ceased.'' (1 Maccabees 3:45) the Romans under Pompey, Vespasian, and Titus; and the Papists have since entered among the people of God, who are his heritage or inheritance, and have lorded it over them, and made havoc of them, and who are called Heathens and Gentiles, Psa 10:16, thy holy temple have they defiled: this was done in the times of Antiochus, by entering into it, taking away the holy vessels out of it, shedding innocent blood in it, and setting up the abomination of desolation on the altar, and sacrificing to it, as in the Apocrypha: "Every bridegroom took up lamentation, and she that sat in the marriage chamber was in heaviness,'' (1 Maccabees 1:27) "Thus they shed innocent blood on every side of the sanctuary, and defiled it:'' (1 Maccabees 1:37) "And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:'' (1 Maccabees 1:46) "And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death.'' (1 Maccabees 1:57) "For thy sanctuary is trodden down and profaned, and thy priests are in heaviness, and brought low.'' (1 Maccabees 3:51) "And they called upon the Lord, that he would look upon the people that was trodden down of all; and also pity the temple profaned of ungodly men;'' (2 Maccabees 8:2) and by burning it in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus; see Psa 74:7, and the church, which is the holy temple of God, has been defiled by antichrist sitting in it, and showing himself there as if he was God, by his dreadful blasphemies, idolatrous worship, and false doctrines, Th2 2:4, they have laid Jerusalem on heaps; the walls and buildings being pulled down, and made a heap of stones and rubbish: in the times of Antiochus and of the Maccabees, it was set on fire, and the houses and the walls pulled down on every side, and was greatly defaced, and threatened to be laid level with the ground, as in the Apocrypha: "And when he had taken the spoils of the city, he set it on fire, and pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side.'' (1 Maccabees 1:31) "And that he would have compassion upon the city, sore defaced, and ready to be made even with the ground; and hear the blood that cried unto him,'' (2 Maccabees 8:3) "That the holy city (to the which he was going in haste to lay it even with the ground, and to make it a common buryingplace,) he would set at liberty:'' (2 Maccabees 9:14) and this was thoroughly done in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, when the city was broke up and burnt with fire, and laid utterly desolate; so the Targum renders the word for "desolation"; it sometimes signifies a grave; see Job 30:24, and the sense may be here, that the city of Jerusalem was made graves to many; and multitudes were buried under the ruins of it. Aben Ezra interprets it, low places which were dug to find hidden things; the Septuagint translate it "a watch", or cottage "for apple orchards", and so the versions that follow it; signifying to what a low condition the city was reduced. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret the word as we do, "heaps": this, as it is true of Jerusalem, which has been trodden under foot by the Gentiles, and remains so to this day, Luk 21:24, so likewise of mystical Jerusalem, the holy city, given to the Gentiles or Papists, to be trodden down for the space of forty and two months, the exact time of the reign of antichrist, Rev 11:2. Psalms 79:2 tPs 79::7
For they have devoured Jacob,.... The posterity of Jacob, the people of the Jews, typical of the church of God, made havoc of by the Romish antichrist: and laid waste his dwelling place; both Jerusalem and the temple, which was done both by the Chald:eans and the Romans, and also in the times of Antiochus; see the Apocrypha: "38 Insomuch that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled because of them: whereupon the city was made an habitation of strangers, and became strange to those that were born in her; and her own children left her. 39 Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness, her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach her honour into contempt.'' (1 Maccabees 1) "4 In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey. 5 For He pursued the wicked, and sought them out, and burnt up those that vexed his people.'' (1 Maccabees 3) which were types of the Gospel church made desolate by the Papists: the word (d) used signifies a sheepcote, the dwelling place of those sheep that are troubled by the beast of Rome. (d) "caulam ejus", Michaelis. Psalms 79:8
psa 79:0
This psalm, if penned with any particular event in view, is with most probability made to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the woeful havoc made of the Jewish nation by the Chald:eans under Nebuchadnezzar. It is set to the same tune, as I may say, with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and that weeping prophet borrows two verses out of it (Psa 79:6, Psa 79:7) and makes use of them in his prayer, Jer 10:25. Some think it was penned long before by the spirit of prophecy, prepared for the use of the church in that cloudy and dark day. Others think that it was penned then by the spirit of prayer, either by a prophet named Asaph or by some other prophet for the sons of Asaph. Whatever the particular occasion was, we have here, I. A representation of the very deplorable condition that the people of God were in at this time (Psa 79:1-5). II. A petition to God for succour and relief, that their enemies might be reckoned with (Psa 79:6, Psa 79:7, Psa 79:10, Psa 79:12), that their sins might be pardoned (Psa 79:8, Psa 79:9), and that they might be delivered (Psa 79:11). III. A plea taken from the readiness of his people to praise him (Psa 79:13). In times of the church's peace and prosperity this psalm may, in the singing of it, give us occasion to bless God that we are not thus trampled on and insulted. But it is especially seasonable in a day of treading down and perplexity, for the exciting of our desires towards God and the encouragement of our faith in him as the church's patron.
A psalm of Asaph. Psalms 79:1
tPs 79::1
This Psalm, like the seventy-fourth, probably depicts the desolations of the Chald:eans (Jer 52:12-24). It comprises the usual complaint, prayer, and promised thanks for relief. (Psa 79:1-13)(Compare Psa 74:2-7).
Psalms 79:2