This psalm belongs to the same period with Ps. lxxiv., perhaps that of the Babylonish conquest, and contains a description of the sufferings of the chosen people, ver. 1-4, a prayer for deliverance, ver. 5-12, and a promise of thanksgiving, ver. 13.
1. A Psalm. By Asaph. 0 God, gentiles have come into thy heritage; they have defiled thy holy temple; they have turned Jerusalem to heaps. The intrusion of heathen into the sanctuary was its worst dishonour, They have placed Jerusalem for heaps, or as a heap of ruins. This includes the destruction of the temple. Compare Ps. lxxiv. 4.
2. They have given the corpse of thy servants (as) food to the bird of the heavens, the flesh of thy saints to the (wild) beast of the earth. A common description of extensive and promiscuous carnage. The words translated corpse, bird, beast, are all collectives. The last has here its most specific and distinctive sense as denoting beasts of prey. See above, on Ps. lxviii. 11 (10), lxxiv. 19.
3. They have shed their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there is none burying, or none to bury them. There is no period in the history of ancient Israel to which these terms can be applied without extravagance, except that of the Babylonian conquest.
4. We have been (or become) a contempt to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to those round about us. See above, on Ps. xliv. 14 (13), where the very same expressions are employed.
5. Unto what (point), until when, how long, Jehovah, wilt thou be angry for ever, will burn like fire thy zeal (or jealousy)? With the first clause compare Ps, xiii. 2 (1), lxxiv. 1, 10; with the second, Ex. xx. 5, Deut. xxix. 19 (20), Ps. lxxviii. 58.
6. Pour out thy wrath against the nations which have not known thee, and upon kingdoms which thy name have not imwked. This is commonly explained as a prayer for divine judgments on the nations which combined for the destruction of Judah (2 Kings xxiv. 2). But it seems to be rather an expostulation and complaint that God had made no difference between his own people and the heathen. As if he had said, If thou must pour out thy wrath, let it rather be on those who neither know nor worship thee than on thine own peculiar people.
7. For he hath devoured Jacob, and his dwelling (or his pasture-ground) they have laid waste. The singular verb in the first cause relates to the chief enemy, the plural in the last to his confederates. The wide sense of dwelling and the narrower one of pasture are both authorised by usage. See above, on Ps. xxiii. 2, kv. 13 (12), lxxiv. 20.
8. Remember not against us the iniquities of former (generations); make haste, let thy compassions meet us, for we are reduced exceedingly. Against us, literally, as to us, respecting us, which, in this connection, must mean to our disadvantage or our condemnation. Former iniquities is scarcely a grammatical construction of the Hebrew words usually so translated. The adjective, when absolutely used, always refers to persons, and means ancestors or ancients. Personal and hereditary guilt are not exclusive but augmentative of one another. The sons merely fill up the iniquities of their fathers. The verb hasten (“IHD) may be either imperative or infinitive. If the latter, it qualifies the following verb, as in the English version, let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us. For the meaning of this last verb, see above, on Ps. xxi. 4 (3). Reduced, weakened, brought low, both in strength and condition. See above, on Ps. xl. 2 (1), where the cognate adjective is used. It was probably the verse before us that determined the position of this psalm, in close connection with Ps. lxxviii., the great theme of which is the iniquity of former generations.
9. Help Its, 0 God of our salvation, on account of the glory of thy name; and set us free and pardon our sins for the sake of thy (own) name. The title, God of our salvation, is expressive of a covenant obligation to protect his people, as well as of protection and deliverance experienced already. On account, literally for the word, or as we say in English, for the sake, which is used above, however, to translate a different Hebrew word. The glory of thy name, to maintain and vindicate the honour of thy attributes as heretofore revealed in act. See above, on Ps. v. 12 (11), xxiii. 3. Set us free, deliver us, from our present sufferings and the power of our enemies. Pardon our sins, literally make atonement for them, i.e. forgive them for the sake of the expiation which thou hast thyself provided. See above, on Ps. lxxviii. 38. It is characteristic of the ancient saints to ask God’s favour, not for their own sake merely, but for the promotion of his glory.
10. Wherefore should the nations say. Where (is) their God? Known among the nations, in our sight, he the avenging of the blood of thy servants, the (blood) poured out, (or shed), as was described above, in ver. 8. This argument in favour of God’s interposition, founded on the false conclusions which his enemies would draw fi:om his refusal, is of frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch. See Exod. xxxii. 12, Num. xiv. 13-16, Deut. ix. 28, and compare Joel ii. 17, from which the words before us are directly borrowed. Where is their God, the invisible, spiritual being whom they worship, but who cannot save them from external dangers? Or the meaning may be. Where is the proof of that almighty power, and that love for his own people, of which they have so often and so loudly boasted? The English Bible makes the verb in the second clause agree with God (let him be known), and supplies a preposition before vengeance (by the revenging). But the ancient versions, followed by the Prayer Book and the best modern interpreters, construe the verb and noun together (known he the avenging). The diversity of gender may be easily reduced to the general law of Hebrew syntax, that when the verb precedes its subject, and especially when separated from it, the former may assume the masculine form, not as such, but as the primitive and simplest form. In our sight, literally to our eyes, just as we say in English, to our faces. This aggravating circumstance is borrowed from Dent. vi. 22, and the idea of avenging blood from Deut. xrdi. 43.
11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee, according to the greatness of thine arm, suffer to survive the sons of death (or of mortality). The nation is here viewed as an individual captive, not without reference to the literal captivity and exile occasioned by the Babylonian conquest, and with evident historical allusion to the bondage of Israel in Egypt, from the account of which (Exod. ii. 23-25) some of the expressions here are borrowed. Come before thee, reach thee, and attract thy notice. Compare the opposite expression in Isa. i. 23. The arm, as usual, is the symbol of exerted strength. See above, on Ps. x. 15, xxxvii. 17, xliv. 4 (3). The whole phrase is a Mosaic one. See Exod. xv. 16, and compare Num. xiv. 19, Deut. iii. 24. The last verb in the sentence means to leave behind or over, to cause or suffer to remain. See Exod. x. 15, xii. 10, Isa. i. 9. The last noun in Hebrew occurs only here, but is an obvious derivative from (JTlD) death, bearing perhaps the same relation to it that mortalitas sustains to mors. According to a well-known oriental idiom, the whole phrase denotes dying men, or those about to die, or more specifically, those condemned or doomed to death.
12. And render to our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their contempt (with) which they have contemned thee, Lord! The first verb is a causative, and means to bring back or cause to return. See above, on Ps. lxxii. 10. The neighbours are those mentioned in ver. 4, and the allusion here at least includes the expression of contemptuous incredulity in ver. 10. Sevenfold, a common idiomatic term denoting fi-equent repetition or abundance. See above, on Ps. xii. 7 (6). Into the bosom, an expression which originally seems to have had reference to the practice of carrying and holding things in the lap or the front fold of the flowing oriental dress, has in usage the accessory sense of retribution or retaliation. See my note on Isa. lxv. 6, 7, and compare Jer. xxxii. 18, Luke vi. 38. The cognate noun and verb, translated contempt and contemned, denote not the mere internal feeling, but the oral expression of it by revilings, scoffs, and insults. See above, on Ps. xlii. 11 (10), lxix. 10 (9). The Lord at the conclusion is by no means a mere expletive, but aggravates the sin of these despisers by describing it as committed against their rightful sovereign.
13. And we, thy people and flock of thy pasture, will give thanks to thee for ever, to generation and generation will we recount thy praise. Some interpreters needlessly make two distinct propositions, we (are) thy people (and therefore) will give thanks, &c. The flock of thy pasture, that which thou feedest, that of which thou art the shepherd. See above, on Ps. lxxiv. 1, lxxviii. 70-72. For ever, literally to eternity. The following words, though thi-own into the first clause by the masoretic interpunction, belong to the second, as appears from the parallel structure of the sentence.
