Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 3 · Psalm 79
The Seventy Ninth Psalm.
A Psalm of Asaph.
Paraphrase. The seventy ninth Psalm is spent wholly in a view of some great calamity befalling the congregation of the Jews; not so probably the taking of the Arke by the Philistims, (which was not then at Jerusalem v. 1. but at Shiloh 1 Sam. iv. 4.) as the destroying the Temple in the times of Nebuchadonosor. It was composed by Asaph, either the Recorder in Davids time, and then it was praediction (see note on Psal. Lxxiii. a.) or by some other of that name, and then it might be history. It was fitted, as Psal. Lxxiv. for the Church in any time of persecution.
1. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy Temple have they defiled, and laid Jerusalema. on heaps.
O blessed Lord, thy displeasure is heavy upon us, and as an effect and evidence of that, a multitude of wicked men, the profest enemies of thee and thy service, have invaded this people that are called by thy name, and owned by thee in a special manner: And in this invasion they have not spared that place set apart on purpose for thy service, and the exhibition of thy divine presence, but have foulely violated and profaned it, and laid wast the whole city wherein it is situate.
2. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat to the fouls of the heavens, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
3. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.
At other times in common calamities, some speciall servants of thine have been exempted, Noah from the deluge, Lot from the overthrow of Sodom, (see Ezec. xiv. 14.) but now thy chosen people, set apart by thine own appointment, as thy subjects and servants, have all without any discrimination been slain in the field, slaughtered in great abundance, their bodies neglected and left unburied, so that the wild beasts and fouls have fed on them, and their blood poured out most barbarously, and running down in streams through the streets of Jerusalem.
4. We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorne and derision to them that are round about us.
They that formerly lookt on us with reverence, as a people guarded and secured by thy protection, do now deride and scorne us, and upbraid us with our calamities, and the trust which we still repose in God, when we are forsaken by him.
5. How long, Lord, wilt thou be angry, for ever? shall thy jealousie burne like fire?
Blessed Lord, be thou pleased in thine own time at length favourably to return to us, and not to poure out thy fiercest wrath, and destroy us utterly.
6. Poure out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the Kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.
Those that have thus butchered us are aliens from thee, neither know thy lawes, nor acknowledge thee to be their God, and consequently never worship nor pray unto thee. 'Twill not be strange for thy heaviest punishments to light on them, as on thy profest enemies: O let them not fall on us, who profess to be thy servants.
7. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid wast his dwelling-place.
Beside their heathen sins of Idolatry and all impiety, it cannot but be a great addition to their guilts, a kinde of sacriledge and violation of thee, that they have invaded and wasted this land of thine, which thou hast given to the posterity of thy chosen special servants, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, with whom thou hast entred into Covenant that thou wilt be their God, and they thy people.
8. O remember not against us‖old b.former iniquities;†make haste, let thy compassions prevent us foreign let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us, for we are brought very low.
'Tis certain, our continued obstinacies and rebellions against thee, from the beginning of our being a nation to this time, have most justly brought down thy judgments on us; and if to our present provocations thou adde the multitude of our old abominations, that of the golden calfe, &c. we can expect nothing but utter desolation and destruction. O be pleased not to lay them to our charge, heap not all our Ancestors idolatries and rebellions upon our shoulders, lest we, that have a full weight of our own, be ascertain'd to sink and be drowned under them. We are now very sore afflicted and distrest, O do thou make all speed to returne to us; Our miseries have fully qualified us for thy seasonable mercies, O be thou gratiously pleased to interpose them for us, and rescue us out of our present captivation.
9. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name, and deliver us, and purge away our sins for thy names sake.
Thou, O God, art our only redeemer and deliverer, be thou gratiously pleased to relieve and rescue us, and thereby to shew forth the glory of thy power and mercy, and all thy divine attributes. O free us from the effects of thy displeasure due to our sins, be thou gratiously reconciled to us. And this we beg and hope, upon no other inforcement but that of thine own mercy, promised to those that make their humble addresses to thee, and of thine honour, which seems to be concerned in the preserving thine own people.
10. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?c. let*the revenge—be known— foreign— him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenge of the blood of thy servants which is shed.
If thou do not interpose for our relief, the idolatrous nations will resolve that our God is not able to defend us, and so reproach and blaspheme thee. Be thou therefore pleased to shew forth thy power in relieving us, and requiring our blood at the hands of those which have most unjustly destroyed us, that not only we may be delivered by thee, but our oppressors, thy enemies may be taught to fear thee, by beholding thy power and justice in thy signal vengeance on them.
11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee: according to the greatness of thy‖arme foreign power preserve thou those that are appointed to die.
Many of us are now in bands ready for the sentence of death, whensoever these tyrannical enemies please; O thou that art the refuge of all such, be thou pleased, in answer to our saddest moans, seasonably to interpose for our preservation.
12. And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosome, theird. reproach†the reproach of them who have— wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.
To repay those injuries and contumelies, in thy just measure of retaliation, to all those that have opprest and contumeliously handled us, and so to own us as our patron and advocate.
13. So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever, we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.
For this timely interposition of thine, O Lord, our constant acknowledgments and commemorations of thy mercies shal be our perpetual tribute through all ages, our posterity to all successions joyning with us in that payment.
Annotations on Psalm LXXIX.
V. 1. Heaps] foreign foreignfrom foreign oblique or crooked (or else foreign being it selfe a theme) signifies heaps. So Mic. i. 6. I will make Samaria foreign for an heap; the Chaldee render it foreign for heaps, though here by way of paraphrase they read foreign for a desolation; and so the Syriack also foreign desolate. The Lxxii. here read foreign for an hoord of ripe fruit, because that is wont to be laid in heaps; which the Latine reads, I suppose to the same sense, in pomorum custodiam, for the keeping of apples, or for a place where apples are kept. But the original seems to referr to one sort of heaps, that of graves, which are made by aggestion or casting up of earth, to cover the dead body that lies under. So Job xxx. 24. foreign into the grave. And this is here fitly applied to Jerusalem, the stately buildings whereof underwent the same destruction with the inhabitants; it was before their dwelling place, it is now their Sepulchre, the whole city is turned into several tombs or monumental heaps. Abu Walid ascribes to the word the notion of desolations, and wasts, and so the Jewish Arab.
V. 8. Former iniquities] foreign foreignmay probably here have a special reference to those first sins, which this people had been guilty of after their coming out of Aegypt. Such was their Idolatry in the Golden calfe. Of that God tels them Exod. xxxii. 34. In the day that I visit, I will visit their sin upon them, viz. this sin of theirs. Accordingly the Jews have a received maxim, foreign, there is no visitation, in which there is not some visitation of, or infliction for the calfe. To this the Hebrew foreign (from foreign head or feet) seems to encline, and so doth the Chaldee, which renders it our iniquities foreign that were from the beginning; and the Lxxii. by foreign, (as that is all one with foreign those that were from the beginning) are to the same sense; and so the Syriack by foreign our old sins, and the vulgars Antiquarum, their antient sins.
V. 10. Let him be known] That foreign foreigncognoscatur, let be known, is to be connected to the noune foreign revenge, and not to the name of God praeceding, is agreed on by the antient Interpreters. So the Lxxii. foreign— And let the revenge of the blood of thy servants which is poured out be known among the heathen before our eyes. So the Syriack, foreign Let the avenging or inquisition be known among the nations in our sight. And so may the Chaldee be rendred also, foreign, Let the avenging of the blood of thy servants be manifested among the people, that we may see it. And so the others also.
V. 12. Reproach] foreign foreignmost fitly belongs here to the persons foregoing, viz. our neighbours, and not to the reproach, thus, Render our neighbours seven fold into their bosome, i. e. as they have dealt with us, so do thou deal with them, returne to them seven fold, by way of punishment, for all their oppressions and injuries done to us: then follows foreign, the reproach of them which have reproached thee, O Lord, i. e. repay or returne reproach, and (from the former words) seven times as much reproach, to them which have reproached thee, O Lord. Thus the Chaldee their foreign may be rendred, who have reproacht— and so the Interlinear reads probrum eorum qui affecerunt te probris, the reproach of them that reproached thee.