Psalm 79 is a community lament. It dates from the post-exilic period. The people of Judah were devastated. The Babylonians, after previous incursions in 605 and 597 B.C., had destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The holy city now lay in ruins. Along with that destruction came loss of life, missing loved ones and exile. Some scholars think it could refer to 587 BC. If so, the calamity is so momentous that the Bible mentions it in four separate places in the Old Testament: II Kings 25; II Chronicles 36:11-21; Jeremiah 39:1-14; and Jeremiah 52. Jerusalem has fallen to the Babylonian invaders. Alternatively, it could refer to II Kings 24:2, to a catastrophe after Ezra, or to the Seleucid reign. I Maccabees 7: 17 quotes this psalm. It may refer to the same occasion as Psalm 74. Today Jews recite Psalm 79 on Friday evening at the western wall, the only section of the Second Temple in existence, and on the ninth day of Ab (the fifth month of the Jewish calendar), commemorating the various destructions of Jerusalem.[1]
The superscription describes it as A Psalm of Asaph, as are Psalms 50 and 73-83. Asaph was one of King David’s and King Solomon’s chief Levitical musicians (see I Chronicles 15:16 ff.; 16:4 ff.; II Chronicles 5:11-14). “Asaph” includes his descendants (see Ezra 2:41), who formed a guild of musicians. Asaph-attributed Psalms 74 and 83 express similar themes to Psalm 79. See also the entire book of Lamentations.
Psalm 79: 1-4 contain the lament surrounding an enemy who has invaded the country, defiled the temple, and laid Jerusalem in ruins. 1 O God, the nations (goyim, heathens, pagans)[2] have come into your inheritance, the land that God had given to his people; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. 2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. 3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. The slaughter of soldiers and civilians was so widespread that there was no one left to bury their dead, leaving carrion birds and beasts to pick, gnaw, and eat their bodies. The dead are lying where they fell. The writer can see with his own eyes the vultures circling overhead. He sees them hopping from one corpse to another, plucking and eating human flesh as though they were dining on a deer or a bear. Packs of dogs likewise hunt and feast. The bloodshed is so heavy that blood runs down the streets of Jerusalem in rivulets, pooling here and there. It is all an unthinkable nightmare of dystopian, even apocalyptic proportions. 4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. See also Obadiah 1:12-14 (re the Edomites), Ezekiel 25:3-7 (re the Ammonites) and Lamentations 1:21-22; 2:15-16. The enemy has massacred the worshipping community. Psalm 79, along with certain biblical prophets (e.g., Jeremiah 14 and Habakkuk 1:6 ff. — the Chaldeans are the Babylonians), historians (e.g., II Kings 17:13-41) and others (e.g., Nehemiah 9:26-31), see the punishing anger and judgment God (because of the sins of his people) being behind a pagan power’s actions against God’s people. Lamentations 1:5 says, “[Jerusalem and Judah’s] foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.”
It begins with the standard question. 5 How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? See such passages as Psalms 6:1-4; 13:1; 35:17; 80:4-7; 90:13; 94:3-7; Habakkuk 1:2; 2:1; Revelation 6:9-10.) Some of the “How long” passages share Psalm 79’s concern for how long anger of God will last against Judah and how long God will wait to exact vengeance against the destroying and taunting nations. Will your jealous wrath burn like fire? God’s burning “jealous anger” (or intense jealousy, zeal or indignation) has nothing to do with envy. God’s strong reaction is due to a combination of (1) hispeople having gone after other gods (as in having one’s own spouse pursuing other loves), and (2) the nations overplayingtheir role in acting against God’s own chosen people. The judgment of God has been severe. The people mock God. This is what is at stake. They cannot understand why God has judged them, who offer prayers, but not the Gentiles, who offer no prayers. Many doubted that God cared any more. Where was Yahweh, their God, when the holy land, holy people and holy temple were no more? However, the way is still open to God, for God to act, as the people place their trust in God. See Jeremiah 10:25, which copies verses 6-7.[3] 6 Pour out your anger on the nations (goyim) that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name. The psalmist asks that God turn the primary focus of his anger away from his people and toward those nations that neither “know” him nor “call on [his] name.” While the concept of asking God for vengeance/payback for their enemies pouring out their blood is foreign to many of our sanitized sensibilities, it is not unique to this passage. Other passages which feature prayers of imprecation include Psalm 69:18-28; 94:1-2; 109 passim; 137:7-9 (especially harsh words against Babylon); 139:19-22; Nehemiah 4:4-5. Imprecatory words are not limited to the OT: See Galatians 1:8-9; I Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 6:9-10; 19:1-3. For a twist, see Romans 12:16-21, which cites Deuteronomy 32:35. Especially see Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:38-48. 7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. 8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors. Yet Tanakh translates, “Do not hold our former iniquities against us.” It was a common belief that the effects of sin and judgment for sin carried on through the generations. See Lamentations 5:7. See Exodus 20:5, yet see Exodus 20:6. See also Jeremiah 31:29-30 and Ezekiel 18:2-4. See Jesus’ words in John 9:1-3. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. 9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive[4] our sins, for your name’s sake. We have here a plea for help along with a confession of sin. The psalmist received no such deliverance. If the writer refers to the invasion from Babylon in 587, the Babylonian armies under Nebuchadnezzar hit the kingdom of Judah in three invasions, and after the third (in 586 B.C.), the country and Jerusalem were in ruins. It would be years before any of the captives would be allowed to return, and most never did, preferring to remain in the life they had created in their new host country. Here is an example of God saying “No” to a prayer. Jeremiah urged the people of the exile to seek the welfare of the city in which they lived in the Babylonian empire (Jeremiah 29:5, 7). If that were the answer to this prayer, it would not be the one the writer expected or wanted. In verse 13, they wonder why the nations (goyim) should say where their God is (see Psalm 42:3, 10; 115:2). The question arises due to the devastation brought by the enemies of Judah, viewed as a sign of the powerlessness of the God of Israel. The inescapability of the presence of God means that God is present even with those who turn form God, although it might seem to those who do so that God is absent from them.[5]
[1] Carroll Stuhlmueller [“Psalms,” in HarperCollins Bible Commentary, 425.
[2] The Hebrew word can somewhat neutrally be translated nations, people(s) or foreigners. But in context it is to be understood as pagan, heathen Gentiles. (“Nations” appears again in vv. 6 and 10.)
[3] Some scholars think it is likely the result of editing Jeremiah during the exile. Since I place the psalm at this time of the history of Israel, I do not agree.
[4] The Hebrew verb for forgive (or purge, provide a ransom for, make reconciliation for or cover) our sins is a cognate of a noun often translated “atonement.”
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 414.
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