1 > God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations [and] their detestable things therein: therefore have I made it to them as an unclean thing. I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall profane it.
therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Behold, I bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; because they have done that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even to this day. Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh.
They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling-place of your Name. They said in their heart, "We will crush them completely." They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.
> God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, Which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance; Mount Zion, in which you have lived. Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, All the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs.
The king of Egypt deposed him at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.
Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war [fled] by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about); and [the king] went by the way of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment on him. They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, to Jerusalem. He burnt the house of Yahweh, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burnt he with fire. All the army of the Chaldeans, who were [with] the captain of the guard, broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 79
Commentary on Psalms 79 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 79
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 Chaldeans 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 (v. 6, 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,
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.
Psa 79:1-5
We have here a sad complaint exhibited in the court of heaven. The world is full of complaints, and so is the church too, for it suffers, not only with it, but from it, as a lily among thorns. God is complained to; whither should children go with their grievances, but to their father, to such a father as is able and willing to help? The heathen are complained of, who, being themselves aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, were sworn enemies to it. Though they knew not God, nor owned him, yet, God having them in chain, the church very fitly appeals to him against them; for he is King of nations, to overrule them, to judge among the heathen, and King of saints, to favour and protect them.
Psa 79:6-13
The petitions here put up to God are very suitable to the present distresses of the church, and they have pleas to enforce them, interwoven with them, taken mostly from God's honour.