A Psalm for Sunday, Psalm 79, verses 1 to 5, How long, LORD?

 

Psalm 79:1 ¶  «A Psalm of Asaph.» O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. 2  The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, 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. 4  We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. 5  How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

 

John Gill underscores that this is a prophecy of the Asaph who lived in David’s time and is not written by some other person named Asaph after the destruction mentioned here. This foretells the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in the time of Nebuchadnezzar in the 500s BC. Imagine the shock that this prophecy would create in the time of the mighty King David.

 

2Kings 24:11  And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it. 12  And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. 13  And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.

 

2Kings 25:1 ¶  And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about. 2  And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. 3  And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. 4  And the city

was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain. 5  And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him. 6  So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. 7  And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.

 

    8 ¶  And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: 9  And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire. 10  And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

 

This destruction came again in the time of the future emperor, Roman general Titus, in 70AD.

 

Mark 13:1 ¶  And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! 2  And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

 

This future event is acknowledged by the Psalmist to be God’s judgment. God did use other nations to punish Israel for its idolatry.

 

I believe, wrongly or rightly, that every Christian is a type of the ancient nation of Israel and while God will not cast us off forever He will permit us to suffer for our apostasy. We must not think of our faith as a charm if we sin and are unrepentant and don’t seek God with tears and sorrow. We can suffer in this life for our unfaithfulness even though we do have eternal life with Christ if we are saved. The Psalmist next pleads for God’s vengeance on the heathen.