When The Worst Happens-- Psalm 79

An Asaphic Psalm
Although this psalm is stated to be of Asaph, the music leader of David, it was clearly written after 586BC, 400 years after David, because it is about the destruction of God’s temple which hadn’t been built at the time of David.

O God, the nations have entered your possession
They have defiled your Holy Temple
They have laid Jerusalem in heaps
They have given the corpses of your servants for food to the birds of heavens
The flesh of Your faithful to the beasts of the earth
Their blood was spilled like water around Jerusalem
With none to bury them
We have become a taunt to our neighbors
Mockery and derision of those around us.
This is a bitter description of the destruction of Jerusalem, only to be exceeded by the book of Lamentations. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, brought his armies and surrounded the city. He starved them out, so that even mothers ate their babies. When the gates of Jerusalem finally fell, out of anger for them not allowing him in, he slaughtered the people and completely destroyed the temple of Yahweh. The walls of the city, once used for protection, were dismantled. The bodies of the dead were left out in the open, not allowed to be buried for their shame. All the nations around Israel, who had not yet faced the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar, mocked Judah and Jerusalem because they claimed that the gods had forsaken them, but since they were still standing, they must be more holy, more righteous.

How long, O Yahweh?
Will You be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
Pour your wrath out upon the nations that do not know You
And upon the kingdoms who do not invoke Your name
For they have devoured Jacob
And laid waste his home
The psalmist understands God’s anger. He appreciates the fact that he and his forebears have sinned before God, by worshipping other gods and by acting impurely before God. But he just needs to say, “God, but really? Shouldn’t you really be mad at them, at Babylon and the nations that mock us? They are the ones who destroyed your temple, not us. They are the ones who destroyed your people, not us.” But the psalmist fails to look at the situation from God’s perspective (which we are told in Ezekiel 36). It was God’s people who defiled the temple, who made it impure and unacceptable to worship in. Thus, it had to be destroyed, and God used Babylon as his tool for this (as God says in Habakkuk 1).

Do not recall our former wrongs against us
Let your compassion come quickly to meet us
For we are brought very low
Help us, O God our deliverer, because of the glory of Your name
And save us and forgive our sins for the sake of your name
Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?"
Let the revenge for the spilled blood of your servants
Become known among the nations before our eyes.
Now the psalmist is asking for forgiveness. He is claiming, “Haven’t we suffered enough for our sins? Look at our humiliation and decide for yourself, if that is enough.” Then the psalmist has another, more powerful argument to releasing them from their slavery. “God, you know that this looks bad for you, too. After all, your reputation as a powerful God is at stake here. All the other nations will say that you are a wimpy God and unworthy of fear or worship. So restore us and avenge us from our enemies and Your reputation will be strengthened.”

Let the groans of the prisoner come before You
According to the greatness of Your power, free those slated for death
And return to our neighbors seven-fold into their bosom
The reproach with which they have reproached You, O Yahweh
Then we-- Your people, the sheep of Your pasture-- will praise You forever.
To all generations we will tell of your praise
Finally, the psalmist just points to the suffering of God’s people, and relies on God’s compassion. He points to their slavery, to their death sentence, to their imprisonment. And he claims that this is all the fault of the Babylonians and their hatred of God. Therefore, the psalmist claims, God should take vengeance against them, to destroy them, for the sake of His people and His name. And the final icing on the cake is God’s people will praise him forever for his mercy on them.

Often we have terrible circumstances coming upon us, tearing us apart. Our children taken from us, our livelihood torn away from us, our love and hope destroyed by terrible disasters. In that time, we should take the psalmist’s example and cry to God for deliverance. He will give us freedom if only we cry out. Even if He is punishing us, He will have mercy and forgive us.
However, we also need to look at the full circumstance. As awful as what someone else did to us, did we do anything that allowed this suffering to come upon us? Are we blind to our own sins, our own mea culpa? Before we ask for God to take anyone else down, first we must repent of our own sins, accept our own responsibility. It took 70 years for the people of Israel to accept their own responsibility, repent of their sins and turn to God. Only then did He deliver them and move the nations to restore them to their home. Pray that it doesn’t take that long for us to see the light and to have Him restore us to life and health.