Psalms 74:12

For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. FOR GOD IS MY KING OF OLD, WORKING SALVATION IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH - rather 'of the land'-Palestine. As King and therefore Guardian of Israel from of old time, He cannot utterly forsake His own people. The past is a guarantee for the future. The present participle implies that God's usual character is that He is "working salvation." The phrase, "in the midst of the land," implies that His working is so entirely in the center or heart of the land as thence to extend to the whole circumference or extremities (; ). It also implies, 'in the midst of all: openly in the sight of all' (Muis)....

12._But God is my King from the beginning. _In this verse, as we have often seen to be the case in other places, the people of God intermingle meditations with their prayers, thereby to acquire renewed vigor to their faith, and to stir up themselves to greater earnestness in the duty of prayer. We know how difficult it is to rise above all doubts, and boldly to persevere in a free and unrestrained course of prayer. Here, then, the faithful call to remembrance the proofs of God’s mercy and working, by which he certified, through a continued series of ages, that he was the King and Protector of the people whom he had chosen. By this example we are taught, that as it is not enough to pray with the lips unless we also pray in faith, we ought always to remember the benefits by which God has given a confirmation of his fatherly love towards us, and should regard them as so many testimonies of...

12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes....

Verse Psalms 74:12. _FOR GOD_ IS _MY KING OF OLD_] We have always acknowledged thee as our sovereign; and thou hast reigned as a king in the midst of our land, dispensing salvation and deliverance from the _centre_ to every part of the _circumference_....

FOR GOD IS MY KING OF OLD - That is, the king, or ruler of his people. The people had acknowledged him as their king and ruler, and he had showed himself to be such. This is given as a reason why he should now interpose in their behalf. It is an argument, proper always to be urged, drawn from the faithfulness and unchangeableness of God. WORKING SALVATION IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH - Salvation for his people. The reference here particularly is to what he had done for his people in delivering them from bondage in Egypt, and conducting them to the promised land, as is stated in the following verses....

EXPOSITION "THE misery of the Jews is here at its deepest". The psalmist describes Jerusalem as fallen into "perpetual ruins" (Psalms 74:3). The temple is violated (Psalms 74:3); its carved work is ruthlessly cut down (Psalms 74:6); the aid of fire has been called in to destroy it, and its walls are cast down to the ground (Psalms 74:7). Nor has Jerusalem alone suffered. The object has been to "make havoc" of Israel "altogether;" and the enemy have spread themselves, and "burnt up all the houses of God in the land" (Psalms 74:8). The pr

FOR GOD IS MY KING OF OLD,.... Or "but God", or "verily God", c. d for these words contain the church's consolation under all the above melancholy circumstances, taken from what God was, and had been to her, even Christ, who is God over all; he was her King by the constitution and designation of his Father, and so he had been of old, even from everlasting; for so early was he set up as King; and he had in all ages been exercising his kingly office for the good of his church, and continued to do so; and this was her comfort, and is the comfort of saints in the worst of times, that Zion's King reigneth, see Psalms 46:1 WORKING SALVATION IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH; it is "salvations" e in the plural number, and means both spiritual and eternal salvation, which the Lord has wrought out; and is continually applying to his people; and temporal salvation, which the Lord

Psalms 74 The Enemy in the Sanctuary _ 1. The Prayer on account of the enemy (Psalms 74:1)_ 2. The work of the enemy (Psalms 74:4) 3. Intercession for intervention (Psalms 74:10) This is a Psalm for instruction, a Maschil Psalm. The enemy is seen in the sanctuary. This has been applied to the defilement of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, but prophetically it rather refers to that end-time, when the enemy will defile the temple with the abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15). Then the remnant loving the sanctuary tell

LXXIV. The date may be fixed with certainty and that within narrow limits. The Jews are suffering extreme distress, but apparently by no fault of their own, for there is no confession of sin. The persecution is a religious one, since we are told repeatedly (Psalms 74:10; Psalms 74:18; Psalms 74:22) that their foes blaspheme God. Synagogues, unknown in pre-exilic times, exist throughout the land. Calamities, to some extent similar, existed in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians took Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. But if the writer had lived in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he could not have complained that no prophet had arisen (Psalms 74:9

SALVATION. deliverances. Plural of majesty. great deliverance. IN THE MIDST, &C. Compare Exodus 8:22. (Hebrew. Psalms 74:15)....