Psalms 74:4

Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. -The enemy has destroyed God's sanctuary and synagogues, and there are no tokens of God's presence in the land. Verse 3. LIFT UP THY FEET UNTO THE PERPETUAL DESOLATIONS - `ruins' (Psalms 73:18, note). They seem eternal, because all human hope of restoration has been cut off. "Lift up thy feet," in order to come not slowly, but swiftly and majestically, in the sight of all, to restore what must otherwise be 'eternal ruins,' or "perpetual desolation." Compare the same phrase, margin, Genesis 29:1. In the case of God it has a more exalted meaning: 'Lift up thyself' in thy might ...

4._Thy adversaries have roared in the midst of thy sanctuaries. _Here the people of God compare their enemies to lions, (Amos 3:8,) to point out the cruelty which they exercised even in the very sanctuaries of God. (218) In this passage we are to understand the temple of Jerusalem as spoken of rather than the Jewish synagogues; nor is it any objection to this interpretation that the temple is here called in the plural number _sanctuaries, _as is frequently the case in other places, it being so called because it was divided into three parts. If any, however, think it preferable to consider synagogues as intended, I would not dispute the point. Yea, without any impropriety, it may be extended to the whole land, which God had consecrated to himself. But the language is much more emphatic when we consider the temple as meant. It thus intimates, that

1-11 This psalm appears to describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans. The deplorable case of the people of God, at the time, is spread before the Lord, and left with him. They plead the great things God had done for them. If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to believe, that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Infidels and persecutors may silence faithful ministers, and shut up places of worship, and say they will destroy the people of God and their religion together. For a long time they may prosper in these attempts, and God's oppressed servants may see no prospect of deliverance; but there is a remnant of believers, the seed of a future harvest, and the despised church has survived those who once triumphed over her. When the power of...

Verse Psalms 74:4. _THINE ENEMIES ROAR_] Thy people, who were formerly a distinct and separate people, and who would not even touch a Gentile, are now obliged to mingle with the most profane. Their boisterous mirth, their cruel mockings, their insulting commands, are heard every where in all our assemblies. _THEY SET UP THEIR ENSIGNS_ FOR _SIGNS._] שמו אותתם אתות _samu_ _othotham othoth_, they set up their standards in the place of ours. All the ensigns and trophies were those of our enemies; our own were no longer to be seen. The _fifth, sixth_, and _seventh_ verses give a correct historical account of the ravages committed by the Babylonians, as we may see from 2 Kings 25:4;...

THINE ENEMIES ROAR - This refers to the shout and tumult of war. They raised up the war-cry even in the very place where the congregations had been assembled; where God had been worshipped. The word rendered “roar” properly has reference to wild beasts; and the meaning is, that their war-cry resembled the howling of beasts of prey. IN THE MIDST OF THY CONGREGATIONS - literally, “in the midst of thine assembly.” This is a different word from that which is rendered “congregation” in Psalms 74:2. This word - מועד _mô‛êd_ - means a meeting together by mutual appointment, and is often applied to the meeting of God with his people at the tabernacle, which was therefore called “the tent of the congregation,” or, more properly, “the tent of meeting,” as the place where God met with his people,

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

THINE ENEMIES ROAR IN THE MIDST OF THY CONGREGATIONS,.... Particular churches, gathered out of the world in Gospel order, and which meet together at particular times and places; in the midst of these, and against them their enemies, and who are the Lord's enemies, roar like lions, as Satan, and bloody persecutors, and particularly antichrist, whose mouth is the mouth of a lion, which is opened in blasphemy against God and his people, Revelation 13:2, THEY SET UP THEIR ENSIGNS FOR SIGNS; or "signs", "signs", false ones for true ones; meaning either military signs, as the Roman eagle, set as signs and trophies of victory; or idolatrous statues and images, such an one as Antiochus brought into the temple; or false miracles and antichristian marks, in the room of true miracles, and the true mark of Christ's followers; see...

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

ENEMIES. adversaries. THY CONGREGATIONS. Thine assembly. THEIR. Compare "our", Psalms 74:9. ENSIGNS FOR SIGNS. signs as signs [for us]. SIGNS. Same word as "ensigns" and "standard" in Numbers 2....