Psalms 74:8

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 ...

8._They have said in their heart, Let us destroy them all together. _To express the more forcibly the atrocious cruelty of the enemies of the Church, the prophet introduces them speaking together, and exciting one another to commit devastation without limit or measure. His language implies, that each of them, as if they had not possessed enough of courage to do mischief, stirred up and stimulated his fellow to waste and destroy the whole of God’s people, without leaving so much as one of them. In the close of the verse he asserts that all the synagogues were burned. I readily take the Hebrew word מועדים, _moadim, _in the sense of _synagogues, _(225) because he says ALL _the sanctuaries, _and speaks expressly _of the whole land. _It is a frigid explanation which is given by some, that these enemies, upon finding that they could not hurt or do violence to t

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 74:8. _LET US DESTROY THEM_] Their object was totally to annihilate the political existence of the Jewish people. _THEY HAVE BURNED UP ALL THE SYNAGOGUES OF GOD IN THE LAND._] It is supposed that there were no _synagogues_ in the land till after the Babylonish captivity. How then could the Chaldeans burn up any in Judea? The word מועדי _moadey_, which we translate _synagogues_, may be taken in a more general sense, and mean _any places_ where _religious assemblies_ were held: and that such places and assemblies did exist long _before_ the Babylonish captivity, is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture. It appears that Elisha kept such at his house on the _sabbaths_ and _new moons_. See 2 Kings 4:23. And perhaps to

THEY SAID IN THEIR HEARTS - They purposed; they designed it. LET US DESTROY THEM TOGETHER - Let us destroy all these buildings, temples, towers, and walls at the same time; let us make an entire destruction of them all. THEY HAVE BURNED UP ALL THE SYNAGOGUES OF GOD IN THE LAND - The phrase “they have burned up” must refer to the places or edifices where assemblies for public worship were held, since it cannot be supposed that the idea is that they had burned up the assemblies of worshippers themselves. The word rendered “synagogues” is the same in the Hebrew that is used in Psalms 74:4, and is there rendered “congregations.” It means “assemblies,” persons collected together for public worship. See the notes at that verse. It is not used in the Bible to denote “places” for the me

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

THEY SAID IN THEIR HEARTS, LET US DESTROY THEM TOGETHER,.... The Targum is, "their children, are together;'' or "their kindred", as the Septuagint Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, taking the word to be of נין, which signifies a "son"; and the sense to be, that seeing they were all together, as the Jews were at the taking of Jerusalem, they might be cut off at once. Jarchi explains it of their rulers; Marinus, as Aben Ezra observes, derives it from a word which signifies to afflict and oppress, to which he agrees; see Psalms 83:3, THEY HAVE BURNT UP ALL THE SYNAGOGUES OF GOD IN THE LAND; not only in Jerusalem, where there were, the Jewish q writers say, four hundred and sixty, and others four hundred and eighty of them, but also in all the land of Judea; of these synagogues there is much mention made in the New Testament; they were place

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

TOGETHER: or, at once. SYNAGOGUES. meeting-places. See note on "congregations", Psalms 74:4. This rendering comes from the Septuagint GOD. Hebrew El. App-4....