Psalms 79:5

How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire? HOW LONG LORD? WILT THOU BE ANGRY - (.) Thine anger against thy people, though justly merited, anger now at length turn from them upon their and thy foes. Though judgment must begin at the house of God (), yet it is not designed to make an utter end of them: that is the doom of the God-opposed peoples against whom the hand of the Lord must at last be turned. Now that thy people are turning to thee in prayer, it is the time for thee to turn to them in mercy, and to turn against their enemies in judgment. FOR EVER. God's anger will burn forever against the ungodly; but against believers, when they incur punishment, His wrath burns hotly indeed, but not eternally ...

5_How long, O Jehovah! wilt thou be wroth for ever? _I have already observed that these two expressions, _how long _and _for ever, _when joined together, denote a lengthened and an uninterrupted continuance of calamities; and that there is no appearance, when looking to the future, of their coming to a termination. We may, therefore, conclude that this complaint was not ended within a month or two after persecution against the Church commenced, but at a time when the hearts of the faithful were almost broken through the weariness produced by prolonged suffering. Here they confess that the great accumulation of calamities with which they are overwhelmed, is to be traced to the wrath of God. Being fully persuaded that the wicked, whatever they may plot, cannot inflict injury, except in so far as God permits them — from this, which they regard as an indubitable principle, they at once concl...

1-5 God is complained to: whither should children go but to a Father able and willing to help them? See what a change sin made in the holy city, when the heathen were suffered to pour in upon them. God's own people defiled it by their sins, therefore he suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence. They desired that God would be reconciled. Those who desire God's favour as better than life, cannot but dread his wrath as worse than death. In every affliction we should first beseech the Lord to cleanse away the guilt of our sins; then he will visit us with his tender mercies....

Verse Psalms 79:5. _HOW LONG, LORD?_] Wilt thou continue thine anger against us, and suffer us to be insulted, and thyself blasphemed?...

HOW LONG, LORD? - See Psalms 74:1, note; Psalms 74:10, note; and Psalms 77:7, notes. This is the language, not of impatience, but of anxiety; not of complaining, but of wonder. It is language such as the people of God are often constrained to employ under heavy trials - trials which continue so long that it seems as if they would never end. SHALL THY JEALOUSY, BURN LIKE FIRE? - That is, Shall it continue to burn like fire? Shall it utterly consume us? On the word jealousy, see the notes at Psalms 78:58....

EXPOSITION THIS is "a psalm of complaint, closely parallel to Psalms 74:1." (Cheyne), and must, like that psalm, be referred to the time of the Babylonian conquest. It shows us the Holy Land occupied by the heathen, the temple desecrated, Jerusalem laid in ruins, the special servants of God put to death, and the whole nation of the Israelites become an object of scorn and reproach to their neighbours (Psalms 74:1). Some critics have supposed that it might have been written after the invasion of Shishak; but the condition of things is far worse than can be reasonably supposed to have been reached at that period. Others incline to assign it to the age of the Maccabees; but Jerusalem was not then destroyed, much less "laid on heaps" ...

HOW LONG, LORD, WILT THOU BE ANGRY? FOR EVER?.... That is, how long wilt thou be angry? shall it be for ever? see Psalms 85:4, for though what was done, or to be done, as before related, was or will be done by the enemies of the Lord's people, yet by his permission, and as a token of his anger and displeasure against them: at least it might be so understood, both by them and by their enemies; and hence this expostulation, SHALL THY JEALOUSY BURN LIKE FIRE? so jealousy does; its coals are coals of fire, Song of Solomon 8:6, there were, at the times referred to, such among the people, who did evil things, and provoked the Lord to jealousy and wrath: see the Apocrypha: "And there was very great wrath upon Israel.'' (1 Maccabees 1:64) "When this was done, a

Psalms 79 Lamentation and Prayer on Account of the Enemy _ 1. The Enemy in Jerusalem (Psalms 79:1)_ 2. How Long, Lord? (Psalms 79:5) Zion, the place He loves, mentioned in the preceding Psalm, is here prophetically seen in desolation. The nations have come into the inheritance, Jerusalem is become a heap of ruins, the temple is defiled. The dead bodies of His servants and His saints lie unburied, and the people are a reproach, a scorn and a derision. A similar prophecy we found in the Seventy-fourth Psalm, which should be compared with this Psalm. While Jerusalem and the temple has seen more than once such desolations, we must view these predicted calamities as being the final disaster which is yet to

LXXIX. THE SANCTUARY PROFANED. The Ps. is of the same date as Psalms 74. It does not suit the earlier destruction of the city and the Temple in 586 B.C. The words war, overthrow, and the like do not occur: the Temple is profaned, not destroyed. On the other hand, Psalms 79:3 is in striking accord with the picture drawn in 1Ma_1:37. Notice also the mention of the godly or Asideans in 2 (see Psalms 4:3). PSALMS 79:2 F. is quoted in 1Ma_7:17_._ Psalms 79:6 f. is from Jeremiah 10:25, and was perhaps inserted here by a later hand.

HOW LONG... ? Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6. Compare (Psalms 79:5) with (Psalms 79:10)....