Psalm 74

A Maskil of Asaph.  

1 O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

This verse is a sharp contrast to the previous psalm where the psalmist confidently declared that God’s hand guided and held him as they walked through life together. He proclaimed that God was his greatest good and that he needed nothing else, that together they would walk right into eternity. Now all of a sudden he is accusing God of rejecting him forever. And not just him, but the entire nation. The nation are the sheep of God’s pasture (Psalm 23, 95) and yet God is angry with them, smouldering like a fire about to flame up and wipe everything out. The psalmist is likely an eyewitness to one of the most tragic days in Jewish history -- the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians. The survivors who went into exile numbered about 5,000. Think of that, from the entire nation, this is all that is left (apart from a few who were left behind to care for the land and pay tribute). This must have felt like the end of everything. This is what it looks like when a nation dies and its people fade into history. For this reason, the psalmist despairs that God has cast them aside and is ready to smoke his sheep in anger. This becomes a major theological question -- how can God abandon his people and his house after the promises he has made to Abraham and to David? God’s essential qualities as declared repeatedly by the psalmist are his love and his faithfulness. Where are these now? I see no evidence of them in the smoldering ruins of the temple and a city littered with the carcasses of God’s chosen people. It is a question that has been asked many times throughout history -- particularly by the Jews. The prayer that follows doesn’t answer the question right away, and even when it does, it’s not terribly specific. Rather, the psalmist is allowed to vent his anger and frustration, quite freely in fact. And this is what God allows. It’s in his holy book. The psalmist rehearses his trauma before the eyes and ears of God and demands that He do something about it. We don’t know his tone, but it seems to culminate in an outburst of anger and frustration with God. I imagine him yelling and crying. And why not -- none of this makes sense and heaven is silent. 

2 Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.

3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!

First the psalmist questions God, now he commands God: remember and get up and walk. There are two commands to remember. First, remember your people whom you purchased so long ago. Israel belonged to God. He made them a nation and he purchased them in a sense, buying them out of slavery in Egypt and making them a free people. He redeemed them and made them the tribe of his inheritance. He acquired them forever. Second, remember your house on Mount Zion. The sarcasm is beginning to show, as if the psalmist were suggesting that God has forgotten where he lived, like a senile old man. Why did God just up and leave his house and allow the Babylonians to steal everything of value from it and set it on fire? Of course, “remember” in biblical language has an implicit meaning of “do something about it.” So the psalmist becomes even more direct: “Lift up your feet” (that’s the literal translation). Get off your keister and walk around your old house. See how it is utterly destroyed, ruined forever. Absolutely everything in the sanctuary has been either stolen or smashed and rendered useless. “These are not just our enemies God, they are your enemies God, and you did nothing about it.” This is just the beginning of a rant about the inactivity of God which goes to the very question of the nature and existence of God. The psalmist is having serious doubts about God not because a philosopher has convinced him that there is not a good intellectual case for God, but rather because his personal experience seems to suggest it. And this is where most people are when it comes to God. Their personal experience determines their relationship with him. If they feel he has abandoned them in their greatest moment of need, it’s going to be difficult to put their trust in him. The psalmist has some answers, but first he takes the time to vent and express exactly what he is feeling about God. Disappointment, frustration, anger, doubt -- these are natural responses when someone in power, someone who professed to love you and provide for you has let you down. When someone who has promised to live with you forever and then they walk out and throw you under the bus when you are attacked -- this is what that feels like. 

4 Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their own signs for signs.

5 They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees. [The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain]

6 And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

After commanding God to come and see what’s happened for himself, the psalmist describes the scene to him (as if he doesn’t know). God’s enemies roared in the midst of the meeting place of God’s people. The same place where hymns once rang out, trumpets blared, and worshipers shouted has given way to the shouts of the war cry of the armies of Babylons -- pagans who have no regard for God or his people. The sounds of praise have been replaced with the screams of butchers and those being butchered. The banners that proclaimed the names and glory of God have been torn down and instead the Babylonian battle standards and signal flags fly in their place. (Imagine the flag of another nation flying over the US capitol. What would that feel like?) The scene is as violent as men chopping down trees in a forest, axes and hatchets swinging at anything in sight. Precious wood carvings and panels taking so much care to design and create are ruined in an instant at the blow of hammer and hatchet. In the same way that a madman might wield an axe, with no thought of the consequences of his actions, this is who the Babylonians treated the very space where God met with his people, perhaps this very psalmist. Imagine walking through your home after a fire or tornado. The spaces where so many wonderful memories were made and kept -- gone, useless, destined for removal. The psalmist sees and hears all of this, but perhaps he wonders if God does. Is he so distant up in heaven that he doesn’t know what’s happened to his second home here on earth? You can hear the implicit question, where were you God? How could you have left your home to be ravaged by vandals when you have the power to unleash a lightning bolt (or a plague) and strike them dead? Why did you hold back -- they certainly didn’t? God is silent before the accusation, and the Jewish people in exile in Babylon will have to decide for themselves if God can still be trusted. This is likely true for us when we have experienced trauma of any kind. Our initial reaction may be to question God, but eventually we have to decide the answer to that fundamental question: can God be trusted?

7 They set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.

8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

The psalmist continues his description of the devastation for God’s benefit, just in case God didn’t notice that his house was burned down. Conflicts like these were ultimately a battle of the gods. Whose god was greater: Babylonia or Judah? The answer seemed pretty clear looking at the smoldering ruins of YHWH’s temple in Judah. Turns out YHWH was the impotent one, nowhere to be found even as his own house burned. I mean, he couldn’t even save his own house! The Babylonian mission was to display complete dominance so that the Jews would never rise again in any way, and so so that the nations watching would stay in their place as well. Ancient (and modern) warfare is all about showing such complete domination that the enemy is demoralized and will not fight again. This is the economics of battle -- an overwhelming victory brings about an end to war. It is when the two sides are equal that there is a stalemate and casualties mount on both sides. The Babylonians are specific about destroying all the places where YHWH is worshiped in the land, making it clear that YHWH is no god at all and that the people should turn their allegiance to the conquering gods of Babylon. As the psalmist assesses the damage, he must be asking himself, are the Babylonians right? Maybe YHWH is no god at all, maybe the Babylonian ways are superior? Maybe I’ve been duped. We all do this when we see evil triumph over the good. We doubt our deepest convictions when it seems like the world is on fire and the forces against God and his people appear unbeatable. We ask the same questions the psalmist is asking here. “Do you see this God?” “Where are you anyway?” What do we do next when everything we’ve built has been burned to the ground?” There are times in our lives when it feels like everything has been taken from us, sometimes in a moment, and we feel like there’s nothing left to live for. This is that moment for the psalmist and if you are experiencing that moment now, you are not alone. It is the universal experience of human beings in a fallen world. But still, we want God to notice and say something, to see it and do something about it.

9 We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.

10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

The lingering question for the psalmist is “how long?” It’s one thing to contemplate the trauma that you’ve just endured, it’s another to contemplate how long it will be until things return to normal. When the psalmist moves to this second question, there are no answers, no good answers anyway. First, there are no signs. The ancients looked for signs, anything that might give them hope, a positive indicator in the stars (even though they weren’t to practice astrology). When you are grieving, anything and everything may look like a sign because you are grasping for something to provide hope. Second, there is no prophet. There is no man of God who is speaking on his behalf. Jeremiah was a contemporary, so perhaps he was speaking, but he didn’t have any good news. The king hadn’t been listening to him because he only spoke of gloom and doom, but it turns out Jeremiah was right. The immediate future is clear -- there is going to be a long march to slavery in Babylon. Everything was to be left behind unless it could be carried. The enemies of God had all the power as they scoffed and reviled the name of God. With no end in sight, it was difficult to have hope. It’s not like a movie where you expect a plot twist at the last minute with a happy ending. There’s no conceivable way this ends well. God didn’t intervene when the Babylonians were butchering the people and smashing the temple, why would he do something now? It’s too late. This is how it feels in the immediate aftermath of any loss. It’s too late for God to do anything. He can’t undo what has happened. We can’t go back in time and change the timeline so the bad thing doesn’t happen. We can’t bring a loved one back. And so we find ourselves in the doldrums, going nowhere forever. 

11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment [Hebrew from your bosom] and destroy them!

It’s not just that God held back his hand, the word could also be translated as “withdraw”, which suggests that God was actively involved and then pulled back. The “right hand” is the hand of strength. The mighty hand and the outstretched arm with which God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt was withdrawn and tucked into his garment. The word “garment” is not in the text either. It is literally “from the midst of your bosom [let your hand] finish them off.” It is the image of God standing by with his arms crossed, hands tucked into his robe, apparently indifferent to the suffering of his people, the destruction of his house, and the sullying of his reputation. It is inconceivable to the psalmist that God would act in such a way, and it’s hard to overstate the level of accusation in this rhetorical question. His musings in the previous verses culminate in an explosion of anger and frustration. He’s not denying the existence of God or the power of God. He is questioning the goodness of God and the wisdom of God. Knowing all that God has done in the past and the unchanging nature of his character, it makes no sense at all that God would be indifferent to the suffering of his people and assassination of his own character by the pagan Bablyonians. It is this perceived indifference of God that is a major stumbling block to faith for so many. Their personal experience of feeling abandoned by God when they needed him most trumps any logic or reason. There are reasonable explanations for why God would appear indifferent. For example, his ways are higher than ours so he has a higher purpose for our suffering that we cannot understand. Or perhaps he is allowing smaller tragedies to occur so that larger ones do not (what is the greater good?). Then there’s always the reality that we live in a world where death, sickness, and competition is built into the system, where flawed human beings act out of selfishness and sometimes mental illness beyond their control. In other words, there are many explanations for why suffering occurs, but ultimately it seems that if God were all powerful and absolutely sovereign, it comes back to being his responsibility for everything. This seems to be where the psalmist is at that moment. 

12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.

13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters [Or the great sea creatures] on the waters.

As the psalmist thinks about God’s power and how he doesn’t seem to be using it, his thoughts turn to what God has done and he gains a different perspective. He declares that God is king from ancient times. The Davidic line of kings may have been severed, but God is, was, and always will be king. The phrase, “from of old”, is literally “from the east, from the ancient times, “ and it reminds us of the timelessness of God. We live in the present and we cannot imagine what God is up to in the vast scope of eternity. The suffering that we endure in the present may be part of something that God is working out that will be gloriously beautiful. This is the truth the Paul proclaims in Romans 8 -- our present sufferings aren’t worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed. The word “midst” in verse 12 is theme as the one in the previous verse, “God has his hands in the midst of his bosom,” linking the two verses together as the psalmist begins to answer his own questions. God’s first act of working out salvation in the midst of the earth was to divide the sea and slay the dragons. The sea was a universal symbol of death, disorder and chaos. Mankind was not designed to live on or in the sea. Our bodies are completely suited for land, so when God commands the sea and it moves, this is a big deal. God created the great sea creatures (Genesis 1:21) and here he is declared to have power over them, with the metaphor of breaking their heads. This may also have been a veiled reference to the Babylonian creation mythology which involved battling monsters and cutting them to pieces. When God doesn’t seem to be active in the present moment, begin by taking a look around you and seeing the beauty of creation. God made all of these beautiful things from chaos and disorder. The world was formless and void when God got a hold of it and fashioned the beautiful world in which we live. If God can do that, surely he can bring order out of the chaos in our lives. Look to the past to give meaning to your present. 

14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

15 You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams.

The psalmist continues to describe God’s head crushing and splitting powers. After dividing the seas and busting the heads of dragons, God crushes the heads of Leviathan, a mythical creature that must have had multiple heads. I say mythical because we’ve yet to find evidence of a multi-headed monster, although literature is filled with them. The creature may have been based on stories that sailors told and expanded upon. The fact was, travel by sea was dangerous and often men did not return. They no doubt saw massive whales and giant squid and these gave a basis to their stories. The ancients worked these stories into their tales of creation and the gods. The point the psalmist is making is that these are the biggest, scariest, deadliest things in the world, and God smashes their heads and uses them to feed other creatures in the wilderness. God’s splitting of things includes his actions on land where he splits open springs and brooks, water from the ground, from rocks themselves. This must have seemed miraculous to the ancients even though we understand today how springs and groundwater work. He even does the opposite, drying up ever-flowing streams in seasons of drought, or earthquakes that move the paths of rivers. The point is that God’s hand is not tucked into his garment. He is not inactive. If God doesn’t act it’s not because he’s not able. He can do so much more than we can imagine. There must be other reasons he does not act when we would like him to. Those reasons are that He is God and we are not. He is working salvation in the earth and He is not obligated to follow the plans that we have made. In the process of working out salvation he will crush dragons, feed creatures in the wilderness, cause water to flow from dry ground and dry up flowing streams. He will do what he pleases and in the end, he will be praised. As Mr. Beaver said of Aslan, “He is not safe, but he is good.” 

16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.

17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.

These verses portray God as the one who has ordered the cosmos from the highest heavens to the earth below. The lights are the stars, and the ancients had no idea how far away they were and how they were a part of a remarkable 3D universe, how lights in a single constellation could be millions of light years from one another and yet be in the same constellation. They had no idea of the vast size of the universe and its intricate workings, mysteries that we are still struggling to understand. So amazing is our universe that theorists speculate that it is one of an infinite number of universes, a multiverse where we just happened to be in the one that got it right. The orderly movement of the sun and stars giving us predictable day and night, over which we have no control, is testimony to a Creator God who makes order out of chaos. On the earth, God has fixed boundaries for the land. The sea comes up to it and thrashes against its shores to over take it, but the earth is relentless, its boundaries are fixed. Summer and winter bring dry seasons for ripening crops and rain for growing them. All of these things are beyond our control and yet they happen like clockwork. God does not have his hands in his pockets. He is not indifferent to our world. He is not powerless in the face of evil. He is working out salvation in the earth in the same way that he is working out the mechanics of the cosmos. This is where faith enters the picture when we are wrestling with suffering. Do we trust this unseen but all-powerful God who brings order out of chaos or do we assume that this is a mindless, purposeless, meaningless world? I’ll do the former. 

18 Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.

19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of your poor forever.

These verses contain three requests, the first stated positively and focusing on Israel’s enemy, the second two stated negatively and focusing on Israel. When the psalmist asks for God to remember something, he is asking for him to act, not just recollect something from the past. The scoffing and mocking of God’s name requires a response. The mocking was only logical. The Babylonians had ransacked God’s house and he did nothing about it. Obviously the Babylonian gods were superior. This was the only reasonable conclusion. A similar thing happens today in the modern world where people of faith are mocked for having long-held views about things that are out of step with modern sensibilities (marriage, sexuality, identity are but a few). The modern view of these things is currently in ascendency and anyone with a contrary view is mocked and pressured to acquiesce. This is not unlike what was happening to the Jewish people under Babylonian cultural influence. This was a battle of the gods, a battle of world view, and the question was, would the Jewish worldview survive? In this battle of world views, Israel sees herself as a dove being hunted by wild beasts. They care nothing for the beauty and wonder that a flying creature brings to the world. Instead, they just want to devour it to satisfy their appetites in the moment. This is where the modern view leaves us, the rise of the self as the ultimate arbiter of truth, meaning, and happiness. Without a higher being and a higher moral law, man is left to create his own truth and law, typically designed around satisfying one’s desires as the greatest good. Beautiful things are eaten in the process. The life of the poor becomes even worse. This is played out every day in our culture. Truth matters. One’s view of God matters. Pray for God to remember (and act on) these things, and you take up the cause as well. 

20 Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

21 Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.

The psalmist makes additional requests framing them in positive and negative statements. First, He pleads that God would have regard for the covenant. This would be the covenant that God made with Abraham and David -- to possess and rule the land forever. This was seen to be an unconditional promise (consider the language in Psalm 89:34-38 -- “I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.”) This is the covenant that God is being asked to remember for the land has become the opposite of what God had promised and his people have desired. “The dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.” This sounds like a description of modern urban areas that are blighted with crime, where gangs are in authority and boys are raised to be violent. This is what happens when the laws of God are disregarded generally -- families weaken, virtue declines, and the strong survive. The result of this societal disintegration is that the poor, the needy and the downtrodden suffer the most and the psalmist fears that they will give up on God altogether, turning back in shame. Instead, the psalmist desires that the needy will praise God’s name, that there will instead be cause for celebration. What are you doing to help the poor praise His name? Are you involved in local efforts to redeem the lives of those men and women who are trying to move out of the dark places of the land and the habitations of violence? It’s messy work, but Christians need to lead the way in rescuing the poor from violence. 

22 Arise, O God, defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!

23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

In another pair of requests in both positive and negative form, the psalmist returns to the opening theme. He once again asks God to do something, to rise up and plead his plea (the Hebrew words are the same, back to back with different forms). Using the ancient name of God, Elohim, the Mighty One, he asks the He arise and remember, to once again listen to the voices of the fools who mock Him continually. It’s hard being on the losing side of a battle, particularly when your opponent is a complete jerk about it. The Babylonians are just that and more because they bring God into it, claiming superiority over Israel’s invisible God. One can imagine their critical thoughts toward a faith that had no images of the person worshiped. It was Israel’s insistence that God was bigger than all other gods and yet unseen, beyond knowing and touching. This and their peculiar scruples made them the object of mockery, but they held on to this truth through it all. In one last prayer the psalmists asks God to listen to the clamor of his foes and hear the continual uproar of those who oppose him. The implication of course is that God should do something about it. In the modern world the voices yelling at God come from different places. There are those that have been wronged and broken by other human beings or by circumstance, and they are justifiably angry. They need to vent at someone, so God is a good target -- this all powerful being who stood by when they needed him most. That makes sense. Others yell at God because he tells them things (through his word and through his Spirit) that convict them, as Jesus said, of sin, righteousness and judgment. This isn’t pleasant either, so they push back against the truth and convince themselves of the lie (Romans 1) and suffer all the more. It’s silly on one level to ask God to see and hear all of this because of course he does, and as verse 12 reminds us, He is working out salvation in the earth. There is evidence of this every day as well. In your prayers, bring these foolish scoffers before the Lord as well, intercede for them for this is what God wants us to do first of all (1 Timothy 2:1-4). God listen to the scoffers and turn their hearts toward you. Work out salvation in their lives.