Psalm 80
To the choirmaster: according to Lilies. A Testimony. Of Asaph, a Psalm.
1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us!
After designating God as the Shepherd of Israel, the psalmist tells him to listen up and then issues a call to action. The theme of YHWH as Israel’s shepherd is a consistent thread in Book 3, a collection of psalms for use during the Babylonian exile. Even in captivity, Israel was reminded that God was still their shepherd. He is a shepherd that is also enthroned between the cherubim. In reality this is a reference to God’s heavenly throne room where glorious creatures who are devoted to God give Him constant worship. In the copy of that reality on earth, this is a reference to the ark of the covenant, the throne of God on earth where he dwelt between the gold-plated cherubim who were facing one another on the lid of the ark. God has all the holiness and power of the God of the universe but with the tenderness and compassion of a shepherd. The psalmist asks God that he “shine forth.” Like sunbeams piercing the clouds, may God’s power break through the darkness in the lives of his people and reach them with hope, truth and beauty. After listing three of the northern tribes, probably now lost in the Assyrian captivity over 100 years earlier, the psalmist asks that they would experience God’s salvation as well. He prays that God would “stir up his might”, that he would rouse himself to act, and that this action would be to come and save. It may seem a bit impertinent to tell God to listen and wake up, but this is the language we find frequently in the psalms. This is not to deny God’s holiness and authority, treating him like our servant, a genie that we summon to action. Rather it is to say that this is the kind of god that the Bible reveals -- one who is our shepherd, who chooses to serve us, who seeks our good, and is utterly unselfish. That was and is revolutionary and unique when it comes to the gods of this world who are entirely self-serving. Listen, O Shepherd, stir up your might and come to save us.
3 Restore us [Turn us again], O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
4 O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?
Asaph continues his prayer for restoration with the psalm’s refrain, “Restore us, O God; let your face sine, that we may be saved” (also in verse 7 and 19). The metaphor of a shining face is a frequent one in the psalms, and one that was spoken regularly in the priestly blessing in Numbers 6, “May the LORD make his face shine upon you.” The biggest shiny thing in the world is the sun, the source of light, warmth, and life. God is the source of all these as well. The metaphor also suggests happiness and blessing. God’s face shining on someone is another way of saying that they are experiencing favorable things. The psalmist is simply asking for God’s favor to return again, that the people would enjoy good times once more. God’s favor is conditional to their salvation. So we pray for God’s favor on us today, that his warmth, light and life would spill out into our lives. The second prayer is an implicit one, “may your anger subside.” The psalmist wonders aloud how long this season of anger will last. More specifically, he is implying that God is angry with their prayers. God isn’t really angry with their prayers, he delights in them. But he is not answering those prayers in the way that the psalmist desires. He wants an immediate response, but God has other plans. Notice also the term of address in verse 4. In verse 1 the Lord is a shepherd. In verse 4 he is a commander of angel armies. In one of the rare uses of the name YHWH in book 3, the psalmist implores God to act in a powerful way, the upset things militarily, to get his angels involved in the way that he did during the exodus from Egypt. The psalmist isn’t questioning God’s power here, just his willingness to act. Today we pray for God’s favor to shine on us. We ask that his unlimited power would be released to accomplish his will for us on earth. “Turn us to you, O God, that we may be saved.”
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.
6 You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.
This is not the first time the psalmist has talked about eating and drinking tears. There is another psalm in exile, Psalm 42 that uses the same metaphor. It’s true that in grief often one will lose his appetite and fail to eat. Their tears literally become their bread and water. Here the agent of the tear-feeding is God himself, suggesting that the author understands the sovereignty of God in such a way that he sees God himself as responsible for the bitter season the people are in. This is true in the sense that God allows difficulties to test, discipline and purify us. Hebrews 12 explores this issue with the analogy of a parent disciplining a beloved child. Discipline is a strange way to show love, but it is love. Allowing his people to experience the consequences of this sin is an act of love. Allowing them to go on in their sin with no consequences would only make them suffer more in their sin. Love is desiring the best for another, and what is best for them is to follow the ways of God. That doesn’t make weeping seasons any easier, but it does explain them. The psalmist is speaking on behalf of the entire community here. The nation is now the laughing stock of other peoples. Surely they are on their way to assimilation and extinction and the land that they once occupied will be available for others. And of course as they laugh about Israel they are also mocking Israel’s God. This is the reason, according to the psalmist, for God to step in and redeem his reputation by restoring the people to health, wholeness, and ultimately back to the land that had called home.
7 Restore us [Turn us again], O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.
For the second time the psalmist prays for restoration, directing his request to the God of hosts, Elohim Sabbaoth, the God who commands armies of angels. The theme of his prayer is “Cause us to return,” and the extended metaphor is that of a vine, introduced in verse 8. God brought a vine out of Egypt, drove out the nations and planted it a new land. It was very likely that the Israelites literally brought plants out of Egypt. They would need something to start with, so they had vines and small plants that they tended in home gardens that they carried with them through the sea and the wilderness to plant in the new world. They would have been carefully protected, treasured possessions that would have ceremoniously been planted in their new home, a connection to the life before and a promise for a better future. Israel is God’s vine that he carried out of Egypt, carefully protecting it and nurturing it through the sea and the wilderness, ceremoniously planting it in the promised land with joy and anticipation. A little pot with just a shoot of a vine, so tender and tenuous, but fully cared for by its owner during the long journey, planted in hope of creating shade and fruit. This is not a metaphor for an individual believer, but for the nation. From the Christian perspective it may also serve as a metaphor for the church. God brought his community out of Egypt (slavery to sin and death) and into a new way of living. You, church, are his vine. Jesus picks up on this theme in his address at the Last Supper in John 15. You are the vine, he is the vinedresser, the one who prunes and directs growth to enhance fruitfulness. He also identifies himself as the vine and we as the branches, connected to and drawing life from the vine. What is clear is that God desires our good, our fruitfulness, our growth. From planting to harvest his intent is that we bear fruit.
9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River. [the Euphrates]
In dramatic language, the psalmist describes the goodness of the land and the prosperity of the people. They flourished because God planted them deeply and they took root. He cleared the land of weeds (nations that would choke out their faith) and planted the people in its soil. They built houses and cities and created culture. They wrote histories and recorded the exploits of their heroes. In a bit of hyperbole, the poet suggests that the nation extended northward into modern Lebanon with the references to mountains and cedars. Likewise, the nation’s influence reached to the shores of the Mediterranean in the west and the Euphrates River in the east. This might have been somewhat true for a brief moment during the reigns of David and Solomon, but there is definitely some poetic exaggeration here. The beauty and expansiveness of the nation is about to be contrasted with the ugliness and contraction of the nation as a result of war. But for now, in these few verses, we get a glimpse of God’s pleasure in his people, his desire for them to flourish and to grow, a picture of his heart for them. Could these verses be a metaphor for your life? To what extent has the land around your roots been cleared? Are there rocks that make the soil perpetually shallow and dry, allowing you to flourish briefly only to be withered by the afternoon sun? Are you allowing weeds to steal the nutrients and sunlight that is meant for you, slowly and imperceptibly choking the life out of you? God’s desire is for our flourishing and that requires deep planting and cleared ground. Steve Camp wrote a song that contained this prayer, “O Lord, take your plow to my fallow ground, let your blade dig down in the soil of my soul. For I’ve become dry and dusty, and Lord I know there must be richer earth lying below.” (Living in Laodicea).
12 Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.
The psalmist asks a second question of God. The first was “how long”, and now the question is “why?” After going to all the trouble to bring a vine out of Egypt, to clear the land of foreign nations for it to have room to grow, to plant it deeply in the soil, and to nurture it with rain and sunshine, why would God tear down the hedge that protected it from wild animals and thieves? What kind of gardener does that? Did he abandon the vine? Did he grow tired of caring for it? Was he bored and wanted some work to do in restoring it? Why would God allow something so beautiful and flourishing to fall into ruin.This might seem the case if the vine had done nothing wrong, but this is where the metaphor breaks down a bit because in this case the vine did have agency. The vine “chose” to disregard the care of the farmer. The nation, as a vine, allowed its own environment to deteriorate so that it became easy pickings for other nations. The moral and cultural rot left them weak and faithless. Having abandoned their love and trust in the gardener, they took the responsibility for managing their lives upon themselves and followed their own desires rather than what was best for them. A rebellious vine is a difficult metaphor to comprehend, but this was the root cause of this disaster, not the faithlessness of the gardener. When our vine is not flourishing it’s tempting to blame God, but really we need to look no further than ourselves. Trust the gardener. Allow your roots to go down deep, stay within the walls of his will and you will be spared from the wild animals of sin.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,
15 the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.
For the second time, the psalmist calls upon the God of the angelic armies to look down from heaven and see what’s happened to his vine. He pleads for God to show concern once more for the vine that he himself carried out of Egypt and planted. This is the precious root stock that God planted with his favored arm, his right hand. The “son” here is also translated “branch” but it is the typical word for “son”. This could be a reference to the king who was identified in the coronation psalm as a “son of God” (Psalm 2:7). It would seem that God had not only abandoned his people but his king as well. God had once made his king strong back in the days of David and Solomon and others, but now the king is in captivity with his people in Babylon. At a certain level, this is a very simple prayer: look and see. There are times when prayer is just telling God the way it is, how you see it, how you feel about things. It is brutally honest and doesn’t hesitate to hold God responsible for what he has allowed to happen. But it always ends up with trust, praise and promise for the future. That may be expressed in a request like “Turn again (and act on our behalf).” The very fact that the psalmist is requesting God’s favor is evidence of faith. Anytime the “son” is mentioned in the psalms, I can’t help but think of Jesus, the ultimate king and son of God. The time will come when the Father will plant his son in his vineyard and the tenants will turn against him. This season of exile will not be the last time God’s people turn away from him. He will send his own son to tend his vineyard and they will kill him. Yet even their act of treachery will be turned by God into their good, so great is his sovereignty and grace.
16 They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your face!
17 But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
For the last time, the psalmist recounts what the enemies of God and his people have done. They have burned his vineyard with fire and they have cut it down. They didn’t take it over and steal its produce. They destroyed it. War is awful. The Babylonian objective of world domination required in their calculation, the complete destruction of Israel as an example to the other nations. They had better stay in line or this might happen to them. The psalmist prays for a quick end to the Babylonians, “May they perish at the sight of God’s face.” When God shows his angry eyes, there’s no escape. There are many times where the psalmist prays that he might see the light of God’s face (Psalms 16 & 17 for example), so the light of God’s face is not always destructive. In fact, more often it is a metaphor of God’s favor as in “May the light of his face shine upon you” in the levitical prayer of blessing. In fact, verse 19 of this very psalm asks for the favor of God’s face to bring them salvation. Once more the psalmist prays for the man of God’s right hand, the son of Adam whom he has made strong for himself. This is likely a reference to the Davidic king. His line was nearly cut off, but the psalmist is still holding to the sure promise that a descendant of David would always be on the throne. He prays that God would raise up a leader. One can’t help but think of Jesus who is the ultimate answer to the prayer of the psalmist. He is the “man of God’s right hand”, “the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.” Martin Luther references this messianic phrase in his hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God. The psalmist was just praying for a king to be raised up to lead his people back to the land and restore their greatness. But what God had in mind was a king for all peoples and a flourishing for all nations. What God had done for Israel he desired to do for all peoples, to plant them and cause them to be fruitful and flourish, to have the good like that he desires. He will do this through Jesus and through his church. The mission has not changed in 2,000 years. This is the enterprise that we are first and foremost engaged in, planting and cultivating God’s vineyard in every land that its branches may extend to the seas, that its boughs would shade the mountains. This is ultimately a prayer for the son of God to reign supreme over the earth.
18 Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!
19 Restore us [Turn us again], O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
The psalm concludes with a promise and a prayer. The promise is simply: We’ve learned our lesson. This won’t happen again. We won’t turn away from you. It is a prayer of repentance that we’ve all prayed countless times. Our grief is real, our sorrow for our brokenness and the severing of our relationship with God is genuine. It is real repentance, but deep down we know that ultimately it will not stick. This has happened before and it will likely happen again. At least it doesn’t stick in the case of the nation of Israel. Every generation will face its own struggle and its own choice when it comes to faithfulness and idolatry. By the time that God sends his own son to the vineyard, nearly everyone rejects him. And our repentance doesn’t always last on a personal level either. We’ll find ourselves again pleading for the mercy of God and promising that we won’t fail again. We know that God alone can give us life, that he alone can restore us, that his favor alone will bring wholeness once more. This is the prayer and it is one that has been rhythmically repeated throughout the psalm. “Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts.” For the second time in the psalm, the psalmist addresses God using the divine name YHWH. The prayer is a model of repentance, repeatedly acknowledging our failure as well as our need for God’s grace alone. And hidden in this prayer of repentance are references to the one who will legally grant us the forgiveness we’re asking for: the man of God’s right hand, the son whom God will make strong. The gospel is in this psalm as it may be found in every psalm. God will send a gardener to tend his vineyard, and when the caretakers of the vineyard reject him, he will not destroy the vineyard, but save it through the gardener. When Jesus is seen for the first time on resurrection morning, he is at first mistaken for a gardener. But it was no mistake. He is the gardener. The psalm begins with the LORD as shepherd, but the bulk of the psalm portrays him as a gardener. Jesus is both shepherd and gardener.