Day 169. Psalms 79-84

Psalm 79
The ebb and flow of power in the ancient Middle East—an area that was no less volatile in the Old Testament period than it is today—meant that there was always a new crisis on the horizon for Jerusalem. The psalms are filled with cries for help against enemies threatening the very existence of the city and the temple. This time the worst fears have materialized, however. The year is 587 B.C. or thereabouts, and the Babylonians have captured the city, "defiled" the temple, "laid Jerusalem in ruins," and left so many dead there is "no one to bury them" (79:1-3). The People of the Promise have been shamed—they are "mocked and derided by those around" them (4)—but they have not been abandoned forever. At this moment of extreme crisis, the voice of the psalm begs the LORD to turn his anger away from Judah, his Chosen, to those "kingdoms that do not call on [his] name" (6) and in fact ridicule him. Punish the nations for their
arrogance, the psalmist begs, and "let the groans of the prisoners come before you" (11). "Return sevenfold the taunts with which they taunted you, O LORD!" (12) the community prays. And when the LORD has punished Israel's neighbors, then "the flock of [his] pasture will give thanks to [him] forever" (13), and future generations will remember and "recount [his] praise" (13).
Psalm 80
This is the only place in the Old Testament where God is given the title of "Shepherd of Israel" (80:1), though many times he is called upon to care for his people like a shepherd cares for his flock and save them from their enemies. What the occasion for salvation is this time we are not told. The worshipping community asks for renewed "life," and for vindication from the shame their enemies has heaped upon them (5-6). The psalm contains a parable here—a fable with a message for its hearers. God brings a vine out of Egypt (8). He "clear[s] the ground for it" (9) and it grows and thrives, sending out branches in all directions. But now God in his anger has "broken down its walls" so that the vine is no longer protected (12). (Several times in its history Jerusalem's enemies tore down its walls, making it vulnerable to any foe.) Now deprived of its defenses a "boar from the forest ravages it" (13). What or who this "boar" is we
are not told—probably some menacing foreign power—Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians or other marauding neighbors. The community feels deeply its vulnerably and prays--"Restore us, O LORD," and these words become a refrain in the psalm (3,7,19). Often individuals and nations—churches as well—experience "slippage"--a sense of having declined. Things were better once, but now a slow, wasting disease has taken hold. They feel themselves to be dying. In this psalm the worshipping community prays that the LORD will have "regard for this vine" (14)—his people-- and strengthen it, and in return his grateful people promise "never to turn back from [the LORD]" and "call upon [the] name" of the one who gives them "life" (18).
Psalm 81
Again, this is a festival hymn sung in the Jerusalem temple during one of three great feasts of the Israelite year—Passover, Pentecost (first fruits), and the Feast of Booths—accompanied by instrumental music (81:1-3). It is a liturgy—a dialogue between the congregation and leader who sings—"I hear a voice I had not known" (5b)—and then he reports the words of the LORD he has heard. The LORD recounts how he released Israel from their bondage in Egypt—"relieved [their] shoulder of the burden" (6). Now if they will listen to him and worship no "foreign God," he will bless them—"Open your mouth wide and I will fill it" (10), he says. He punished them in order to get their attention. Now if only they "would listen" to him and "walk in [his] ways" (13), the LORD promises that he would "quickly subdue their enemies" (14). He would bless them materially and spiritually, feeding them "with the finest wheat, and with
honey from the rock [he] would satisfy them" (16).
Psalm 82
God gathers the "divine council"—the angels and other spirits (remember the beginning of the Book of Job)—and scolds them. "How long" will they "judge unjustly?" he demands to know (2). They are the villains. They, not he, are the ones who are withholding justice from the "weak and the orphan" and showing "partiality to the wicked" (3). If these wayward angels do not repent, and do what is right, they will "die like mortals, and fall like any prince" (7). Earthly rulers are also put on notice; if they do not sponsor justice, they will also perish. And the psalm ends with a call to God to put an end to in the foolishness of the "gods," who "walk around in darkness" and judge the earth with justice himself.
Psalm 83
This is probably a hymn sung in the temple on many different occasions, a call for help from God suitable in any circumstances. It has a familiar theme—the wicked are conspiring against God's people. We get a laundry list of Israel's traditional enemies (83:6-7), to which the Assyrians have lately been added (8). The LORD is called upon to do to them what he did the former foes of Israel, now reduced to dust. The prayer of the temple congregation is that the LORD will protect the kingdom and make its enemies as "chaff before the wind" (13). And the vindication of God's Chosen People will be accompanied by the "disgrace" of those who wish them ill—God's enemies as well as theirs. Let them be "put to shame and dismayed forever," the worshiping community prays, that they may learn their lesson and henceforth "know that the [Lord] is Most High over all the earth" (18).
Psalm 84
This a traveling song sung by pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to attend one of the three great feasts celebrated in the temple. It is a hymn of joy and longing. Although God was present everywhere, in the temple in which his "name" dwells, he was closest to human beings. Heaven and earth meet there. And it is for the presence of God that the festal pilgrims say they long—indeed faint. The temple is the true home of those who love the LORD and seek his righteousness—even the humblest of birds—the sparrow "finds a home" there (84:3), in a place at the "altars of the LORD" where "she may lay her young" at the altars. Lucky are those who live where they can worship in the temple daily. Happy are pilgrims to come to worship there for the feasts –"they go from strength to strength" (7). One day spent in the outer courts of the temple is "better than a thousand elsewhere'" (10), the pilgrims proclaim. Even to stand outside the
gates of the temple—as a "gatekeeper'-- is better than being welcomed into the "tents of wickedness" (10). Even a distant proximity to the holiest place is good because the LORD withholds "no good thing" to those to approach him "uprightly," and bestows "favor and honor" on those who trust in him (11-12).