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Psalm 74

Plea for Help in Time of National Humiliation

A Maskil of Asaph.

O God, why do you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago,

which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.

Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

Your foes have roared within your holy place;

they set up their emblems there.

At the upper entrance they hacked

the wooden trellis with axes.

And then, with hatchets and hammers,

they smashed all its carved work.

They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it to the ground.

They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;

they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

We do not see our emblems;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is no one among us who knows how long.

How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?

Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand;

why do you keep your hand in your bosom?

Yet God my King is from of old,

working salvation in the earth.

You divided the sea by your might;

you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan;

you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

You cut openings for springs and torrents;

you dried up ever-flowing streams.

Yours is the day, yours also the night;

you established the luminaries and the sun.

You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;

you made summer and winter.

Remember this, O L ord, how the enemy scoffs,

and an impious people reviles your name.

Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;

do not forget the life of your poor forever.

Have regard for your covenant,

for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;

let the poor and needy praise your name.

Rise up, O God, plead your cause;

remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes,

the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

18. Remember this. The prophet having encouraged the hearts of the godly by magnifying the divine power and goodness, now returns to the prosecution of his prayer. He first complains that the enemies of his people revile God, and yet continue unpunished. When he says, Remember this, the manner of expression is emphatic; and the occasion demanded it, for it is not a crime of small magnitude to treat with contumely the sacred name of God. For the sake of contrast, he states that it was a worthless or foolish people who thus presumed insolently to pour forth their reproaches against God. The Hebrew word נבל, nabal, denotes not only a foolish man, but also a wicked and infamous person. The prophet, therefore, justly describes the despisers of God as people who are vile and worthless.