791 O God, the nations have come into your heritage; they have made your holy Temple unclean; they have made Jerusalem a mass of broken walls. 2 They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. 3 Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place. 4 We are looked down on by our neighbours, we are laughed at and made sport of by those who are round us. 5 How long, O Lord? will you be angry for ever? will your wrath go on burning like fire?
6 Let your wrath be on the nations who have no knowledge of you, and on the kingdoms who have not made prayer to your name. 7 For they have taken Jacob for their meat, and made waste his house. 8 Do not keep in mind against us the sins of our fathers; let your mercy come to us quickly, for we have been made very low. 9 Give us help, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; take us out of danger and give us forgiveness for our sins, because of your name. 10 Why may the nations say, Where is their God? Let payment for the blood of your servants be made openly among the nations before our eyes. 11 Let the cry of the prisoner come before you; with your strong arm make free the children of death; 12 And give punishment seven times over into the breast of our neighbours for the bitter words which they have said against you, O Lord. 13 So we your people, and the sheep of your flock, will give you glory for ever: we will go on praising you through all generations.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 79:1-18
Commentary on Psalm 79:1-5
(Read Psalm 79:1-5)
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.
Commentary on Psalm 79:6-13
(Read Psalm 79:6-13)
Those who persist in ignorance of God, and neglect of prayer, are the ungodly. How unrighteous soever men were, the Lord was righteous in permitting them to do what they did. Deliverances from trouble are mercies indeed, when grounded upon the pardon of sin; we should therefore be more earnest in prayer for the removal of our sins than for the removal of afflictions. They had no hopes but from God's mercies, his tender mercies. They plead no merit, they pretend to none, but, Help us for the glory of thy name; pardon us for thy name's sake. The Christian forgets not that he is often bound in the chain of his sins. The world to him is a prison; sentence of death is passed upon him, and he knows not how soon it may be executed. How fervently should he at all times pray, O let the sighing of a prisoner come before thee, according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die! How glorious will the day be, when, triumphant over sin and sorrow, the church beholds the adversary disarmed for ever! while that church shall, from age to age, sing the praises of her great Shepherd and Bishop, her King and her God.