Psalm 74:1-8

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:2

Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old - We are the descendants of that people whom thou didst take unto thyself; the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Wilt thou never more be reconciled to us? read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:3

Lift up thy feet - Arise, and return to us, our desolations still continue. Thy sanctuary is profaned by thine and our enemies. read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:4

Thine enemies roar - Thy people, who were formerly a distinct and separate people, and who would not even touch a Gentile, are now obliged to mingle with the most profane. Their boisterous mirth, their cruel mockings, their insulting commands, are heard every where in all our assemblies. They set up their ensigns for signs - אתות אותתם שמו samu othotham othoth , they set up their standards in the place of ours. All the ensigns and trophies were those of our enemies; our own were no... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:8

Let us destroy them - Their object was totally to annihilate the political existence of the Jewish people. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land - It is supposed that there were no synagogues in the land till after the Babylonish captivity. How then could the Chaldeans burn up any in Judea? The word מועדי moadey , which we translate synagogues, may be taken in a more general sense, and mean any places where religious assemblies were held: and that such places and... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:1

Verse 1 1.O God! why hast thou east us off for ever? If this complaint was written when the people were captives in Babylon, although Jeremiah had assigned the 70th year of their captivity as the period of their deliverance, it is not wonderful that waiting so long was to them a very bitter affliction, that they daily groaned under it, and that so protracted a period seemed to them like an eternity. As to those who were persecuted by the cruelty of Antiochus, they might, not without reason,... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:2

Verse 2 2.Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed of old. (214) Here they boast of having been the peculiar people of God, not on account of any merit of their own, but by the grace of adoption. They boast in like manner of their antiquity, — that they are not subjects who have come under the government of God only within a few months ago, but such as had fallen to him by right of inheritance. The longer the period during which he had continued his love towards the seed of Abraham,... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:3

Verse 3 3.Lift up thy strokes. Here the people of God, on the other hand, beseech him to inflict a deadly wound upon their enemies, corresponding to the cruelty with which they had raged against his sanctuary. They would intimate, that a moderate degree of punishment was not sufficient for such impious and sacrilegious fury; and that, therefore, those who had shown themselves such violent enemies of the temple and of the worshippers of God should be completely destroyed, their impiety being... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:4

Verse 4 4.Thy adversaries have roared in the midst of thy sanctuaries. Here the people of God compare their enemies to lions, (Amos 3:8,) to point out the cruelty which they exercised even in the very sanctuaries of God. (218) In this passage we are to understand the temple of Jerusalem as spoken of rather than the Jewish synagogues; nor is it any objection to this interpretation that the temple is here called in the plural number sanctuaries, as is frequently the case in other places, it being... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:5

Verse 5 5.He who lifted up the axe upon the thick trees was renowned. The prophet again aggravates still more the barbarous and brutal cruelty of the enemies of his countrymen, from the circumstance, that they savagely demolished an edifice which had been built at such vast expense, which was embellished with such beauty and magnificence, and finished with so great labor and art. There is some obscurity in the words; but the sense in which they are almost universally understood is, that when... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 74:7

Verse 7 7.They have set fire to thy sanctuaries. The Psalmist now complains that the temple was burned, and thus completely razed and destroyed, whereas it was only half demolished by the instruments of war. Many have supposed that the order of the words has been here inverted, (224) not being able to perceive how a suitable meaning could be elicited from them, and therefore would resolve them thus, They have put fire into thy sanctuaries. I have, however, no doubt that the sense which I have... read more

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