Psalms 74:8 - Exposition

They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them altogether . It was, no doubt, the intention of Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Israel as a nation. Hence the complete destruction of the city and temple ( 2 Kings 25:9 , 2 Kings 25:10 ; 2 Chronicles 36:19 ; Lamentations 2:1-9 , etc.); hence the deportation of all the strength of the nation ( 2 Kings 24:14-16 ; 2 Kings 25:11 ), and their settlement in the far off region of Babylonia; hence the desolation, not only of Jerusalem, but of "all the habitations of Jacob" ( Lamentations 2:2 ), all the "strongholds of the daughter of Judah" ( Lamentations 2:2 , Lamentations 2:5 ). They have burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land. The synagogue system was first introduced by Ezra, according to Jewish tradition; and it has been argued that the mention of "synagogues" here—literally, "sacred meeting places"—proves the psalm to be Maccabean. But meeting places for worship, other than the temple, always existed in Palestine, both before and after its erection. Mesha speaks of having plundered a "house of Jehovah" in his war with Ahab; and it is plain from 2 Kings 4:23 that religious meetings were held by the prophets, probably in houses devoted to the purpose, during the period of the divided monarchy. Hezekiah's destruction of the high places ( 2 Kings 18:4 ) is not likely to have interfered with the use of these buildings, to which no savour of idolatry can have attached in the mind of the most violent iconoclast. I should therefore believe, with Leopold Low, that buildings existed before the Exile, in which religious instruction was given by authorized teachers.