PSALM 74 [1]

I Will Destroy this Temple

The Temple in Ruins (vv.1-11)

1 O God, why have You rejected us forever?		Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
2 Remember [2] Your congregation, which You have purchased of old,	Which You have redeemed [3] to be the tribe of Your inheritance;		And this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.
3 Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins;		The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary.
4 Your adversaries have roared in the midst of Your meeting place;		They have set up their own standards for signs.
5 It seems as if one had lifted up His axe in a forest of trees.		6 And now all its carved work They smash with hatchet and hammers.
7 They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground;		They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name.
8 They said in their heart, “Let us completely subdue them.”		They have burned all the meeting places (also 75:2) of God in the land.
9 We do not see our signs;	There is no longer any prophet,		Nor is there any among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, will the adversary revile, [4]		And the enemy spurn Your name forever?
11 Why do You withdraw Your hand,		even Your right hand?
From within Your bosom,		destroy them!

The Psalmist Remembers God’s Deeds of Creation and Redemption (vv.12-17)

12 Yet God is my king from of old,	Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
13 You [5] divided the sea by Your strength;	You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;	You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. [6]
15 You broke open springs and torrents;	You dried up ever-flowing streams. (Gen.1:6-10; Ps.104:5-9)
16 Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; (Gen.1:3-4)	You have prepared the light and the sun.
17 You have established all the boundaries of the earth;	You have made summer and winter. (Psalm 104:19-23)

The Psalmist Prays that Yahweh, the Covenant Keeping God, would Remember (vv.18-23)

18 Remember [7] this, O Yahweh, that the enemy has reviled,	And a foolish people has spurned Your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of Your turtledove to the wild beast;	Do not forget the life of Your afflicted forever.
20 Consider the covenant;	For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Let not the oppressed return dishonored;	Let the afflicted and needy praise Your name.
22 Arise, O God, and plead Your own cause;	Remember how the foolish man reproaches You all day long.
23 Do not forget the voice of Your adversaries,	The uproar of those who rise against You which ascends continually.

[1] “Psalm 74…confronts in corporate terms the same problem faced by the individual in Psalm 73: the apparent triumph of the wicked. Not surprisingly, there are several literary links between Psalms 73 and 74, including the name “Asaph” in the superscription, “sanctuary” in 73:17 and 74:7, “violence” in 73:6 and 74:20, “right hand” in 73:23 and 74:11, and “ruin(s)” in 73:18 and 74:3 (the only two occurrences of the plural form in the OT)” (McCann, “Psalms” in The New Interpreters Bible p.972).

[2] “Remember” is used a total of 12x total in the Psalms of Asaph which number 12 (Psalm 74:2,18,22; 77:3,6,11 [2x]; 78:35,39,42; 79:8; 83:4).

[3] Outside of Exodus, the only place in which ga’al is used in reference to the redemption from Egypt is in the Psalms (74:2; 77:15; 106:10) (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:652).

[4] This question is answered in Psalm 75.

[5] “You” occurs 7x in vv.13-17.

[6] Psalm 74 (vv.2,13,14) utilizes the imagery of the Exodus. The great puzzle of Psalm 74 is that following God’s redemption was the building of God’s tabernacle (Exodus 25-40). House building follows victorious kingship (Exodus 15:1-17). But now this pattern has been reversed and God’s house lies in ruins! Pagans have taken axes and treated the temple like a forest with no regard to conservation. “The Psalmist’s dismay over the abnormality of the combination of God’s indisputably sovereign kingship with the desecrated and desolate state of the dwelling place of his name is a clear reflex of the normal expectation that decisive royal victory would be naturally followed by the building of a permanent royal house” (Meredith Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority, 82).

[7] There are seven imperatives in vv.18-23.