Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the
son of man whom You made strong for Yourself. Then we will not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!
In Psalm 80 Asaph is praying and asking God to save, to
return, to restore, and revive the nation of Israel after it has been basically
destroyed by foreign enemies. It is possible that Asaph wrote it during the
time of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah. Some commentators believe that Psalm
79 was written for the spring festival of Passover, and Psalm 80 was written for
the fall festival of Tabernacles. It was a psalm for the harvest festival, the
most joyous of all the great annual feasts of Israel. Psalm 80 also anticipates
the day, yet to come, when the golden age will dawn and when Jesus will return
and reign. But in the meantime, there are problems everywhere and worse ones
yet to come for the people of Israel.
In verses 1-3, Asaph prays for the “Shepherd of Israel to stir up His strength
and come and save us”. In verses 4-7, Asaph asks the Lord to have pity on
His people. Now in verses 8-19, he is pleading with Jehovah “to return, look
down from heaven and see, and visit this vine, and revive the His broken people”
(vv. 14, 18).
In the first verse, Asaph uses the picture of Israel as a flock of sheep and the Lord
as their Shepherd. But now the image changes to that of Israel the vine (Isa.
5:1-7; Jer. 2:21; 6:9; Ezek. 15:1-2; 17:6-8; 19:10-14; Hos. 10:1; 14:7; Matt.
20:1-16; Mark 12:1-9; Luke 20:9-16). Jesus used this image to describe Himself
and His followers (John 15).
Asaph recounts how the Lord transplanted Israel from Egypt to Canaan, uprooted the
nations in Canaan, and planted His people in the land of their inheritance. As
long as the people obeyed the Lord, the vine grew and covered more and more of
the land. The boundaries of the nation reached from the hill country in the
south to the mighty cedars of Lebanon in the north, from the Mediterranean Sea
on the west to the Euphrates on the east—and beyond (72:8; Ex. 23:21; Deut.
11:24; 2 Sam. 8:6; 1 Kings 4:24).
But the luxurious vine disobeyed the Lord, produced "worthless fruit"
(Isa. 5:2), and felt the chastening hand of the Lord. He withdrew His protection
and permitted the enemy to enter the land and ruin the vineyard. Asaph prayed
that the Lord might forgive and once again bless His people. The word
"branch" in verse 15 is perhaps a Messianic reference. “There
shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of
his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:1-2)
The final refrain introduces a third name for God, borrowed from verse 4: "O
LORD God of hosts". LORD is the
name "Jehovah," which is the covenant name of God. The psalmist
appealed to the covenant and asked God to be faithful to forgive and “revive” His
people as they called upon Him and confessed their sins (Lev. 26:40-45; Deut.
30:1-10). Spiritually speaking, the roots of Israel are still strong (Rom. 11:16-24),
and one day the vine and olive tree will be restored, and Asaph's prayer will
be answered as prophesied in Isaiah 2.
We believe God planted America for a special missionary purpose in these last days,
and brought us great blessings when we honored Him and obeyed His Word. But now
the “boar and the wild beast” of liberalism, corruption, violence, chaos,
and confusion is devouring us and it is time for us to pray Psalm 80 for God “to
return, to revive, and to restore us”.
God bless!
