Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2690 of our Trek. The purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before.
Today’s Wisdom Nugget is titled: How Long, O Lord? – A Plea for Mercy, A Cry for Justice - A Trek Through Psalm 79:5-8.
Today, we continue our poignant and urgent trek through Psalm 79 in the New Living Translation, encompassing verses 5 through 8.
In our last conversation, we plunged into the raw, unspeakable anguish of Psalm 79:1-4. We witnessed the utter devastation of Jerusalem and the desecration of God’s holy Temple by invading pagan armies. We felt the horror of the unburied dead, left as food for wild animals, and the crushing burden of being mocked by surrounding nations, all of which amounted to a direct insult to God Himself. It was a cry born from unprecedented sacrilege and profound national dishonor.
Now, as we move into this next section, Asaph, the psalmist, shifts from describing the catastrophe to directly questioning God about the duration of His anger. He then transitions to fervent imprecations—prayers for God’s judgment—against the pagan nations who do not know God, acknowledging Israel’s own past sins as a contributing factor, yet appealing desperately for God’s mercy rather than His continued wrath. This tension between recognizing their own culpability and pleading for justice against their oppressors is a hallmark of communal laments.
So, let’s immerse ourselves in this anguished yet hopeful appeal, feeling the weight of their desperate longing for an end to suffering and a demonstration of God's righteous power.
Psalm 79:5-6 NLT
How long, O Lord? Will you be angry with us forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t acknowledge you— on kingdoms that don’t call on your name.
The psalm begins this section with an agonizing, direct question to God about the duration of their suffering: "How long, O Lord? Will you be angry with us forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?" This "How long?" is a quintessential lament cry in the Psalms (Psalm 13, 74, 89). It signifies an unbearable continuation of distress and a desperate longing for an end to divine wrath. The psalmist acknowledges that their suffering is perceived as stemming from God's anger, fueled by His "jealousy"—His righteous intolerance of idolatry and unfaithfulness, which burns intensely like consuming fire.
This is a theological wrestling match. If God's anger is indeed burning, how long will it last? Will it be "forever"? This expresses the profound fear of a permanent, unending state of divine displeasure and abandonment, a terrifying thought for a people whose very existence depended on God’s favor. This very fear echoes the question in Psalm 74:1, "Why have you abandoned us forever?" Here, the focus is on the anger that underpins that perceived abandonment.
The psalmist then immediately redirects the force of God's wrath outward, appealing for it to be poured out...
