Psalms 79:6 - Meaning and Application

The prayers here are very fitting for the church in deep trouble, and they are supported by strong reasons, most of them drawn from God’s honor. The people first ask God to turn his anger away from them and against those who had persecuted and abused them (Psalm 79:6). In effect, this is also a prophecy, showing that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all sin and evil among people.

Notice, first, the character of those they pray against. They are people who have not known God and have not called on his name. People do not pray because they do not know how good and able God is to help them. Those who keep living in ignorance of God and neglect prayer are ungodly, living without God in the world. Whole nations may not know God or obey the gospel, but their numbers and strength will not protect them from his just judgments.

Next, notice their crime: they have devoured Jacob, that is, God’s people. That was enough to bring guilt on them, because God counts harm done to his people as harm done to himself. They did not merely trouble Jacob, they devoured him. They not only invaded the land of Canaan, his dwelling place, but laid it waste by plundering it and emptying it of people.

Then comes their condemnation: “Pour out your wrath on them.” The prayer is not only that God would stop them from doing more harm, but that he would punish them for the harm they had already done.

The psalm then turns to the pardon of sin, which they admit was the real cause of all their troubles. No matter how wrong people were, God was still righteous in allowing these things to happen. They ask, first, that God would not remember their former sins against them, either the sins of their own past or the sins of their ancestors. In the Babylonian captivity, earlier sins were brought to account, but God later promised not to do that again (Jeremiah 31:29, Jeremiah 31:30). So they pray, “Do not remember our first sins against us.” Some take this back as far as the golden calf, because God said he would punish that sin in due time (Exodus 32:34). If children, by repentance and changed lives, cut off the line of their parents’ sin, they may pray in faith that God will not hold those sins against them. When God forgives sin, he wipes it out and remembers it no more.

They also ask God to cleanse them from the sins they had recently committed, the sins that had defiled their minds and consciences: “Deliver us, and purge away our sins” (Psalm 79:9). Deliverance from trouble is truly a mercy only when it comes with pardon and flows from it. For that reason, we should be more earnest in asking God to remove our sins than to remove our troubles. Forgiveness is the foundation and sweetness of every rescue.

They also pray for speedy deliverance. “Let your tender mercies come quickly to meet us” (Psalm 79:8). They had no hope except in God’s tender mercy. Their situation was so sad that they saw themselves as the proper objects of his compassion. They were close to ruin, unless mercy stepped in quickly to keep them from destruction. That makes them more urgent in prayer: “Lord, help us. Lord, deliver us. Help us under our troubles, so we may bear them well. Bring us out of our troubles, so our spirit will not fail. Deliver us from sin, from sinking.”

They press three reasons. First, their great misery: “We are brought very low.” The lower they were brought, the more they needed help from heaven, and the more God’s power would be praised in lifting them up. Second, their trust in him: “You are the God of our salvation.” He alone can help. Salvation belongs to the Lord, and his people expect rescue from him alone. Those who make God the God of their salvation will find that he is. Third, they appeal to his honor. They do not claim any merit of their own, but ask, “Help us for the glory of your name; forgive us for your name’s sake.” The strongest prayers are those that rest on God himself and on what he has made known about himself.

This appeal contains two thoughts. One is that God’s honor would be badly damaged if he did not deliver them, because their enemies mocked them and blasphemed God. Those enemies said, as if in scorn, “Where is their God?” They acted as if God had abandoned them or forgotten them. The people answer, “Lord, show that you are with us by acting for us. Then, when people ask, ‘Where is your God?’ we can say that he is near us in all that we call on him for, and that they can see it in what he does for us.” What was once their honor, serving a God who is everywhere, had been turned into shame, as though they served a God nowhere.

The other thought is that God’s honor would be greatly increased if he delivered them. His mercy would be glorified by rescuing those who were so helpless and miserable. By stretching out his mighty arm for them, he would make an everlasting name for himself. Their rescue would also point ahead to the great salvation that Messiah the Prince would bring in due time, to the glory of God’s name.

Finally, they pray for justice against their enemies. They ask for vengeance on those who shed innocent blood, according to the ancient law (Genesis 9:6). Let the punishment for our blood be made known among the nations, they say. Let the nations see clearly that the judgments falling on them are repayment for the wrongs they have done to us. In that way, God would be known among the nations as the God to whom vengeance belongs (Psalm 94:1), the God who takes up his people’s cause. Those who have drunk deep of the blood of the saints will one day have blood given to them to drink, because they are worthy. They also ask God to repay their enemies for their insult and contempt.

The insults and shame that the enemies have spoken and done against God’s people and against God’s name should be paid back to them in full. The wrong done to us personally is something we must leave to God, whether he chooses to repay it or not, and we should pray that he would forgive those who harmed us. But when people blaspheme God himself, we may pray in faith that God will return that shame on their own heads seven times over, so that it strikes their hearts, humbles them, and brings them to repentance.

This prayer is also a prophecy with the same meaning as Enoch’s warning, that God will expose sinners for every harsh word they have spoken against him (Jude 1:15). He will also bring those words back to their own hearts through lasting terror, as they remember what they said.

They also pray that God would make a way to rescue his poor prisoners, especially those already sentenced to die, (Psalm 79:11). The condition of their fellow believers who had fallen into enemy hands was very sad. They were kept under close guard, and because they could not openly cry out, they poured out their grief in deep, quiet sighs. Their breathing was sighing, and so was their praying. They were appointed to die, like sheep led to slaughter, and they carried the sentence of death within themselves.

The psalmist brings this miserable case before God in two ways. First, he appeals to God’s pity, asking that their sighs would come up before him and that he would listen to their groaning. Second, he appeals to God’s power, asking him to save those appointed to die according to the greatness of his arm, which no creature can resist. When human help has failed completely, that is often when God shows himself for his people. See (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).

At the end, they promise to give thanks when God answers prayer, (Psalm 79:13). They rest in their relationship to God: though they are oppressed and brought low, they are still the sheep of his pasture. He has not rejected them. They are his, and so they ask, “Save us.”

They also promise to use their deliverance as a reason for praise. They want it because it will give them more reason to thank God and will fit their hearts for that excellent work, the work of heaven. They bind themselves not only to thank God now, but to keep telling of his praise through every generation. In this way, they want to preserve the memory of God’s goodness and train their children to keep praising him.

They also use this as an argument with God: “Lord, act for us against our enemies, because if they win, they will blaspheme you” (Psalm 79:12). “But if we are delivered, we will praise you. We are the people you formed for yourself, to show your praise. If we are cut off, where will that praise, that tribute, come from?” Those lives that are completely given to God’s praise are surely under his protection.