The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"cast us off," Hebrew zanachta (זָנַחְתָּ). The lament opens with a raw "why": "O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?" The word is of a deliberate rejecting, and Asaph does not soften it or pretend the disaster came from anywhere but God's own hand.

"anger smoke," ye'ashan appekha (יֶעְשַׁן אַפְּךָ). The sanctuary is a smoking ruin, and Asaph reads the smoke as God's own displeasure: "why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?" It feels to him like permanent rejection.

"sheep of thy pasture," tzon mar'itekha (צֹאן מַרְעִיתֶךָ). Yet even in the anguish, faith names the relationship. This is the strategy of the whole prayer: a shepherd does not abandon his own sheep, so Asaph reminds God whose flock this is.

"remember," zekhor (זְכֹר). "Remember thy congregation." He is not really asking God to recall a forgotten fact; he is pleading God's own commitment, that God has too much invested in them to cast them off for ever.

"purchased of old," qanita qedem (קָנִיתָ קֶּדֶם). A word of acquisition and ownership. An owner does not forget what he has bought at great price, and Asaph appeals not to his people's worthiness but to God's investment in them.

"redeemed," ga'alta (גָּאַלְתָּ). The kinsman-redeemer's word, used of buying back what belongs to the family. A redeemer does not walk away from those he has redeemed; the sheep belong to the Shepherd, and He does not cast off His own.

"perpetual desolations," mashu'ot netzach (מַשֻּׁאוֹת נֶצַח). The ruin looks final, past all mending. It is the same "for ever" that opened the psalm, and it is exactly this apparent permanence that drives Asaph to plead God's ownership.

Explanation

Notice how, even in his darkest complaint, Asaph keeps hold of one thing: God's ownership of His people. The lament is bitter, "why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke?", the sanctuary is a smoking ruin and it feels like permanent rejection. And yet, threaded through the very words of complaint, Asaph keeps calling the people what they are to God: "the sheep of thy pasture... thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed." Every phrase is a claim on God: we are Yours, You bought us, You redeemed us, You dwelt among us. This is the strategy of faith in the ruins, when you cannot understand what God is doing and it feels like abandonment, you appeal not to your own worthiness but to God's investment in you. A shepherd does not abandon his own sheep; an owner does not forget what he has purchased at great price; a redeemer does not walk away from those he has redeemed. So Asaph's prayer, "Remember thy congregation," is not really asking God to recall a forgotten fact, but pleading God's own commitment: You have too much invested in us to cast us off for ever. This is how to pray when the walls are down and God seems silent: do not argue your merit, plead His ownership. The sheep belong to the Shepherd, and He does not cast off His own.

Gospel Focus

"Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old... which thou hast redeemed", this plea rests on a truth made unshakable in Jesus Christ, who has purchased and redeemed His people at the highest price. The church is God's own possession, bought not with silver and gold "but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19), "the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). Because Christ has redeemed us at the cost of His own life, God will never finally cast us off; the price paid is the guarantee of our keeping. Jesus is Himself the Good Shepherd who owns "the sheep of thy pasture," and He says, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). When the believer, or the church, sits amid ruins and God seems to have withdrawn, the strongest prayer is still Asaph's: not "look how good we are," but "remember what You paid for us." The blood of Christ is the answer to every fear of being cast off, for the God who spared not His own Son to purchase us will not abandon what cost Him so much. Plead the price, and rest: the Shepherd does not forsake the flock He bought with His blood.

Word Study

"our signs," Hebrew ototeinu (אוֹתֹתֵינוּ). The lament reaches its lowest point, and it is not the ruined building but the silence: "We see not our signs." The visible tokens that God was among them have gone, and nothing has replaced them.

"no more any prophet," ein-od navi (אֵין־עוֹד נָבִיא). No word from God at all. A believer can endure enormous loss while God is still speaking; what breaks the heart is the sense that heaven is shut and no word comes down.

"how long," ad-mah (עַד־מָה). "Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long." Not even the length of the darkness is known, so the one thing left to them is the question itself, which the next verse turns into a prayer.

"reproach," yecharef (יְחָרֶף). The first of two distinct words for the enemy's taunt. Charaph pictures a sharp, cutting insult flung in scorn, the jeer of the victor over the ruins.

"blaspheme," yena'etz (יְנָאֵץ). The second word is stronger still: na'ats is outright contempt, to spurn as beneath notice. The enemy's mocking question, "where is their God?", is exactly the taunt other psalms answer -- "Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?" (Psalm 115:2).

"withdrawest thy hand," tashiv yadekha (תָּשִׁיב יָדְךָ). Asaph pictures God as a man who has drawn back His mighty right hand and is doing nothing. There is no pretence here, only raw, faith-filled honesty about God's apparent inaction.

"pluck it out of thy bosom," miqqerev cheiqekha (מִקֶּרֶב חֵיקְךָ). A vivid picture of God's hand tucked into the fold of His robe, at rest -- the psalmist begs Him to draw it out again and act.

Explanation

Notice what Asaph names as the deepest wound of the whole calamity. He has described the burned sanctuary, the smashed carvings, the enemy roaring in God's courts, terrible losses, all. But when he reaches the very bottom of his grief, it is not the ruined stones he weeps over; it is the silence: "We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long." No sign from God, no prophetic word, no one who can even tell them how long the darkness will last. This is a grief deeper than the destruction of buildings, the sense that God has gone quiet, that heaven is shut, that no word comes. A believer can endure enormous loss while God is still speaking; what breaks the heart is the feeling that God has fallen silent, that the questions go up and nothing comes down. And notice how honest the prayer is about it: "Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? pluck it out of thy bosom." Asaph pictures God as a man standing with His mighty right hand tucked inside the fold of His robe, doing nothing, and he begs Him to take it out and act. There is no pretense here, only raw, faith-filled honesty about God's apparent inaction. And that honesty is itself faith, for a man only asks God "how long?" if he still believes there will be an answer. The silence is real, but so is the God he cries to, and the very act of crying is a refusal to give up on Him.

Gospel Focus

"We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet", the silence Asaph lamented was answered forever when God spoke His final and greatest Word in Jesus Christ. For centuries after the prophets, there was indeed a great silence, "no more any prophet," until the fulness of time; and then "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). The long silence broke, not with another prophet, but with the Word made flesh (John 1:14); Jesus is God's last and fullest speech to the world. The believer who feels that heaven has gone quiet has, in Christ, a Word that will never be silenced, "the word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Peter 1:25). And the cry "how long?" is answered in Him, for He who bore the silence of God on the cross, crying "why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), rose to break every silence, and He has promised, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:18). So when God seems to withhold His hand and no word comes, do what Asaph did, keep crying "how long?", and remember that in Christ, God has spoken once for all, and the risen Lord who conquered the silence of the tomb will speak, and act, in His time.

Word Study

"King of old," Hebrew malki miqqedem (מַלְכִּי מִקֶּדֶם). The psalm turns on the word "For", and it is not a change in circumstances but a change of gaze: "For God is my King of old." Asaph deliberately lifts his eyes off the present wreckage and fixes them on the God of a long history.

"working salvation," po'el yeshu'ot (פֹּעֵל יְשׁוּעוֹת). Salvation here is plural, deliverances upon deliverances, "in the midst of the earth." This is memory deployed as a weapon against despair, and the God who did all that has not shrunk.

"divide the sea," porarta... yam (פוֹרַרְתָּ... יָם). The first act rehearsed is the greatest: "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength." Faith does not manufacture false cheer; it goes and remembers what God has actually done.

"dragons," tanninim (תַּנִּינִים). The sea-monsters of the deep, broken in the waters. The powers that looked untameable to men were nothing to the God who made the sea they swim in.

"leviathan," livyatan (לִוְיָתָן). The greatest of those creatures, whose heads God crushed. If the mightiest thing in the sea is no match for Him, neither is the enemy now roaring in His courts.

"the day is thine, the night also is thine," lekha yom af-lekha laylah (לְךָ יוֹם אַף־לְךָ לָיְלָה). Notice this line especially. Even the night, the dark hour of calamity, belongs to God as surely as the day; He is not only the God of the bright times but owns the darkness too, and the King of old who divided the sea still reigns over it.

Explanation

Watch the great pivot of the psalm at verse 12, and learn how faith fights despair. For eleven verses Asaph has stared at the ruins and the silence, and it has nearly crushed him. Then comes the turn, and it is not a change in his circumstances but a change in his gaze: "For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth." He deliberately lifts his eyes off the present wreckage and fixes them on the mighty deeds of God in the past, the dividing of the Red Sea, "thou didst divide the sea by thy strength," the crushing of the sea-monsters, the cleaving of rock for water in the wilderness, the making of day and night, sun and seasons and the borders of the earth. This is memory deployed as a weapon against despair. When the present is dark and God seems inactive, faith does not manufacture false cheer; it goes and remembers, it rehearses what God has actually done, the sea He split, the enemies He crushed, the world He made and upholds, and lets the God of that history reassure it about this hour. The God who did all that has not shrunk; His arm is not shortened. And notice one line especially: "The day is thine, the night also is thine." Even the night, the dark hour of calamity, belongs to God as surely as the day. He is not only the God of the bright times; He owns the darkness too, prepared it, rules it. So the believer in the ruins may say: this night I am in is not outside God's kingdom; it is His night, and the King of old who divided the sea still reigns over it. Fight your despair the way Asaph did, with the long memory of a God who has never lost His power, and who owns the night as well as the day.

Gospel Focus

"For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth", the King of old who works salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ, "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8), who has done the greatest saving work of all in the midst of the earth. The God who "divided the sea" and "brakest the heads of leviathan," the great sea-dragon, has in Christ broken the head of the true dragon, "that old serpent, called the Devil" (Revelation 12:9); at the cross He crushed the serpent's head, as promised in Eden (Genesis 3:15), "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14). The mighty acts Asaph remembered were shadows of the mightiest act, the salvation wrought by Christ crucified and risen "in the midst of the earth." And the truth that "the night also is thine" is sealed in the gospel, for Christ is Lord even of the darkest night, the night of the cross, the night of the tomb, and turned them into the dawn of resurrection. So when you sit in the ruins of your own losses, remember the King of old who still works salvation, whose greatest victory was won out of the deepest darkness. The dragon's head is already broken, the night belongs to your King, and the God who has done such things is more than able to plead His own cause and yours.