Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 79

O God, the heathen are come into your inheritance - The nations; a foreign people. See Psalms 2:1, note; Psalms 2:8, note; Psalms 78:55, note. The term is one that would be applicable to the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, and the probable allusion here is to their invasion of the holy land under Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chronicles 36:17–21).

Your holy temple have they defiled - They have polluted it by entering it; by removing the sacred furniture; by cutting down the carved work; and by making it desolate. See 2 Chronicles 36:17–18. Compare the notes on Psalms 74:5-7.

They have laid Jerusalem on heaps - See 2 Chronicles 36:19: And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

The dead bodies of your servants ... - They have slain them and left them unburied. See (2 Chronicles 36:17). This is a description of widespread carnage and slaughter, such as we know occurred at the time when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans. At such a time, it is not probable that the Chaldeans would pause to bury the slain, nor is it probable that they would give opportunity to the captive Hebrews to remain to bury them. That would occur, therefore, which often occurs in war: that the slain would be left on the field to be devoured by wild animals and by the fowls of heaven.

Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem - They have poured it out in such quantities that it seems to flow like water - not an uncommon occurrence in war. There was no event in the history of the Hebrews to which this description would be more applicable than to the Babylonian invasion. The language might indeed be applicable to the desolation of the city by Antiochus Epiphanes, and also to its destruction by the Romans; but, of course, it cannot refer to the latter, and there is no necessity for supposing that it refers to the former. All the conditions of a proper interpretation are fulfilled by supposing that it refers to the time of the Chaldean invasion.

And there was none to bury them - The Chaldeans would not do it, and they would not allow the Hebrew people to do it.

We are become a reproach to our neighbours - See the language in this verse explained in the notes at Psalms 44:13. The words in the Hebrew are the same, and the one seems to have been copied from the other.

How long, Lord? - See Psalms 74:1, note; Psalms 74:10, note; and Psalms 77:7-9, notes. This is the language, not of impatience, but of anxiety; not of complaining, but of wonder. It is language such as the people of God are often constrained to employ under heavy trials—trials which continue so long that it seems as if they would never end.

Shall thy jealousy, burn like fire? - That is, Shall it continue to burn like fire? Shall it utterly consume us? On the word jealousy, see the notes at Psalms 78:58.