John Calvin Commentary Psalms 74

O God! why hast thou cast us off for ever? If this complaint was written when the people were captives in Babylon, although Jeremiah had assigned the 70th year of their captivity as the period of their deliverance, it is not surprising that waiting so long was a very bitter affliction to them, that they daily groaned under it, and that such a protracted period seemed to them like an eternity.

As for those who were persecuted by the cruelty of Antiochus, they might, not without reason, complain of God's wrath being perpetual, due to their lack of information as to any definite time when this persecution would end; and especially when they saw the cruelty of their enemies daily increasing without any hope of relief, and that their condition was constantly proceeding from bad to worse.

Having been previously greatly reduced by the many disastrous wars that their neighbors one after another had waged against them, they were now brought almost to the brink of utter destruction. It should be observed that the faithful, when persecuted by the heathen nations, lifted up their eyes to God, as if all the evils they suffered had been inflicted by his hand alone.

They were convinced that if God had not been angry with them, the heathen nations would not have been permitted to take such license in injuring them. Therefore, being persuaded that they were not encountering merely the opposition of flesh and blood, but were afflicted by the just judgment of God, they directed their thoughts to the true cause of all their calamities. This cause was that God, under whose favor they had formerly lived prosperous and happy, had cast them off and no longer deigned to count them as his flock.

The verb זנה, zanach, signifies to reject and to detest, and sometimes also to withdraw oneself to a distance. It is not of great importance in which of these senses it is taken here. We may consider the substance of what is stated to be simply this: whenever we are visited with adversities, these are not the arrows of fortune thrown against us at random, but the scourges or rods of God which, in his secret and mysterious providence, he prepares and uses for chastising our sins.

Casting off and anger must here be referred to the apprehension or judgment of the flesh. Properly speaking, God is not angry with his elect, whose diseases he cures by afflictions, as it were, by medicines. But as the chastisements we experience powerfully tend to produce in our minds apprehensions of his wrath, the Holy Spirit, by the word anger, admonishes the faithful to acknowledge their guilt in the presence of infinite purity.

When, therefore, God executes his vengeance upon us, it is our duty seriously to reflect on what we have deserved, and to consider that although He is not subject to the emotions of anger, yet it is not due to us, who have grievously offended him by our sins, that his anger is not kindled against us.

Moreover, his people, as a plea for obtaining mercy, flee to the remembrance of the covenant by which they were adopted to be his children. In calling themselves the flock of God’s pastures, they magnify his free choice of them by which they were separated from the Gentiles. This they express more plainly in the following verse.

Remember your congregation, which you have possessed from of old. Here they boast of having been the chosen people of God, not on account of any merit of their own, but by the grace of adoption. They boast likewise of their antiquity — that they are not subjects who have come under the government of God only a few months ago, but those who belonged to Him by right of inheritance.

The longer the period during which He had continued His love toward the seed of Abraham, the more fully their faith was confirmed. They declare, therefore, that they had been God’s people from the beginning, that is, ever since He had entered into an inviolable covenant with Abraham. There is also added the redemption by which the adoption was ratified; for God not only signified by word, but also showed by deed at the time when this redemption was accomplished, that He was their King and Protector.

These benefits which they had received from God they set before themselves as an encouragement to trust in Him, and they recount them before Him, the benefactor who bestowed them, as an argument with Him not to forsake the work of His own hands. Inspired with confidence by the same benefits, they call themselves the rod of His inheritance; that is, the heritage which He had measured out for Himself.

The allusion is to the custom that then prevailed of measuring or marking out the boundaries of land with poles, similar to using cords or lines. Some would rather translate the word שבט, shebet, which we have rendered rod, as tribe; but I prefer the other translation. The meaning is that God separated Israel from the other nations to be His own special land, by the secret pre-ordination which originated in His own good pleasure, as by a measuring rod.

Finally, the temple in which God had promised to dwell is mentioned. This is not because His essence was enclosed in that place — an observation that has already been frequently made — but because His people experienced that there He was near, and present with them by His power and grace.

We now clearly perceive from where the people derived confidence in prayer; it was from God’s free election and promises, and from the sacred worship that had been set up among them.

Lift up your strokes. Here the people of God, on the other hand, implore him to inflict a deadly wound upon their enemies, corresponding to the cruelty with which they had raged against his sanctuary. They would suggest that a moderate degree of punishment was not sufficient for such impious and sacrilegious fury. Therefore, those who had shown themselves such violent enemies of the temple and of the worshippers of God should be completely destroyed, their impiety being utterly beyond remedy.

As the Holy Spirit has dictated this form of prayer, we may infer two things from it:

1. The infinite love God has for us, when he is pleased to punish so severely the wrongs inflicted upon us.
2. The high regard he has for the worship offered to his Divine majesty, when he pursues with such severity those who have violated it.

Regarding the words, some translate פעמים, pheamim, which we have translated as strokes, as feet or steps, and understand the Church as praying that the Lord would lift up his feet and run swiftly to strike her enemies. Others translate it as hammers, which suits very well. However, I do not hesitate to follow the opinion of those who consider the reference to be to the act of striking, and that the strokes themselves are indicated.

The last clause of the verse is explained by some as meaning that the enemy had corrupted all things in the sanctuary. But as this interpretation is not found elsewhere, I will not depart from the commonly accepted and approved reading.

Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your sanctuaries. Here the people of God compare their enemies to lions (Amos 3:8) to point out the cruelty which they exercised even in the very sanctuaries of God. In this passage, we are to understand the temple of Jerusalem as being spoken of rather than the Jewish synagogues. Nor is it any objection to this interpretation that the temple is here called in the plural number sanctuaries, as is frequently the case in other places, since it was so called because it was divided into three parts.

If any, however, think it preferable to consider synagogues as intended, I would not dispute the point. Indeed, without any impropriety, it may be extended to the whole land, which God had consecrated to Himself. But the language is much more emphatic when we consider the temple as meant. It thus intimates that the rage of the enemy was so unbounded and indiscriminate that they did not even spare the temple of God.

When it is said, They have set up their signs, this serves to show their insulting and contemptuous conduct: in erecting their standards, they proudly triumphed even over God Himself. Some explain this as referring to magical divinations, even as Ezekiel testifies (Ezekiel 21:21, 22) that Nebuchadnezzar sought counsel from the flight and the voice of birds; but this sense is too restricted.

The explanation I have given may be viewed as very suitable. Whoever entered the Holy Land knew that the worship of God which flourished there was of a special character, and different from that which was performed in any other part of the world: the temple was a token of the presence of God, and by it He seemed, as if with banners displayed, to hold that people under His authority and dominion.

With these symbols, which distinguished the chosen tribes from the heathen nations, the prophet here contrasts the sacrilegious standards which their enemies had brought into the temple. By repeating the word signs twice, he means to emphasize the abominable nature of their act; for, having thrown down the tokens and ensigns of the true service of God, they set up strange symbols in their place.

He who lifted up the axe upon the thick trees was renowned. The prophet again further emphasizes the barbarous and brutal cruelty of his countrymen’s enemies, because they savagely demolished an edifice built at such vast expense, embellished with such beauty and magnificence, and finished with such great labor and art.

There is some obscurity in the words; but they are almost universally understood to mean that when the temple was about to be built, those who cut and prepared the wood required for it were held in great reputation and renown. Some take the verb מביא, mebi, in an active sense, explaining the words to mean that the persons spoken of were illustrious and well known, as if they had offered sacrifices to God.

The thickness of the trees is set in opposition to the polished beams to show more clearly the exquisite art with which the rough and unwrought timber was brought into a form of the greatest beauty and magnificence.

Alternatively, the prophet means—and I am inclined to think this is the more correct interpretation—that in the thick forests, where there was a vast abundance of wood, great care was taken in selecting the trees, ensuring that only those of the very best quality were cut down.

Could it not perhaps be understood in this sense: that in these thick forests, the trees to which the axe was to be applied were well known and marked, being already of great height and exposed to view?

Whatever the case may be regarding this, the prophet, there is no doubt, in this verse commends the excellence of the material. It was selected with such care and was so exquisite that it attracted the gaze and excited the admiration of all who saw it. Similarly, in the following verse, the carved or graven work signifies the beauty of the building, which was finished with unequalled art.

But now it is declared that the Chaldeans, with utter recklessness, made havoc with their axes upon this splendid edifice, as if their object was to trample underfoot the glory of God by destroying so magnificent a structure.