Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

Psalm 74. This psalm is a cry of anguish over a disaster that has befallen God's people; the temple has been laid to ruin (quite possibly the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem). Thus this is a community lament, resembling Psalm 79 in tone. In distinction from Psalm 79, however, the guilt of the covenant people does not come into view in this psalm (of course, that does not deny that the disaster is a judgment on their unfaithfulness). Some community laments deal with situations for which the guilt of the people is not the explanation (e.g., Psalm 44; possibly Psalm 77). Psalm 74, like Psalm 77, recounts God's mighty deeds in the past, especially the exodus; here that recounting serves as a ground for the prayer: do not let the Gentiles scorn the God who has done such things.

74:1-3 O God, Why Do You Cast Us Off? God has cast . . . off his people (us, i.e., the sheep of your pasture). For God's people as a whole as his sheep, cf. 77:20; 79:13; 95:7; 100:3. The terms purchased and redeemed are taken from Ex. 15:13, 16; Israel is God's people, for whom he has done great deeds in the past, marking them out as his own. This makes the current disaster--where the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary, laying it to perpetual ruins--all the more painful.