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

79:8-10 Forgive Us, Help Us, and Let the Nations Know about It! This section now faces the basic problem: God's people have been untrue to him and must seek his forgiveness. The psalm weaves two themes together: the first is the understandable desire for relief (we are brought very low; deliver us), and the second is the desire, born of true faith, for God's honor in the world (for the glory of your name, for your name's sake, why should the nations say?). This psalm takes these two as connected: God's reputation is tied to his people's well-being, and their well-being cannot be separated from their faithfulness. Like the Assyrians before them, the Babylonians were but the "rod of [God's] anger," sent to discipline his people; but they went about their work too eagerly and boastfully--and thus made themselves liable to God's judgment (cf. Isa. 10:5-19). Therefore the psalm prays for this to be known among the nations before our eyes: if everyone sees it, then everyone can learn its lessons (just as this disgrace has taught a lesson to God's people). The forgiveness and help requested are for the people as a whole, that they be allowed to continue under God's special care. (For more on this kind of forgiveness, cf. notes on Num. 14:13-19; 14:36-38.)