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

80:8-15 We Are Your Vine, Which They Have Ruined. This is the longest stanza, with its image of God's people as a vine for which God has cared and provided. The branches of this vine were to give shade to the mighty cedars (much taller trees, esp. associated with Lebanon), and were to extend to the sea (either the Red Sea or the Mediterranean) and to the Euphrates River, the ideal borders of the Promised Land (cf. Ex. 23:31), which always included Gentile nations. The branches and shoots are therefore an image of the benefits that come to all who are under the rule of this people. It is God who has broken down the walls that had protected the "vine" from all who pass by and from the boar from the forest, i.e., had removed from his people his own protection against marauding and empire-building Gentiles. In such a case, why? is a question that invites the singers to ponder: if God has shown such care for his vine, would he lightly allow such violence against it? Verse 4 of Psalm 80 has already admitted that the people's unfaithfulness is the likely reason. Verse 14 appeals to God to look down from heaven and have regard for this vine again, i.e., to restore it to its proper role in the world.