Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John CalvinPSALM 74The people of God in this psalm bewail the desolate condition of the Church, which was suchthat the very name of Israel was almost annihilated. It appears from their humble supplications thatthey impute to their own sins all the calamities which they endured; but at the same time they laybefore God his own covenant by which he adopted the race of Abraham as his peculiar people.Afterwards they call to remembrance how mightily and gloriously he had in the days of old displayedhis power in delivering his Church. Encouraging themselves from this consideration, they beseechHim that he would at length come to their aid, and remedy a state of matters so deplorable anddesperate.An instruction of Asaph.The inscription , maskil, agrees very well with the subject of the psalm; for although it issometimes applied to subjects of a joyful description, as we have seen in the forty-fifth psalm, yetit generally indicates that the subject treated of is the divine judgments, by which men are compelledto descend into themselves, and to examine their own sins, that they may humble themselves beforeGod. It is easy to gather from the contents of the psalm, that its composition cannot be ascribed toDavid; for in his time there was no ground for mourning over such a wasted and calamitous conditionof the Church as is here depicted. Those who are of a different opinion allege, that David by thespirit of prophecy foretold what had not yet come to pass. But as it is probable that there are manyof the psalms which were composed by different authors after the death of David, this psalm, Ihave no doubt, is one of their number. What calamity is here spoken of, it is not easy precisely todetermine. On this point there are two opinions. Some suppose that the reference is to that periodof Jewish history when the city and the temple were destroyed, and when the people were carriedaway captives to Babylon under king Nebuchadnezzar; 211 and others, that it relates to the periodwhen the temple was profaned, under Antiochus Epiphanes. There is some plausibility in both theseopinions. From the fact that the faithful here complain of being now without signs and prophets,the latter opinion would seem the more probable; for it is well known that many prophets flourishedwhen the people were carried into captivity. On the other hand, when it is said a little before thatthe sanctuaries were burnt to ashes, the carved works destroyed, and that nothing remained entire,these statements do not apply to the cruelty and tyranny of Antiochus. He indeed shamefully pollutedthe temple, by introducing into it heathen superstitions; but the building itself continued uninjured,and the timber and stones were not at that time consumed with fire. Some maintain that bysanctuaries we are to understand the synagogues in which the Jews were accustomed to hold theirholy assemblies, not only at Jerusalem, but also in the other cities of Judea. It is also a supposablecase, that the faithful beholding the awful desecration of the temple by Antiochus, were led fromso melancholy a spectacle to carry their thoughts back to the time when it was burnt by theChaldeans, and that they comprehend the two calamities in one description. Thus the conjecture211 This is the opinion of Calmet, Poole, Wells, Mant, Walford, and others. “A melancholy occasion,” says Mant, “commemoratedby an elegy of corresponding tenderness and plaintiveness. It would be difficult to name a finer specimen of elegiac poetry thanthis pathetic psalm of Asaph.” If it was composed during the Babylonish captivity, and if Asaph, whose name is in the title, wasthe author of it, he must have been a different person from David’s contemporary, previously noticed, (volume 2, page 257,note,) — probably a descendant of the same name and family. Dr Gill thinks that he was the Asaph of the time of David, andsupposes that under the influence of the spirit of prophecy, he might speak of the sufferings of the Church in after ages, just asDavid and others testified before-hand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.96