... in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen. Through the prayers of our
holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen. Glory
to You, our God, Glory to You.
O Heavenly King,
the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things,
Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us
from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy
Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).
A Psalm of Asaph.
O God,
the heathen are come to Your inheritance. Your holy temple have they defiled. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. The dead bodies of Your servants have they
given [to be] food to the fowls of
the heaven, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round
about Jerusalem. [There was] no one to bury [them].
We are become a reproach to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those who are round about us. How long, Lord? Will You be angry forever? Shall Your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out Your fury on the heathen that have
not known You, and on the kingdoms that have not called on Your name: for they
have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place.
Remember not against us former iniquities. Let Your tender mercies speedily confront us:
for we are brought very low. Help us, O
God of our salvation for the Glory of Your name. Deliver us. Purge away our sins for Your name’s sake.
Why should the heathen say, “Where [is] their God?” Let Him be known among the heathen in our
sight, [by] the avenging of the bloodshed
of Your servants. Let the sighing of the
prisoner come before You. According to
the greatness of Your power, preserve those who are appointed to die. Render to our neighbors sevenfold in their
bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached You, Lord.
So we, Your people and sheep of Your
pasture, will give You thanks forever. We
will show forth Your praise to all generations.
________
If you have been
blessed or helped by any of these meditations in Psalms, please repost or share
all of them.
[1] If
we had any temptation to connect Asaph with the Assyrian conquest, this ends
all such ideas: for here Asaph leads us directly to the temple. Asaph paints a horrifying picture of the
Babylonian conquest. The temple was made
a place for idols. Jerusalem lies in
ruins. The corpses of the unburied dead
are bird and beast food. Blood covers
everything like water. We consider the
prison camps of Nazi Germany great horrors.
This destruction of Jerusalem was far worse. The Israelites abandoned God, and worshipped
idols themselves. Consequently, God
abandoned them, and this is the outcome for their lives without God’s
protection.
Not only has the population been annihilated, but the
survivors are now subjected to every kind of shame and mockery. The kingdom of God is gone from the earth,
will it be gone forever? Will God ever
retaliate for this insult against His name?
Their confession is simple: please forget all our sins. We deserve this horrible punishment, we
turned our backs on You, O Lord. Have mercy on us for we have hit bottom, we
remember Your Glory, Which we took for granted.
For Your Glory’s sake save us.
Don’t ever let us sin like this again.
It appears that when the Jews returned from Babylon they did not return
to idolatry. However, they developed a
cruelty and harshness that corrupted them.
When Christ returned, they did not receive Him.
Their prayer turns to the issue of shame and mockery: the
insults hurled at the survivors are seen as insults hurled against God. Even though God is fed up with them and has
abandoned them as a nation, they cling to the idea that God still has a stake
in their survival and will avenge all the slaughter. Even so many are imprisoned, and some are
awaiting execution.
Asaph concludes that we are still God’s sheep. This is not a very common motif in Psalms:
perhaps there are less than half a dozen such references. Yet, Jesus makes a point of it, He is the
Good Shepherd (John 10). He is the
complete fulfillment of Asaph’s heartbroken request.
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