Scripture Daily

Context No. 1631 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 74:1-16: in context

1God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? 2Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance: Mount Zion, in which you have lived. 3Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. 4Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs. 5They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. 6Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers. 7They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. 8They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.” They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped. 9We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there among us anyone who knows how long. 10How long, God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever? 11Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? Take it from your chest and consume them! 12Yet God is my King of old, working salvation throughout the earth. 13You divided the sea by your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. 14You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces. You gave him as food to people and desert creatures. 15You opened up spring and stream. You dried up mighty rivers. 16The day is yours, the night is also yours. You have prepared the light and the sun.

This is a lament from a time of devastation. The sanctuary has been destroyed and burned, the enemy has roared in the midst of God's assembly and set up their standards, and the people cry out: God, why have you rejected us forever? There is no prophet, no sign, no one who knows how long. How long, they ask, will the enemy blaspheme your name? And then, in the middle of the desolation, the psalm turns: yet God is my King of old, working salvation in the earth. It goes on to recall God's past deeds, dividing the sea, breaking the heads of the sea monster, opening springs and streams.

The pivot of the psalm is a single word: yet. The first half is unrelieved lament, the sanctuary in ruins, God seemingly absent, the enemy triumphant, no prophet, no word, no sign of when it will end. It is honest, dark, and desperate. And then comes the turn: yet God is my King of old, working salvation in the earth. In the depth of present desolation, the psalmist deliberately turns his mind back to what God has done, to the God who divided the sea and broke the sea monster and opened the springs, the God whose past deeds prove his strength. He does not deny the present darkness; the lament is real. But he anchors himself in the remembered past, in what God has already done, as a ground of hope that the God who acted then has not ceased to be who he was. There is a pattern here for our own dark times, when the present is desolate and God seems absent. The psalmist's yet is a deliberate act of remembering, turning from the unbearable present to the record of God's past faithfulness and power, and finding there an anchor. When we cannot see God at work now, when the present offers no comfort and no answer, we can do what the psalmist did: remember what God has done, recall his past deeds of salvation, and let the God who acted before be our ground of hope that he has not changed. The lament is honest, and the yet is faith; both belong in the same prayer. God is my King of old, working salvation; the one who divided the sea is still the one we cry to.

In my dark times, when the present is desolate and God seems absent, can I make the psalmist's turn, the deliberate yet that remembers what God has done before, anchoring my hope not in the unbearable present but in the God who has acted and does not change?

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