Scripture Daily

Context No. 708 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 74:17-23: in context

17You have set all the boundaries of the earth. You have made summer and winter. 18Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, LORD. Foolish people have blasphemed your name. 19Don’t deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts. Don’t forget the life of your poor forever. 20Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth. 21Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise your name. 22Arise, God! Plead your own cause. Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day. 23Don’t forget the voice of your adversaries. The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.

Psalm 74 is a prayer screamed over the wreckage of the temple. Earlier in the psalm the poet describes enemies swinging axes in the sanctuary, burning it to the ground, and setting up their own banners where God's name had been. By these closing verses the prayer has nowhere left to go but up, and it makes an unusual case. It begins by reminding God of what he is: you set every boundary of the earth, you made summer and winter. And then it presses the point that matters most to it. Remember that the enemy has mocked you, LORD, that foolish people have blasphemed your name.

That is the lever the whole prayer leans on. The psalmist does not only ask God to save Israel for Israel's sake. He argues that the insult lands on God. Arise, God, and plead your own cause; remember how the fool mocks you all day; do not forget the clamor of your adversaries. Do not hand the life of your dove, he pleads, over to wild beasts. Having no strength of his own, he appeals to God's stake in the matter, and asks him to defend his own honor by rescuing the helpless who carry his name.

The psalm asks God to act not only for the sufferers but for his own honor, mocked in their ruin. When I pray from the bottom, do I only plead my need, or can I ask on the ground of who God is?

Sources