Bible Commentaries
Psalms 74

Verse 3

Psalms 74:3

This Psalm contains (1) a complaint; (2) a prayer; (3) several pleas for that prayer.

I. The complaint. It was a complaint of desolation and oppression. God's temple was lying waste; God had departed from it, and there was as yet no sign of His return. There was also a positive oppression, an enemy who had done wickedly in the sanctuary, and into whose hand the soul of God's people was all but utterly and for ever delivered. (1) The language in which the psalmist complains of the desolate condition of God's sanctuary at Jerusalem should become on our lips a confession of separation from God through sin. (2) No man in this world can be the enemy against whom we are to pray. Our foes are invisible and inward. Sins are the enemies for whose discomfiture God and Christ would teach us to pray.

II. The prayer: "Lift up Thy feet unto the perpetual desolations." It is Christ's promise that God will do so: "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you."

III. The pleas by which the psalmist enforces his prayer. (1) God is a God of power. If He will save, at least He can. (2) The psalmist draws comfort from the remembrance of that which God had already done for Israel: "God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth." (3) The psalmist could appeal to an express word of promise: "Have respect unto Thy covenant, and let not the oppressed return ashamed."

C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 1st series, pp. 37, 50.

Reference: Psalms 74:3 . E. A. Abbott, Cambridge Sermons, p. 121.

Verse 17

Psalms 74:17

What are the winter hopes and joys, what the faith of the winter of old age? They are born out of the natural array of things in wintertide; they are pictured in the winter's landscape.

I. Winter drives us to our home. We make oar life warm and gay within our walls. We forget the bitter days, save when we remember to give of our plenty to the poor and sorrowful. There are no times that may be happier than winter, if we will. And when age has come, we are also driven home. Our life is naturally made an inner life, and work without is changed for musing memory within.

II. We see in the frost-bound world the picture of death. Is there nothing but death there? Look beneath the surface of the earth, under the shroud of snow. Beneath the winding-sheet is, not death, but life in preparation, hidden, but in slow activity. The forces are being laid up which will be the green leaves of a thousand woods, the roses and lilies of a thousand gardens, the fountain rush of spring. That is what winter tells the man who knows. It is the story it tells also to the Christian, who has found and known the fatherhood of God. He has an inward life that refuses death. In the patient waiting and repose of a faithful age the spiritual forces which will make the form, and colour, and power, and work of his coming life are gathering together into a store that waits but the touch of death to break into immortal energy. He will sleep beneath the snow, but it will be to awaken.

S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith, p. 385.

I. The winter illustrates to us the beneficent principle of distribution acted upon by the Divine providence. We must have our winter, in order that the inhabitants of another part of the world may have their summer. The winter therefore seems to inculcate upon us a great lesson of equity and charity that we should be willing to share the benefits of the system with the distant portions of our great, widespread family, willing to part with a pleasing possession for a season for their sakes, even if we could retain it.

II. Again, the winter should, by the very circumstance of its unproductiveness, remind us of the care and bounty of Divine providence, in that other seasons are granted us which furnish supplies for this, and for the whole year.

III. The winter has a character of inclemency and rigour, has ideas and feelings associated with it of hardship, infelicity, suffering. In this it should be adapted to excite thoughtful and compassionate sentiments respecting the distress and suffering that are in the world.

IV. Winter shows the transitory quality of the beauty, variety, magnificence, and riches which had been spread over the natural world. This consideration easily carries our thoughts to parallel things in human life.

V. There may be a resemblance to winter in the state of the mind in respect to its best interests. And truly the winter in the soul is worse than any season and aspect of external nature. Observe here one striking point of difference: the natural winter will certainly and necessarily, from a regular and absolute cause, pass away after a while; not so the spiritual winter. It does not belong to the constitution of the human nature that the spiritual warmth and animation must come, must have a season.

VI. Note the resemblance of winter to old age. The old age of the wise and good resembles the winter in one of its most favourable circumstances: that the former seasons improved have laid in a valuable store; and they have to bless God that disposed and enabled them to do so. But the most striking point in the comparison is one of unlikeness. Their winter has no spring to follow it in this world. But the servants of God say, " That is well!" There is eternal spring before them. What will they not be contemplating of beauty and glory while those who have yet many years on earth are seeing returning springs and summers?

J. Foster, Lectures, 1st series, p. 278.

References: Psalms 74:17 . Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 336. Psalms 74:18 . E. V. Hall, Sermons in Worcester Cathedral, p. 66. Psalms 74:20 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1451.Psalms 75:6 , Psalms 75:7 . A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place, p. 64.Psalms 76:3 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 791.Psalms 76:5 . S. Baring-Gould, The Preacher's Pocket, p. 119.