Psalm 80
Bible Passage: Psalm 80
This psalm carries with it the echoes of the psalmist’s lamentation. Three times the psalmist cried out to God for a restoration. It seems that a terrible calamity must have occurred that led to the composition of Psalm 80.
There are three things that came to my mind after reading this passage:
First, God is our Shepherd, who guides us and whose grace shines upon us.
“Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
You who lead Joseph like a flock;
You who dwell between the cherubim, shine forth!”
– Psalm 80:1
Second, God is our King, who establishes His kingdom and rules over us. He is all powerful that He is able to take His people out of Egypt, drive out the nations that opposes His people, then plant them in the Promised Land with His right hand, and protected them from natural disasters and mortal enemies.
“You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You have cast out the nations, and planted it.
You prepared room for it,
And caused it to take deep root,
And it filled the land.
The hills were covered with its shadow,
And the mighty cedars with its boughs.
She sent out her boughs to the Sea,
And her branches to the River.”
– Psalm 80:8-11
“…and the vineyard which Your right hand has planted,
And the branch that You made strong for Yourself.”
– Psalm 80:15
Last but never the least, God is our Father, who not only cares for us because of His merciful nature, but in His just nature, He chastises those who have continued to sinned against Him. Sometimes, God does turn His face away from us. Not only because we have sinned, but rather we have actually chose to distant ourselves away from His grace. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is us in our human nature who constantly change. When He said he will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), this is true.
Nevertheless, God’s chastisement is like a father who tries to guide his own son back to the right track, sometimes through the hard way.
Psalm 80:5 says that God gives us the Bread of tears and a full measure of tears to drink.
Even God is so precise with His own measure of how much Bread of Tears He wants to give us. Each according to the sins we have yet to resolve with God Himself. This reminds me of a disciplinarian who chastises out of concern and, in God’s context, of out His love.
I shall conclude with a familiar passage from Hebrews 12:5-13:
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Hence, do not despise God’s chastening, but seek to repent and ask God to restore your life to how it used to be, when you first believed.