The Sanctuary Is Ruined, and the Prayer Stays Open

The heading calls it “Maschil of Asaph”, maskil being a term of uncertain meaning, perhaps a skilful or instructive song. “Smoke” pictures anger as breath from flared nostrils, as in Deuteronomy 29:20, “the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man”; here real smoke is also rising, from the sanctuary burned in verse 7.

“Purchased” is qanah, the verb of the Song of the Sea, “till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased” (Exodus 15:16). “Rod” is shevet, which means both a staff and a tribe, since each tribe was marked by its staff (Numbers 17:2); Jeremiah 10:16 calls Israel “the rod of his inheritance”.

“Lift up thy feet” means step quickly, come in haste to see. “Desolations” is mashu’ot, the rare word for ruins used in 73:18, and “perpetual” is netsach, the “for ever” of verse 1: the ruins look permanent, and the prayer takes that look seriously.

“Roar” is sha’ag, the lion’s roar, used of invading armies in Jeremiah 2:15. “Ensigns for signs” is otot twice over: the invaders set up their own standards, military banners or idol emblems, as the signs that now mark the place. “Congregations” is mo’adim, appointed meeting places, the word of the tent of meeting.

The Hebrew is obscure, and the King James takes it as a contrast: once a man won fame by felling timber for the house, as Solomon’s and Hiram’s woodsmen did in Lebanon (1 Kings 5:6). Most modern versions read it of the invaders, who looked like men swinging axes in a thicket of trees.

“Carved work” is pittuchim, engraving, the word for the cherubim, palm trees and open flowers carved on the temple’s cedar walls and doors and overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:29, 32). Both tools named, kashshil and kelappot, are words found nowhere else in the Old Testament.

“Defiled” is chillelu, profaned, made common, the opposite of holy. 2 Kings 25:9 records such a burning in prose, when Nebuzaradan “burnt the house of the LORD” in 586 BC; the psalm itself names no invader and no date.

“Let us destroy them” is ninam, from a verb for oppressing or crushing. “Synagogues of God” is mo’ade El, which can mean God’s appointed feasts as well as his meeting places, and the Greek read it as feasts. This is the only place the word synagogue appears in the King James Old Testament.

Lamentations 2:9 describes the same famine of the word after Jerusalem fell: “her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.” “Our signs” may be the tokens of God’s presence, such as the sabbaths of Exodus 31:13, called “a sign between me and you”, or the signs that confirmed a prophet’s word.

“Blaspheme” is na’ats, to spurn or treat with contempt, the word used when Eli’s sons made men abhor “the offering of the LORD” (1 Samuel 2:17). “Reproach” is charaf, the taunt Goliath threw, “I defy the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:10), where the same verb is rendered defy.

The bosom is the fold of a robe over the chest, where hands were tucked in when idle; Moses put his hand into his bosom at the bush and drew it out leprous (Exodus 4:6). The Hebrew ends abruptly with kalleh, “consume”: draw it out and make an end.

“Salvation” is plural, yeshu’ot, acts of rescue, one after another. “In the midst of the earth” is literally “in the middle of the land”, God’s deeds done in the open where everyone could see them, the opposite of the hand kept hidden in verse 11.

“Divide” here is porarta, to break or shatter, a stronger verb than the one in Exodus 14:21. “Dragons” is tanninim, the “great whales” of Genesis 1:21 and the serpent Aaron’s rod became before Pharaoh (Exodus 7:10), and Ezekiel 29:3 calls Pharaoh “the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers”.

At Ugarit, Lotan is a sea serpent with seven heads, and Isaiah 27:1 calls leviathan “that crooked serpent”. “The people inhabiting the wilderness” is tsiyyim, the desert-dwellers of 72:9, which may mean desert creatures: the monster’s carcass is left as carrion on the shore.

“Cleave” is baqa’, the verb of 78:15, “He clave the rocks in the wilderness”, water brought out where there was none. “Mighty rivers” is naharot etan, ever-flowing rivers that never run dry, and the Jordan was in full flood over its banks when it stopped for Israel (Joshua 3:15–16).

“Light” is ma’or, a light-giver, the word for the “lights in the firmament” of Genesis 1:14–16, where the sun and moon appear only as the greater and lesser light. “Prepared” is kun, to set in place, and the pairing of day and night recalls Genesis 1:5.

“Summer and winter” are one of the pairs God promises will not cease after the flood: “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter” (Genesis 8:22). “Made” is yatsar, to form as a potter forms clay, the verb of Adam’s shaping in Genesis 2:7.

“Foolish” is naval, the fool of 14:1 who “hath said in his heart, There is no God”, and the name of the churl who insulted David, of whom his wife said, “as his name is, so is he” (1 Samuel 25:25). The covenant name, the LORD, appears here for the only time in the psalm.

“The multitude” is chayyah, a living thing or wild beast, so the line reads “give not the life of thy turtledove to the beast”: a small bird thrown to a predator. Doves were the offering of the poor (Leviticus 5:7), and “the congregation” in the second half is the same word chayyah again, “the life of thy poor”.

“Have respect” is habbet, look at, as one party points the other to a sealed agreement. “Habitations” is ne’ot, pasture-lands or grazing camps, and “cruelty” is chamas, violence: the land’s hiding places have become folds where violence is kept like a flock.

“The oppressed” is dakh, the crushed, from the same root as the “break in pieces” of 72:4, where the righteous king crushed the oppressor. To “return ashamed” is to come back from a petition refused, like a suitor turned away at the gate with nothing in hand.

“Plead thine own cause” is a cognate pair, rivah rivekha, “contend thy contention”, the language of a lawsuit, as in 43:1, “plead my cause”. God is asked to become the plaintiff in his own case. “Daily” is kol hayyom, all the day, the taunt never stopping.

“Increaseth continually” is literally “goes up continually”, olah tamid, the very words used for the daily burnt offering, “a continual burnt offering” (Exodus 29:42). With the altar destroyed, what rises from the sanctuary each day is the enemies’ roar.