Every now and then I pause and ask myself: What if I’m on the wrong side here? Is it possible I’m the bad guy in this situation?
I have stepped back to gain some perspective on my roles in relationships. I have considered and reconsidered my stance on the death penalty. Recently, I reconsidered my stance on abortion. Previous reconsiderings of politics in America led me to abandon both major political parties. After years of faith, I was on the brink of walking away from it before concluding the experiences I’d had of God were irrefutable. And the list goes on.
I don’t do this in order to reaffirm where I’m at. That would be disingenuous. I do this to honesty consider: Am I wrong? Am I actually the bad guy?
Because of that, I have been forced to make changes. Because the truth is I’m usually at least partly wrong (if not mostly wrong). And as Eugene Peterson noted, having kids means having hypocrisy detectors in your home. So, even if I didn’t do much of it on my own, having four intelligent and thoughtful kids never allows me to avoid self-reflection on things I wouldn’t expect to rethink. In fact, my youngest just called me out on something a few days ago.
Rethinking is necessary. Because far too often I and the people of God have been the adversaries of God.
Jesus threw down his parables in order to undermine the ways the people of his time were using religion to hold God at bay and to avoid joining him in his work in the world. Every time Jesus told a parable, someone’s world blew up. The people of God had become the people working against God and those innocent-seeming parable stories exposed them (and they continue to do so with us now if we truly listen to them instead of treating them like stories for kids).
As we walk through the Psalms, one thing we notice is God’s people can see that God himself on occasion is the source of their troubles. They’ve landed on the opposite side from God and he’s had to turn the tables on them. If we don’t turn the tables on ourselves, believe me, God will do it for us.
In these psalms, the psalmists point out to God that he’s the one who has put them in a bad spot. Sometimes, there’s accusation involved. Almost always, there’s an admission of culpability — God has done these things to us because we’ve blown it previously; we drove him to it. But then there’s a request for him to stop punishing and start restoring.
Personal pain is often necessary to motivate change. I’m sure God doesn’t like doling out pain to those he loves, but he sure doesn’t hesitate or hold back when he knows it’s necessary.
Psalm 80 fits this pattern of God’s people becoming impediments to his work in the world, suffering because of it, calling on him to relent and to restore, and preparing for a new and better day.
Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,
shine forth before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.
Awaken your might;
come and save us (Ps. 80:1-2).
There’s a lot here to unpack. Showing the structure of the first verse and a half will help. It’s formed in a there-and-back pattern of A, B, C, C, B, A:
Requested action of God: Hear us.
Identity of God: Shepherd of Israel
What God does because of that identity: You lead Joseph like a flock
What God does because of his identity: You sit enthroned between the cherubim
Identity of God (implied): Divine King
Requested action of God: Shine forth before your people
The two requests build off each other. “Hear us” comes first. “Shine forth” follows from God hearing us.
We can request for God to hear us because he’s the Shepherd of Israel. As Shepherd, he leads Joseph as a flock and he listens to the bleating cries of his lost and wounded sheep.
We can request for God to “shine forth” because he is God and King of Israel who is enthroned (hence, King) between the cherubim (hence, God).
OK, now let’s unpack some of the details.
Jacob is the patriarch whose name is generally used to refer to the people of God in the Hebrew Bible. But here we get Joseph. And of the tribes, only three are mentioned, two of which are the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manassah (they each received a share of the land, one getting Joseph’s share and one getting Levi’s share since Yahweh himself was the Levites’ inheritance). The only other mentioned tribe is Benjamin. Why Joseph instead of Jacob? And why these three tribes and none other?
Well, to be honest, scholars aren’t sure. There are guesses, but they’re only guesses. I’ve got some guesses of my own.
The psalm is obviously written in response to suffering and that suffering was significant national suffering (not just personal suffering). My guess is this was the suffering following the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC. (Ninevah was the capitol city of Assyria and the brutality of the Assyrians toward the northern kingdom explains Jonah’s antipathy toward the people of Ninevah in the book that bears his name.) Ephraim and Manasseh were right in the middle of the land and would have born the brunt of the devastation. Though Benjamin was technically a part of the southern kingdom of Judah, it bordered Ephraim and would have had a front row to the devastation, some of it probably spilling into its lands as well.
The second guess has to do with the second half of the psalm which focuses on the image of Israel as a vine. Although the six-pointed star or shield of David is the current symbol for the nation of Israel, historically the image was a vine. The surrounding kingdoms and empires of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt were beer producing lands. But Israel was a wine producing land. Its wine was prized by its neighbors and its conquerors made sure its vineyards weren’t disturbed and its vinedressers kept alive when they took over. And most of the wine grapes in the region, both then and now, were grown on the low mountain ridge that runs like a spine north and south through the center of Israel. And most of that is in … Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin.
OK. One more detail. “Enthroned between the cherubim” refers to the ark of the covenant. Basically, the ark was just a wooden box covered in gold leaf. It had rings affixed to it so poles could be slid into them, enabling it to be carried around. It was hollow, containing some items of historical religious importance. And it had angel wings on the top, leaning toward the center of the top. That may not sound too impressive. But its significance was of huge importance.
The ark of the covenant was the throne of Yahweh among his people.
God lived and reigned among his people from the ark-throne. It was made to be transportable because the people were nomadic when it was built, moving the tabernacle/tent of meeting with them as they relocated. It also gave the people the ability to bring it with them into battle, which basically turned it into a magical talisman or idol. But when Solomon built the temple, it finally had a permanent resting place.
The fact that it is referred to here makes me believe the ark still existed and was still in its home in Jerusalem, just across the border from Benjamin in Judah. This, again, points to the psalm being written during the the aftermath of the destruction of the northern kingdom by Assyria, and not following the later destruction of the southern kingdom by Babylon.
There is one kind of grief when we experience loss ourselves. There is another kind of grief when those near to us experience loss. Studies following the Boston marathon bombing revealed more trauma among those who watched it on TV or online than those who witnessed it in person.
Personal grief can be truly painful. But grief at a distance can be horrifying.
Although the twin kingdoms of Israel and Judah were often at odds with one another, skirmishing back and forth, they were still family. And for the southern kingdom, watching the northern kingdom’s devastation would have had rocked them to the core.
Because of this, we’ll see a back and forth between us and them language when referring to God’s people. Those destroyed were “them,” but they were also “us.” And so it’s not surprising to read the basic prayer of the psalm: Awaken your might; come and save us.It is followed by a chorus repeated throughout the psalm:
Restore us, O God;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved (Ps. 80:3).
The request for God to “shine on us” echoes the first verse of the psalm. It also echoes the blessing of Aaron, spoken over the people by priests for hundreds of years. It goes as follows:
The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace (Num. 6:24-26).
The blessing is turned from “you” to “us,” since the need is now personal. And instead of asking to be blessed and kept (keeping implies protection), the request is for restoration (after not being protected). Also, instead of peace being asked for, salvation is requested. For there will be no peace without being saved from the enemy threat.
Peace must start with God who feels like he’s joined the enemies.
How long, LORD God Almighty,
will your anger smolder
against the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.
You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors,
and our enemies mock us (Ps. 80:4-6).
It’s bad when you’ve got people out to get you. It’s bad of an entirely different order when God’s is against you. And it’s bad beyond bad if God gets angry when you pray.
Why would the prayers of God’s people make him angry instead of engaging his loving care? If we’re God’s covenant people, he has tied himself to us and should be on our side, right?
When we stand against God, guess what? We find God standing against us. When we undermine his purposes, we find ourselves undermined by him.
Throughout the Scriptures, God has declared himself to be on the side of widows and orphans. If we make life difficult for single moms and kids raised without dads, guess who will stand against us? Throughout the Scriptures, God has declared himself against those who slander. So guess who stands against us when we pass on fake news in order to make others look bad? If we champion sexual immorality, guess who’s against us? If we make life hard for immigrants, guess who’s against us? If we engage in shady financial practices, guess who’s against us?
If we persist in our activities that frustrate God and his purposes in the world, we can’t imagine that he’d be all that keen on listening to what we ask of him. It’d be like a professional athlete asking for a raise after intentionally scoring for the other team and doing so repeatedly.
Because of being at cross purposes with God, his people have found themselves at a table served by him. But the meal he serves is made exclusively of tears. A bread made of tears is a ridiculous image, an impossibility. But the poetic absurdity speaks loud and clear. What should be nourishment to us it yet another source of weeping. And it’s God who’s put it on the menu.
“When people laugh at us, it’s because you put our shame on display.”
And so we come to our second occurrence of the psalm’s chorus.
Restore us, God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved (Ps. 80:7).
One word has been added to the chorus, making it slightly different from the first occurrence. God is now referred to as God Almighty. This is the second use of the term Almighty, which will occur twice more in the psalm, becoming the psalm’s favorite way to refer to God.
If God is all-mighty, then he’s got all of the might. And if we’ve seen that might used against us, why not conceive of it being used for us? If God’s face is “shining” on us, smiling at us, then he’s no longer frowning at us. Things will be on the mend.
The psalm takes a major shift as the psalmist tells the story of the Vine.
You transplanted a vine from Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it,
and it took root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
Its branches reached as far as the Sea,
its shoots as far as the River (Ps. 80:8-11).
The story of the Vine is a quick and poetic retelling of Israel’s history. The Exodus and conquest of the land take a single verse. The flourishing of the nation and its expansion south to the Red Sea and north to the Euphrates River are sparingly told. The point of it all being that the life of the Vine is wrapped up in God. As Jesus will point out when he pulls from this image in John 15, God is the gardener.
Jesus is beyond gutsy when he calls himself the “true vine,” since he’s claiming there is no Israel outside of himself. Any other Israel is a false vine. If we don’t remain in him, we die. If we don’t bear his fruit, we’ll be cut off and die. This echoes Psalm 80 by noting the source of the Vine’s life and how God will stand against even his own people if we stand against him, refusing to bear his fruit in the world.
Why have you broken down its walls
so that all who pass by pick its grapes?
Boars from the forest ravage it,
and insects from the fields feed on it (Ps. 80:12-13).
It’s God who broke the walls and let the destroyers in. This is hard for us to take, but it’s essential we do.
God is very willing to cause harm to us if there’s a chance it will realign us to him and his purposes. This isn’t because he likes to cause pain. He doesn’t. It’s because we refuse to learn and change any other way.
Return to us, God Almighty!
Look down from heaven and see!
Watch over this vine,
the root your right hand has planted,
the son you have raised up for yourself (Ps. 80:14-15).
It’s possible verse 14 is a variation on the chorus, as some scholars suggest. I don’t think so. I think that together with verse 15, it’s something of a bridge, combining elements of the chorus with a plea for God to restore the Vine.
“This is your Vine, God. You planted it. So take care of it.”
But then there’s this odd lapse in imagery. The Vine is not a vine. The Vine is a son, a son whom God has raised as his own. At times throughout the Hebrew Bible, God’s people are referred to in the singular as God’s son. But this combination of vine language and son language makes Jesus’s references to himself as both the vine and the Son of God a perfect echo of this passage.
Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire;
at your rebuke your people perish.
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself.
Then we will not turn away from you;
revive us, and we will call on your name (Ps. 80:16-18).
Again, we see the finger pointed at God. “We’re killed at your command.”
But then we switch from the Vine to the Son again. God has a right-hand man: the Son of Man he raised up for himself. Here we have one of many hints at Messiah. It’s a hint, not a fully formed theology, but there’s hope in it.
The people have blown it. But God has raised up a man who will have a unique relationship with God, someone who doesn’t participate in our failings. Where we end up standing against God and his purposes here and there, the Son stands with God at God’s right hand. God’s hand of favor rests on him.
Because of him, “we will not turn away from you.” We might get mixed up and messed up, but as we look to him we’ll get reoriented and realigned. Because of him, we’ll call on God’s name and be revived. Two thousand years of church history have borne this out.
We look at Jesus and see God. We follow Jesus and we follow the way of God. But then we stop looking at Jesus and drift away from God and his ways. It’s only by looking at the Son of Man at the right hand of God that we are realigned and restored.
Restore us, LORD God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved (ps. 80:19).
In this final and concluding chorus yet another word is added: Yahweh, the divine name.
We don’t follow a concept of God. We follow a named, personal God. We participate in the life and love of God with whom we are in covenant relationship. This is reinforced when we call on the name of Son of Man, on Jesus. And as we are saved from our self-destruction and restored to Yahweh and his ways, we see the face of Jesus shining on us, glowing with joy. We are enemies no longer.