791 O God, the nations have come into your heritage; they have made your holy Temple unclean; they have made Jerusalem a mass of broken walls. 2 They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. 3 Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place. 4 We are looked down on by our neighbours, we are laughed at and made sport of by those who are round us. 5 How long, O Lord? will you be angry for ever? will your wrath go on burning like fire?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 79:1-5
Commentary on Psalm 79:1-5
(Read Psalm 79:1-5)
God is complained to: whither should children go but to a Father able and willing to help them? See what a change sin made in the holy city, when the heathen were suffered to pour in upon them. God's own people defiled it by their sins, therefore he suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence. They desired that God would be reconciled. Those who desire God's favour as better than life, cannot but dread his wrath as worse than death. In every affliction we should first beseech the Lord to cleanse away the guilt of our sins; then he will visit us with his tender mercies.