The superscription identifies the psalm as belonging to Asaph. The Asaphic voice often speaks for the worshiping community amid sanctuary crisis, covenant distress, national shame, and longing for restoration.
Restore Us, Shepherd of Israel, and Revive the Vine You Planted
When God's planted people lie ravaged under judgment and enemy pressure, their only hope is the Shepherd-King who restores, revives, and saves by the shining of His face.
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When God's planted people lie ravaged under judgment and enemy pressure, their only hope is the Shepherd-King who restores, revives, and saves by the shining of His face.
Psalm 80 argues that restoration must come from the God who first shepherded, saved, planted, and expanded His people. The community does not deny divine displeasure, nor does it surrender to ruin. It appeals to God's covenant presence, His face, His name, His former saving work, His care for the vine, and His appointed representative. The psalm's logic is that only God can restore what God planted, revive those who have turned away, and save through the renewed shining of His face.
Israel's worshiping community, especially those praying after national devastation and divine displeasure, with specific remembrance of Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
The text does not name the exact historical crisis, but its references to Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh, a ravaged vine, breached walls, and a plea for national restoration fit a severe covenant crisis involving Israel's tribes and public humiliation before enemies.
When God's planted people lie ravaged under judgment and enemy pressure, their only hope is the Shepherd-King who restores, revives, and saves by the shining of His face.
The superscription identifies the psalm as belonging to Asaph. The Asaphic voice often speaks for the worshiping community amid sanctuary crisis, covenant distress, national shame, and longing for restoration.
Israel's worshiping community, especially those praying after national devastation and divine displeasure, with specific remembrance of Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
The text does not name the exact historical crisis, but its references to Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh, a ravaged vine, breached walls, and a plea for national restoration fit a severe covenant crisis involving Israel's tribes and public humiliation before enemies.
- The people experience divine anger, public shame, neighborly contempt, tears as food and drink, ravaged covenant identity, and the fear that God's once-planted people have been abandoned to destruction.
Shepherd, cherubim, face-shining, vine, right hand, and son-of-man language draw from Israel's covenant worship, tabernacle/temple symbolism, exodus memory, royal hope, and agrarian imagery. A broken vineyard wall meant exposure to animals, thieves, and ruin.
Psalm 80 stands in Book III of the Psalter, where sanctuary crisis, covenant rupture, national distress, and Davidic hope are repeatedly brought before God. It remembers the exodus and planting of Israel while looking toward restoration, revived covenant loyalty, and a strengthened representative at God's right hand.
The psalm moves from an opening cry to the Shepherd of Israel, through the repeated restoration refrain, into lament over divine anger and tears, then into the extended vine-from-Egypt memory, a plea for God to return to the ravaged vine, and finally a prayer for the man at God's right hand through whom revival and renewed covenant calling will come.
Theological exposition and fulfillment
Psalm 80 forms a people who can pray for restoration without denial, nostalgia, or self-reliance. It teaches covenant memory, grief before God, dependence on divine favor, hope in God's representative provision, and longing for revival that results in faithful worship.
The psalm calls on the enthroned Shepherd to awaken His might and restore His people.
The people experience unanswered prayer, tears as daily provision, and derision from neighbors.
God's exodus and conquest work is pictured as transplanting and establishing a fruitful vine.
The once-established vine is now exposed, plundered, ravaged, burned, and cut down.
The community asks for God's hand upon the man at His right hand, revival for the people, and the shining of God's face.
- 1-2: God is addressed as the Shepherd who leads Joseph and the King enthroned between cherubim.
- 3: The first refrain makes restoration and salvation depend on God's favorable presence.
- 4-6: The people lament tears, divine anger, and public scorn.
- 7: The second refrain intensifies the appeal to the God of hosts.
- 8-11: Israel's exodus, conquest, planting, and former spread are remembered as God's work.
- 12-13: The people ask why God has exposed His vine to plunder and destruction.
- 14-16: The people ask God to look down from heaven and preserve the vine now burned and cut down.
- 17-19: The psalm ends by linking representative strength, revived loyalty, prayer in God's name, and the final refrain.
Pastoral Entry
רָעָה (raah) means to tend a flock, pasture animals, graze or feed, and by extension to shepherd people or associate with companions. Genesis and Exodus use it for ordinary herding. Poetry can say someone feeds on ashes or that death shepherds people toward the grave, while Proverbs uses the verb for keeping company with particular companions. These uses share ideas of tending, feeding, or ongoing association but should not be forced into one leadership metaphor.
God shepherds Israel by guiding, gathering, feeding, protecting, and sustaining. Psalm 23 confesses the Lord as the speaker's shepherd, Isaiah 40 portrays tender care for vulnerable members of the flock, and Jeremiah promises shepherds who act with knowledge and understanding. These images offer comfort without promising an absence of danger, grief, enemies, or death; Psalm 23 itself moves through a dark valley and a threatened table.
Ezekiel 34 indicts leaders who feed themselves, exploit the flock, neglect the weak, and allow scattering. God promises to seek, gather, feed, heal, judge between animals, and appoint one Davidic shepherd. The passage makes leadership accountable and centers the flock's welfare. Later Christian shepherd language can draw on this trajectory, but H7462 does not make clergy owners of people or authorize surveillance, coercion, secrecy, dependency, or unchecked power.
Sense one who tends, leads, and protects a flock
Definition one who tends, leads, and protects a flock
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters The title frames the Lord as covenant caretaker of Israel, not a distant deity.
Pastoral Entry
יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisrael) is the proper name Israel. It first names Jacob after the encounter at the Jabbok and then names his descendants, the covenant people, the northern kingdom in some post-division contexts, and Israel in later prophetic and NT discussion. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 2,507 H3478 occurrences, so each passage's referent must be identified rather than assumed.
Genesis 32:28 explains the name within the narrative: Jacob has striven with God and with men and has prevailed. The exact historical morphology of the name remains debated, and proposals such as 'he strives with God,' 'God strives,' or 'God rules' should not be treated as equally certain lexical definitions. The passage itself authorizes the striving wordplay.
Genesis 35:10 reaffirms the name at Bethel. Together the two naming scenes establish Israel as Jacob's divinely assigned name, while the text continues to use both Jacob and Israel afterward. The renaming therefore marks covenant identity without requiring the claim that Jacob's former name disappears from the narrative.
Isaiah frequently calls the Lord the Holy One of Israel. The title joins divine holiness to the God who addresses and redeems this particular people. Exact title counts can vary with phrasing and textual method, so the theological observation does not depend on a brittle number.
Ezekiel repeatedly addresses the house of Israel in contexts of rebellion, judgment, exile, purification, and restoration. Ezekiel 36:22-28 says that God acts for his holy name, gathers and cleanses the people, and gives a new heart and spirit. This is restoration language directed to Israel; later canonical connections must preserve that immediate audience.
The NT continues to use Israel in several ways. Romans 9-11 discusses Paul's fellow Israelites, divine promise, remnant, Gentile inclusion, and the hope that all Israel will be saved. Galatians 6:16's 'Israel of God' has multiple serious interpretations, including a reference to Jewish believers or to the whole church. A source companion should name that debate rather than resolve it by assertion.
For the preacher, יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisrael) opens the covenant history of Jacob and his descendants while demanding precision about patriarch, people, kingdom, remnant, church, and modern political application.
Sense the covenant people descended from Jacob
Definition the covenant people descended from Jacob
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters The prayer concerns God's covenant people as a whole, not merely one private worshiper.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense tribal name associated with Ephraim and Manasseh
Definition tribal name associated with Ephraim and Manasseh
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters Joseph focuses the prayer on northern/tribal Israel and God's shepherding of the flock.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
TSON, H6629, is a collective word for flock, especially sheep and goats. Its ordinary use belongs to livestock, wealth, provision, and daily shepherding, but Scripture often turns that ordinary world into a window on human vulnerability and divine care. Israel can be the Lord's flock, neglected by false shepherds, scattered by judgment, gathered by mercy, or led by faithful rule.
The word should not sentimentalize God's people as harmless or passive. A flock needs care because it is dependent, exposed, and easily scattered. The Bible uses that reality to expose failed leaders and to magnify the Lord who claims his people as his own flock.
Sense sheep under a shepherd's care
Definition sheep under a shepherd's care
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters The people are vulnerable and dependent on God's leading.
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew verb יָשַׁב (yashav) can describe sitting down, living somewhere, settling in a place, remaining there, or inhabiting a region. Its concrete range matters. Genesis 18:1 portrays Abraham sitting at the entrance of his tent. Psalm 1:1 warns against sitting in the seat of mockers. In both passages posture is real, but the surrounding action gives the posture its narrative or moral significance. The verb itself does not make sitting contemplative, passive, holy, or rebellious.
Residence and settlement form another major use. Cain settles in the land of Nod after leaving the Lord’s presence in Genesis 4:16. Abram goes to live near the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 13:18. Jeremiah 29:5 tells exiles to build houses and settle down in Babylon. These settings are sharply different: judgment, pilgrimage, and faithful life in exile. Yashav names continued presence without declaring that every settlement is divinely approved, permanent, safe, or morally equivalent.
Leviticus 25:18 joins dwelling securely in the land to Israel’s covenant obedience. That promise belongs to the legal and covenant setting of Leviticus; it is not a general formula guaranteeing property, comfort, or national security to any modern audience. Isaiah 6:1 uses the verb for the Lord seated on a high and exalted throne. In royal contexts, sitting can signify enthronement and rule rather than inactivity. Scripture’s wider testimony, including Psalm 110 and its New Testament reception, develops royal seating language concerning the Messiah, but the theology comes from those passages rather than from every use of the common verb.
Pastoral teaching should therefore ask who sits or dwells, where, for how long, under what conditions, and with what narrative result. The same verb can describe a momentary posture, ordinary residence, enduring habitation, settlement under judgment, covenant security, or royal authority. It opens rich teaching when context is allowed to specify the action. It becomes misleading when every occurrence is turned into mystical abiding, guaranteed permanence, or territorial entitlement.
Sense seated in royal rule
Definition seated in royal rule
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters God is addressed as King in the holy place, sovereign over the crisis.
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew noun kərûḇ names a cherub, with the familiar plural cherubim. Scripture presents cherubim as created heavenly guardians and throne attendants, and it also uses their forms in divinely commanded tabernacle and temple art. They guard the way to the tree of life after humanity's expulsion from Eden. Hammered-gold cherubim overshadow the mercy seat, where the Lord promises to meet Moses and speak, yet the figures are not the Lord and are never worshiped.
Israel later brings the ark from Shiloh while corrupt priests accompany it, showing that sacred furniture and cherubic imagery cannot function as a talisman. Poetry depicts the Lord riding a cherub, while Ezekiel identifies the living creatures beneath God's glory as cherubim. Isaiah confesses that the One enthroned above them alone is God and made heaven and earth.
Responsible teaching preserves the distinction between Creator, living attendants, artistic representations, and poetic or visionary imagery. It refuses angel worship, speculative rankings, magical uses of sacred art, and claims that a vision or object guarantees God's protection or approves a leader.
Sense heavenly throne guardians associated with the ark
Definition heavenly throne guardians associated with the ark
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters The term anchors the prayer in covenant presence and sanctuary theology.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense appear in brightness or splendor
Definition appear in brightness or splendor
References Psalm 80:1
Why it matters The plea asks God to manifest saving glory before His people.
Sense tribal name from Joseph
Definition tribal name from Joseph
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters The named tribes make the lament concretely covenantal and historical.
Cross-language bridge 4 links · View in lexicon
Sense tribal name from Jacob's youngest son
Definition tribal name from Jacob's youngest son
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters Benjamin joins the Joseph tribes in the plea for God's saving intervention.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense tribal name from Joseph's son
Definition tribal name from Joseph's son
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters Manasseh completes the tribal cluster named before God.
Cross-language bridge 4 links · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
H5782 is a Hebrew verb for waking, rousing, stirring, or inciting someone into action. Its subject and object matter greatly. A person may awaken from sleep, a leader may stir a people toward conflict, desire may be aroused before its proper time, or God may stir a ruler and a covenant community to carry out His purpose. Ezra 1:1 says the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus so the promised return and rebuilding could begin.
Haggai 1:14 describes the Lord stirring Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the remnant so they resumed work on the temple after responding to the prophetic word. Song of Songs 2:7 warns against awakening love before its proper time, showing that arousal is not automatically wise or holy. H5782 therefore contributes the movement from inactivity to alertness or action, but the passage identifies the agent, direction, and moral character of that movement.
It opens teaching on divine initiative, responsive obedience, dangerous agitation, and patient restraint. It corrects the assumption that every strong impulse is from God or that spiritual awakening can be manufactured by pressure, spectacle, or emotional intensity.
Sense rouse or stir up
Definition rouse or stir up
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters The people ask God to arouse His might on their behalf.
Pastoral Entry
H1369 is a Hebrew noun for might, strength, power, valor, mastery, or a mighty achievement. First Chronicles 29:11 assigns greatness, power, glory, splendor, majesty, and kingdom to the Lord because everything belongs to Him. Micah 3:8 describes prophetic power from the Spirit of the Lord joined with justice and courage to expose Israel's sin. Ecclesiastes 9:16 observes that wisdom is better than strength even when the poor wise person's words are despised.
Royal chronicles also record the might of kings, including military achievements, while prophetic judgment shows mighty nations and warriors descending in defeat. H1369 opens courage, capacity, victory, public accomplishment, and divine power. It corrects worship of physical force, military success, wealth, platform reach, or charismatic intensity, and it refuses the opposite mistake of treating all strength as suspect when God gives power for truthful service, protection, endurance, and justice.
Sense strength, power, mighty action
Definition strength, power, mighty action
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters Restoration requires divine strength, not merely human regrouping.
Pastoral Entry
יָשַׁע (yasha) is a Hebrew verb for saving, delivering, helping, or giving victory. The local Hebrew artifact currently indexes about 206 H3467 occurrences. It is used with God and with human deliverers, across military danger, personal distress, national rescue, royal hope, and theological proclamation. No single English gloss or doctrinal scope governs every occurrence.
Exodus 14:30 says that the Lord saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians at the sea. In that scene Israel's rescue depends on God's action, and the event becomes a major canonical pattern of deliverance. The passage should not be made the lexical definition of every later H3467 use or used to deny the responsive acts that follow divine rescue.
The Psalms use the verb in petitions and testimonies such as 'save me for the sake of your steadfast love' (Ps 6:4) and 'I am saved from my enemies' (Ps 18:3). These prayers join present need to confidence in God's character without promising that every rescue will arrive in the same temporal form.
Isaiah 43:3 names the Lord as Israel's Savior, and Isaiah 45:22 calls the ends of the earth to turn to God and be saved because there is no other God. The latter widens the audience while remaining grounded in Isaiah's proclamation of Israel's God rather than an Israel-independent religious principle.
Zechariah 9:9 describes Zion's coming king with a Niphal participle that can be rendered saved, victorious, or having salvation. The grammatical and translation question should remain visible; the verse must not be made to say more than its form and royal context support.
The H3467 root family is related to salvation nouns and to the Hebrew names Yeshua and Yehoshua. Matthew 1:21 connects Jesus' name with his mission to save his people from their sins. This supplies a strong canonical name-and-mission link without making every H3467 occurrence a prediction of Jesus or deriving a complete doctrine of salvation from the root alone.
For the preacher, יָשַׁע invites confidence in the God who saves and honest prayer from situations of danger or helplessness. Application should preserve divine agency, genuine human response, and each passage's particular kind of deliverance.
Sense rescue, deliver, bring salvation
Definition rescue, deliver, bring salvation
References Psalm 80:2
Why it matters The plea is explicitly for God's saving action.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
שׁוּב (shuv) is a common Hebrew verb for turning, returning, going back, bringing back, or restoring. Many occurrences describe ordinary movement, so the verb does not mean repentance every time it appears. In covenant and prophetic settings, however, returning to the Lord becomes a rich description of repentance: people turn from wicked ways, return to God, hear His voice, and seek His mercy.
Other stem forms can describe causing someone or something to return, including God's restoration of His people. Deuteronomy 30 joins Israel's return to the Lord with God's gathering and renewal after judgment. Isaiah 55 calls the wicked to forsake a way and return to the compassionate God. Hosea and Zechariah address a covenant people whose return must be truthful rather than merely verbal.
Christian teaching can connect this movement with New Testament calls to repent and turn to God, but the Hebrew verb itself should not be collapsed into one technical doctrine. Pastoral use must also distinguish return to God from pressure to return to an unsafe person, place, leader, or institution.
Sense turn back, return, bring back
Definition turn back, return, bring back
References Psalm 80:3
Why it matters The repeated refrain centers the psalm on God turning His people back and restoring them.
Pastoral Entry
פָּנִים (pānîm) commonly means face, but its constructions also express presence, surface, front, direction, and being before someone. Genesis 4:5-6 describes Cain's fallen face, Genesis 17:3 has Abram fall on his face, and First Samuel 1:18 says Hannah's face is no longer as before. These bodily and relational uses connect a visible countenance with attention, emotion, posture, and encounter without implying that every inner state can be read accurately from appearance.
Divine-presence passages require special care. Exodus 33:11 describes the Lord speaking with Moses face to face, verse 14 promises God's presence, and verse 20 says a human cannot see God's face and live. Deuteronomy 5:4 and 34:10 also use face-to-face language for covenant encounter and prophetic intimacy. The texts hold real revelation and divine transcendence together; the idiom should not be flattened either into ordinary physical sight or into an encounter with no genuine disclosure.
A shining or hidden face expresses favor, attention, judgment, or relational distance. Numbers 6:25 asks the Lord to make his face shine, Psalms 13:1 and 51:9 speak of hidden face in lament and confession, and Isaiah 59:2 links hidden face with iniquity in a prophetic accusation. Psalm 27:8 and 105:4 call worshipers to seek God's face. These images invite relationship, repentance, and hope but do not let a caregiver explain every experience of silence or suffering as punishment.
Sense presence, countenance, personal favor
Definition presence, countenance, personal favor
References Psalm 80:3
Why it matters The shining face of God is the decisive condition of salvation.
Sense give light, illuminate
Definition give light, illuminate
References Psalm 80:3
Why it matters The refrain asks for covenant favor in priestly-blessing language.
Pastoral Entry
צָבָא (ṣāḇā') denotes an organized host, army, company, or assigned service. Exodus 6:26 and 12:41 describe Israel leaving Egypt by its hosts, Numbers 1:3 counts those able to serve in Israel's army, and human commanders and forces appear throughout narratives. These military uses are descriptive and historically situated; the noun does not make every national campaign holy or authorize a modern state to claim Israel's covenant commission.
The word also covers ordered service beyond battle. Numbers 4:3 and 4:23 use it for Levitical work at the tent of meeting, Numbers 8:24 sets an age for entering service, and Job 7:1 compares human life to hard service. Calling can therefore involve disciplined duty, but sacred service does not excuse exploitation, unsafe labor, or treating people as expendable units.
Heavenly uses include the completed host of heaven in Genesis 2:1, heavenly bodies that Israel must not worship in Deuteronomy 4:19, the heavenly council in First Kings 22:19, and beings summoned to praise in Psalms 103 and 148. The title Lord of hosts proclaims God's sovereign command, as in Isaiah 6:3 and Psalm 24:10. It does not reduce God to a tribal war deity or identify any human army automatically with God's host.
Sense God of hosts, LORD of armies
Definition God of hosts, LORD of armies
References Psalm 80:4
Why it matters The title emphasizes divine command over heavenly and earthly powers.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew word אַף begins with the body. Its primary sense is the nostril — the flared, breathing organ that the ancients identified with the surge of emotion. From this physical root, the word stretches in two directions: toward the face as a whole (representing the full presence of a person) and toward the hot-breathed passion of anger. This dual range is not coincidence; it reflects the embodied nature of biblical emotion. When Scripture speaks of the אַף of God burning against a people, it is not describing an abstraction. It is describing the full-presence response of a holy God to covenantal betrayal — the divine face turned toward the rebellious with consuming seriousness.
The theology of divine אַף is framed by two truths held in permanent tension. First, God's anger is real. It is not metaphor or accommodation — it is the necessary reaction of infinite holiness encountering human sin. The prophets insist on this. Lamentations opens with the burning אַף of Yahweh over Jerusalem. The Psalms cry out for mercy precisely because divine wrath is genuine and just. Second — and this is the decisive canonical movement — God describes himself as אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, literally long-nostriled, slow to anger. The image is vivid: God does not flare quickly. Patience is built into the very description of his character as announced at Sinai, repeated at the mercy seat, echoed by Moses in the wilderness, confirmed by the prophets, and quoted in the New Testament's portrait of divine forbearance.
For the preacher, אַף is the word that keeps divine mercy from dissolving into indifference. God is slow to anger — but he does get angry. His patience is real, and so is his holiness. The same word that describes the burning of judgment also describes the nostrils that breathe out life and the face that turns toward the humble in grace. To preach אַף well is to preach a God who takes sin seriously enough to be moved by it, and who loves sinners enough to hold his anger while he calls them back.
Sense wrath, nostril, burning displeasure
Definition wrath, nostril, burning displeasure
References Psalm 80:4
Why it matters The crisis is interpreted under God's real displeasure.
Sense burn or smoke in wrath
Definition burn or smoke in wrath
References Psalm 80:4
Why it matters The image intensifies the sense of divine displeasure against prayer.
Pastoral Entry
תְּפִלָּה (tepillah) is a Hebrew noun for prayer, intercession, or supplication. It appears in psalm titles, personal cries, communal petitions, temple dedication, confession, lament, prophetic instruction, wisdom evaluation, and prayers spoken amid illness, invasion, exile, guilt, or danger. It names an address or appeal to God without prescribing one posture, length, location, structure, emotional tone, or outcome.
Psalm 65 praises God as hearer of prayer; Psalm 88 prays from darkness; Psalm 102 anticipates attention to the destitute; Daniel confesses and intercedes; Solomon asks God to hear people facing varied crises; Isaiah envisions a house of prayer for all peoples. Other texts complicate easy formulas: Isaiah 1 rejects multiplied prayers from hands associated with bloodshed, Lamentations describes prayer blocked, Psalm 80 asks how long God remains angry with prayer, and Proverbs calls prayer detestable when instruction is refused.
Prayer is not a transaction, diagnostic test, or substitute for responsible action. Unanswered prayer does not prove deficient faith, secret sin, demonic interference, or divine rejection. Prayer must not delay emergency response, medicine, safeguarding, legal reporting, financial accountability, or practical care. Public prayer requires discretion and consent when naming private needs or touching someone. Compulsive prayer, terror about saying words perfectly, or voices issuing dangerous commands may require compassionate pastoral support together with qualified clinical care.
Sense intercessions or petitions
Definition intercessions or petitions
References Psalm 80:4
Why it matters The pain includes the sense that prayer itself is under God's displeasure.
Sense tears as daily provision
Definition tears as daily provision
References Psalm 80:5
Why it matters The phrase pictures grief as the people's appointed food.
Sense weeping, grief expressed in tears
Definition weeping, grief expressed in tears
References Psalm 80:5
Why it matters The psalm gives vocabulary for sustained communal sorrow.
Sense sorrow as overflowing drink
Definition sorrow as overflowing drink
References Psalm 80:5
Why it matters The people do not merely weep occasionally; grief saturates their life.
Sense surrounding peoples
Definition surrounding peoples
References Psalm 80:6
Why it matters Neighboring mockery heightens the shame of covenant devastation.
Sense derision, contention, ridicule
Definition derision, contention, ridicule
References Psalm 80:6
Why it matters The people's suffering becomes public contempt.
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew noun gefen names a vine, especially a grapevine. Scripture uses the plant as food-producing agriculture, an image of settled security, and a figure for a people whose fruit reveals how they have responded to God. Deuteronomy includes vines among the good land's crops and immediately warns Israel not to forget the Lord when abundance comes. Under Solomon, sitting beneath one's own vine describes ordinary security, though the wider account also records royal wealth, tribute, and labor.
Psalms and Hosea portray Israel as a vine, but one text laments a ravaged planting while another exposes fruit redirected toward idolatry. Habakkuk names failed vines as part of severe food loss and still waits upon God without pretending that hunger is easy. Song of Songs places the budding vine within mutual, intimate invitation. The noun itself does not promise prosperity, prove spiritual fruitfulness, identify a modern nation as biblical Israel, or authorize control of land or bodies.
Faithful teaching lets each passage determine whether the vine is literal, poetic, national, agricultural, relational, or judicial.
Sense grapevine, vineyard symbol
Definition grapevine, vineyard symbol
References Psalm 80:8
Why it matters Israel is portrayed as a vine transplanted and planted by God.
Sense land of bondage from which God redeemed Israel
Definition land of bondage from which God redeemed Israel
References Psalm 80:8
Why it matters The vine imagery begins with exodus deliverance.
Pastoral Entry
H1644 is a Hebrew verb for driving out, expelling, banishing, thrusting away, or, in legal-social contexts, divorcing. Micah 2:9 condemns powerful people who drive the women of God's people from pleasant homes and strip blessing from their children, making dispossession a matter of covenant injustice. Exodus 2:17 says shepherds drove away women seeking to water their flock until Moses intervened.
First Samuel 26:19 records David's protest that being driven from the Lord's inheritance effectively tells him to serve other gods. Other passages describe expulsion from Eden, removal from office, conquest, divorce status, forced departure from Egypt, and storm-tossed waters. H1644 opens exclusion, land loss, divorce, banishment, protective removal, and liberation.
It corrects readings that celebrate expulsion without attending to vulnerable people and interpretations that use biblical land or divorce language as simple authorization for modern eviction, ethnic displacement, clerical banishment, or abandonment.
Sense expelled, dispossessed
Definition expelled, dispossessed
References Psalm 80:8
Why it matters God cleared space for His planted people by driving out the nations.
Pastoral Entry
גּוֹי is the standard Hebrew word for a nation — a people defined by shared territory, descent, social identity, and often by the gods they serve. In its most basic sense, the word simply means a body of people constituted as a distinct political and ethnic entity. But in the theology of the Hebrew Bible, גּוֹי does not remain neutral for long. Once Israel is constituted at Sinai as YHWH's own people, the word acquires a relational charge. The nations — הַגּוֹיִם — are the peoples who stand outside the covenant, who do not know YHWH by name, who build their lives around other gods, and whose practices are held up as the anti-pattern to which Israel must not conform.
This is not a word about ethnic inferiority. The Bible shows YHWH as the God who made every nation, set their boundaries, and governs their histories (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26). The selected canonical texts keep the nations within God's care and sovereign reach. They appear in the Abrahamic promise as the very ones through whom blessing will flow. Abraham is called so that all the families of the earth might be blessed through him — and the nations are that "all." The word גּוֹי, then, carries both a shadow and a promise within it.
In prophetic literature, the nations become the instrument of YHWH's judgment against unfaithful Israel and, at the same time, the recipients of YHWH's future grace. Isaiah's servant passages and the great eschatological oracles envision the nations streaming to Zion, hearing the word of the Lord, being gathered in. גּוֹי is the Hebrew word standing behind the Gentile question that runs through the whole New Testament — not as a solved problem but as the New Testament's reading of the Abrahamic promise and the prophetic hope.
Pastorally, this word refuses to be domesticated. It will not let Israel — or any covenant people — forget that God's purposes are not tribal. It will not let the nations be reduced to a backdrop for Israel's story. They are the audience, the beneficiary, and in the end the co-heirs of the promise that launched everything with Abraham. A congregation that encounters גּוֹי is encountering the scope of the gospel before the gospel is named.
Sense peoples, Gentile nations
Definition peoples, Gentile nations
References Psalm 80:8
Why it matters The nations are displaced in the planting memory and later become part of the wider canonical horizon.
Pastoral Entry
H5193 is a Hebrew verb for planting, setting something firmly, or establishing a person or people in a place. Genesis 2:8 says the Lord God planted a garden in Eden and placed the formed man there, portraying God as the initiating cultivator and giver of habitation. Second Samuel 7:10 promises that God will appoint a place for Israel and plant them so they may dwell securely without continued oppression.
Proverbs 31:16 describes the capable woman evaluating a field, buying it, and planting a vineyard from her earnings, joining cultivation to judgment, labor, and economic agency. Other passages describe vineyards, trees, gardens, idolatrous poles, prophetic work of building and planting, and restoration after desolation. H5193 opens teaching on creation, rootedness, patient cultivation, secure dwelling, and rebuilding.
It corrects interpretations that turn divine planting into permission for conquest, dispossession, nationalism, or promises that every believer will receive permanent property and freedom from disruption now.
Sense set in the ground to grow
Definition set in the ground to grow
References Psalm 80:8
Why it matters God is the planter of His people, so He is appealed to as the one who must preserve them.
Sense prepared space before planting
Definition prepared space before planting
References Psalm 80:9
Why it matters The image recalls God making room for Israel in the land.
Sense became rooted and established
Definition became rooted and established
References Psalm 80:9
Why it matters The vine's stability was God-given before its later exposure.
Pastoral Entry
H4390, mālēʾ, is a Hebrew verb whose surrounding grammar and object can describe filling something, becoming full, completing an allotted span, or carrying a word or task through to fulfillment. The word identifies an action or state whose force depends on the subject, object, stem, and named content; fullness is not a moral or spiritual verdict by itself. In Genesis, people are blessed and commissioned to fill the earth.
In Exodus, God fills Bezalel with His Spirit for skilled craftsmanship, and the Lord's glory fills the tabernacle. Solomon uses the verb when praising God for fulfilling by His hand what He promised David. Habakkuk looks beyond violent human empire to an earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory. The governed forms also caution against flattening the grammar.
Qal forms can describe a subject being or becoming full, Piel forms can present an agent filling something or fulfilling speech, and Niphal forms can present something as filled. A grammar label still does not determine the theological value. A place may be filled with God's glory, a worker may receive Spirit-enabled capacity for a named vocation, and a promise or allotted period may reach completion.
The passage must supply the agent, recipient, content, purpose, and result. These uses belong together through the idea of bringing a person, place, period, or promise to its appointed fullness, yet they are not interchangeable. Genesis's creation commission does not become reproductive pressure placed on every individual. Bezalel's gifting does not make talent proof of spiritual superiority, and the tabernacle scene does not offer a technique for manufacturing a worship atmosphere.
Material abundance is not automatically holiness, vocational gifting is not the whole doctrine of the Spirit, and fulfillment is not a blank check for private predictions. Readers should identify who fills, what receives fullness, what content is present, and what purpose the passage names.
Sense spread widely through the land
Definition spread widely through the land
References Psalm 80:9
Why it matters The vine once flourished by God's blessing.
Pastoral Entry
הַר (har) is the Hebrew word for mountain or hill. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 547 occurrences and carries extraordinary theological weight — because in the OT, mountains regularly become places where God meets humans, establishes covenants, gives his law, receives worship, and announces his eschatological purposes. The har is not merely geography; it is the geography of encounter.
Isaiah 2:2-3 gives har its eschatological culmination: 'It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain (har) of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains (har), and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain (har) of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.' The har YHWH (mountain of the Lord) will be the highest mountain, and all nations will stream to it. This vision connects the Sinai har (where God gave the Torah) with the Zion har (where God dwells) and the eschatological har (where all peoples will come for instruction). The Micah 4:1-4 parallel confirms the vision.
Exodus 19:3-20 is the OT's most sustained mountain-of-God text: Moses goes up (alah) to the har, God speaks to him, the people are consecrated to approach the base of the har, the har is bounded ('do not go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it'), and then the theophany erupts — thunder, lightning, thick cloud, trumpet blast, and fire. The Sinai har is the place where the holy God speaks in terrible proximity to the sinful people, mediated through Moses. Every subsequent mountain in the OT is interpreted in light of Sinai: the har is the place of divine speech, divine law, divine presence.
Psalm 48:1-2 celebrates Mount Zion as the har of God: 'Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain (har qodshot), beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King.' The Zion har is the OT's permanent covenant-geography of divine presence: the place where God's name dwells, where the temple stands, where worship is offered, and from which God's judgment and salvation go out. The Psalms of Ascent (Pss 120-134) are sung on the way up to the Zion har.
For the preacher, הַר (har) is the word that often frames encounter with God as ascent — leaving the ordinary and moving toward the holy in these key texts, at God's invitation and on God's terms.
Sense large hills or mountains
Definition large hills or mountains
References Psalm 80:10
Why it matters The vine's shade covering mountains communicates expansive blessing.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew noun tsel names shade or shadow and can portray shelter or protection. Isaiah promises shade from heat and refuge from storm, praises God as refuge for poor and needy people, warns Judah that Egypt's shade will become shame, and pictures just rule like a great rock's shadow in an arid land. Jotham's fable exposes the thornbush's dangerous offer of shade, Jonah enjoys a plant's temporary shade while God addresses his disordered compassion, and the psalms pray for refuge under God's wings and confess the Lord as keeper and shade.
The image gains meaning from the shelter's source, reliability, purpose, and effect. Responsible teaching joins refuge language with concrete protection for exposed people and distinguishes faithful trust from political dependence or false security. It must not promise immunity from heat, violence, illness, or grief, shame people who seek emergency shelter, idealize controlling protectors, or substitute a metaphor for evacuation, medical care, legal protection, and practical provision.
Sense shadow or covering
Definition shadow or covering
References Psalm 80:10
Why it matters The vine once provided visible evidence of flourishing and reach.
Pastoral Entry
The cedar is a tree named in Scripture both as part of the created world and as a source of building timber. The Hebrew noun can therefore direct attention to a living tree or to wood being used. Solomon requests cedars for the temple's construction, while the psalms use cedars in pictures of growth and of the Lord's overwhelming power. These uses should remain distinguishable. A material's place in the temple does not make every later occurrence sacred, and a tree's impressive appearance does not make it an independent source of strength.
Psalm 92 compares the flourishing righteous person to a cedar in Lebanon. The following lines place this flourishing in the Lord's house, where continued fruitfulness serves testimony to His uprightness. Psalm 29, however, celebrates the voice of the Lord that breaks even the cedars. The two pictures are not contradictory: a created thing can illustrate vigorous growth while remaining wholly subject to its Creator. Neither picture promises a believer immunity from injury, illness, or loss. Their concern is God's sustaining righteousness and incomparable majesty.
Jeremiah adds a searching royal contrast. Excelling in cedar paneling does not make a king faithful. The prophet points instead to doing justice and taking up the cause of the poor and needy. A splendid residence cannot replace that duty. The word study therefore gives readers a way to appreciate creation and craftsmanship without confusing grandeur with goodness. Where Scripture uses a cedar as a comparison, follow the comparison's stated purpose. Where it names timber, attend to its use. Do not build doctrine on a proposed derivation of the name or make one tree carry every promise attached to it in different passages.
Sense large cedar trees
Definition large cedar trees
References Psalm 80:10
Why it matters The comparison with mighty cedars emphasizes the vine's former grandeur.
Sense extended boughs or shoots
Definition extended boughs or shoots
References Psalm 80:11
Why it matters The vine's reach once stretched broadly under God's blessing.
Pastoral Entry
יָם is the common Hebrew noun for sea, a large body of water, or, in geographical usage, the west. The local index currently counts about 396 occurrences. It can name the seas in creation, the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus, the Mediterranean, inland bodies of water, and poetic waters that threaten or praise. Not every occurrence symbolizes chaos, and the sea in Genesis 1 is part of the created order rather than an uncreated power.
Genesis 1:10 says God names the gathered waters Seas and sees the ordered creation as good. Job 38:8-11 poetically depicts God bounding the sea. Exodus 14 narrates Israel’s passage through the Sea of Reeds and the destruction of Pharaoh’s pursuing force. These texts establish God’s sovereignty over waters and his saving judgment without requiring a reconstruction of a hidden battle with a Canaanite sea deity.
Psalm 107:23-30 describes sailors in a real storm who cry to the Lord and are brought to their desired haven. The scene can wisely illuminate other crises, but the sailors do not lexically represent all people in distress, and the passage is not a promise that every present storm will be stilled on demand. Psalm 89:9 praises the Lord’s rule over the raging sea within a psalm wrestling with the Davidic covenant.
For teaching, יָם offers concrete and poetic settings for creation, geography, threat, deliverance, and divine rule. New Testament sea scenes and Revelation’s sea imagery continue these themes, but each must be interpreted in its own narrative or vision rather than placed into one inevitable sequence from chaos to removal.
Sense the sea, likely western boundary imagery
Definition the sea, likely western boundary imagery
References Psalm 80:11
Why it matters The vine's spread to the sea evokes broad covenant territory.
Pastoral Entry
H5104 names a river, stream, or strong current and can identify named waterways such as the Euphrates. Rivers water land, mark borders, carry people, host exile, and furnish poetic images, but the noun itself does not guarantee life or prosperity. In Gen. 2. 10, a river flows from Eden to water the garden before dividing into four headwaters, placing abundant water within God's ordered provision.
In Ezek. 1. 1, the exiled priest stands by the River Kebar when the heavens open and he sees visions of God, showing that displacement does not place him beyond divine revelation. In Jer. 2. 18, Judah is challenged for seeking the waters of the Nile and Euphrates through political dependence rather than returning to the Lord. H5104 opens teaching on created provision, God's presence in exile, and the danger of treating powerful nations as sources of security.
It does not make every river a spiritual portal, promise wealth wherever water imagery appears, or erase the actual geography and political history named in a passage.
Sense river, often boundary imagery
Definition river, often boundary imagery
References Psalm 80:11
Why it matters The river imagery expresses former territorial reach and blessing.
Sense protective fence or wall
Definition protective fence or wall
References Psalm 80:12
Why it matters Broken walls symbolize exposure and loss of protection.
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew verb parats describes forcefully breaking out, bursting through, spreading beyond a boundary, or making a breach. Tamar's son unexpectedly breaks out first at birth, Israel multiplies despite oppression, walls are broken down, and a gate is opened for people to pass through. The same verb can describe the Lord bursting out in judgment and David's battle victory pictured as a bursting flood.
These uses share movement beyond a limit, but the passage decides whether that movement is life-giving growth, dangerous intrusion, military destruction, judgment, or restored passage. A report that someone broke away does not by itself settle whether the action was faithful or rebellious. Battle texts do not license present violence, and Uzzah's death must not be reproduced as a threat against people who ask sincere questions.
Proverbs uses a breached city wall as an image of uncontrolled temper, but that comparison should invite wise self-government rather than shame people with trauma responses. Responsible teaching names the boundary, the agent crossing it, the result, and the narrator's moral evaluation before drawing an application.
Sense breached, broken through
Definition breached, broken through
References Psalm 80:12
Why it matters God's removal of protection explains the people's vulnerability.
Sense those who pass along the way
Definition those who pass along the way
References Psalm 80:12
Why it matters Even casual passers can plunder when God's protection is withdrawn.
Sense wild pig
Definition wild pig
References Psalm 80:13
Why it matters The boar vividly pictures destructive enemy forces ravaging the vineyard.
Pastoral Entry
The Hebrew noun ya'ar usually names a forest, woodland, thicket, or wooded growth. It can describe habitat for animals, trees joining creation's praise, timberland, a place of work, terrain that complicates battle, or a forest used figuratively for a dense human power that God brings down. A rare poetic use refers to honeycomb. These senses must be selected by context rather than blended.
Psalm 104 presents forest creatures within God's wise ordering of night and day. Deuteronomy mentions a forest while describing an accidental death during timber work and the need to protect innocent life. Second Samuel records a deadly battle in difficult forest terrain. Isaiah compares Assyria's splendor and forces to a forest consumed or felled under judgment.
The noun itself does not make forests sacred, dangerous, or symbolic in every occurrence. It also does not identify every wildfire, storm, logging dispute, or military loss as a direct act of judgment. Readers should attend to genre, activity, agents, and stated comparison while treating ecological and safety applications as responsible reflection rather than hidden lexical commands.
Sense woodland or forest
Definition woodland or forest
References Psalm 80:13
Why it matters The wild creature from the forest heightens the image of uncontrolled devastation.
Sense wild moving things or beasts of the field
Definition wild moving things or beasts of the field
References Psalm 80:13
Why it matters The once-guarded vine has become open food for destructive powers.
Pastoral Entry
שׁוּב (shuv) is a common Hebrew verb for turning, returning, going back, bringing back, or restoring. Many occurrences describe ordinary movement, so the verb does not mean repentance every time it appears. In covenant and prophetic settings, however, returning to the Lord becomes a rich description of repentance: people turn from wicked ways, return to God, hear His voice, and seek His mercy.
Other stem forms can describe causing someone or something to return, including God's restoration of His people. Deuteronomy 30 joins Israel's return to the Lord with God's gathering and renewal after judgment. Isaiah 55 calls the wicked to forsake a way and return to the compassionate God. Hosea and Zechariah address a covenant people whose return must be truthful rather than merely verbal.
Christian teaching can connect this movement with New Testament calls to repent and turn to God, but the Hebrew verb itself should not be collapsed into one technical doctrine. Pastoral use must also distinguish return to God from pressure to return to an unsafe person, place, leader, or institution.
Sense turn back, come again
Definition turn back, come again
References Psalm 80:14
Why it matters The people ask God Himself to return to His ravaged vine.
Pastoral Entry
H5027, nabat, is a Hebrew verb for looking, gazing, considering, or directing attentive regard toward someone or something. Its passages show that seeing is never merely mechanical. Abram looks toward the heavens as the Lord speaks a promise. Israelites bitten by serpents look at the bronze serpent and live. Samuel is warned not to consider Eliab's appearance because human beings see outwardly while the Lord sees the heart. Sufferers ask God to look, consider, and respond; worshipers look to Him in trust; rebels look to weapons while failing to look to their Maker. The same verb can also describe contemptuous or predatory gazing.
H5027 therefore concerns directed attention whose object and moral purpose matter. A gaze can receive God's promise, acknowledge need, discern wrongly, seek refuge, overlook God, stare at suffering without compassion, or exploit another person's vulnerability. The verb does not make every act of looking faithful, nor does it mean that attention automatically becomes care.
Faithful teaching should ask who looks, at whom or what, from what posture, and with what result. The Lord's seeing is not limited by outward appearance, while human sight can be corrected by His word. Calls for God to look upon suffering are prayers for His attentive intervention, not evidence that He was previously ignorant. H5027 trains readers to turn their attention toward God, truth, and afflicted neighbors without collapsing regard into voyeurism, appearance-based judgment, or passive observation.
Sense look, behold from above
Definition look, behold from above
References Psalm 80:14
Why it matters The plea asks for renewed divine attention from heaven.
Pastoral Entry
שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) is the Hebrew noun commonly rendered heavens or sky. It can refer to the visible expanse where birds fly and weather occurs, the region of sun, moon, and stars, the created heavens paired with earth, or the heavenly realm from which God rules and hears. Ancient texts can move among these senses without drawing the modern boundaries of atmosphere, outer space, and nonmaterial realm. Context and genre determine which aspect is foregrounded.
Genesis says God created the heavens and earth and called the expanse heavens. Deuteronomy forbids worship of the heavenly bodies and declares that even the highest heavens belong to God. Solomon says heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God, while Psalms describe God's throne in heaven and the heavens declaring God's glory. These texts affirm creation and divine transcendence without locating God as one object inside the physical universe.
Weather, vision, poetry, temple prayer, apocalyptic imagery, and new-heavens promises use heaven language differently. Readers should neither force ancient phenomenological descriptions into modern scientific models nor dismiss their theological claims because their imagery is ancient. Isaiah's new heavens and new earth opens a canonical hope for renewed creation; it should not be used to encourage neglect of the present earth or to settle every question about continuity and transformation.
Sense heavens, sky, divine dwelling realm
Definition heavens, sky, divine dwelling realm
References Psalm 80:14
Why it matters The psalm asks the enthroned God to look down from His heavenly rule.
Pastoral Entry
פָּקַד (paqad) describes purposeful attention or intervention whose result depends on context. Genesis 21:1 says the Lord attends to Sarah as promised, Genesis 50:24-25 anticipates God's visitation of Israel, Exodus 3:16 announces that God has attended to the people and their treatment in Egypt, and Ruth 1:6 says the Lord visits his people by giving food. These are gracious acts of remembered promise and care, not mere observation.
Administrative uses are equally important. Genesis 39:4 appoints Joseph over a household, Genesis 41:34 calls for appointed officials, Numbers 1 repeatedly uses the verb in mustering Israel, Numbers 3:10 concerns priestly appointment, and Second Kings 22:5 entrusts money to overseers of temple work. The common thread is accountable attention, assignment, or reckoning; H6485 is not inherently a supernatural event.
The same focused attention can bring judgment. Exodus 20:5 and 32:34, First Samuel 15:2, Jeremiah 5:9, Amos 3:2, and Zechariah 10:3 use visitation or attending-to language for holding wrongdoing accountable. Translation as punish is contextual, not the verb's only meaning. Because paqad spans care and judgment, claims about a present disaster being divine punishment require direct revelation and cannot be inferred from hardship alone.
Sense visit, attend to, care for
Definition visit, attend to, care for
References Psalm 80:14
Why it matters God is asked to inspect and care for the vine He planted.
Sense the planted stock or root
Definition the planted stock or root
References Psalm 80:15
Why it matters The root belongs to God's right-hand planting and must be preserved by Him.
Pastoral Entry
H3225 names the right hand or right side, can mark the south from an eastward orientation, and often carries contextual associations of position, skill, strength, support, authority, oath, judgment, or honor. The noun can identify a body part, a physical direction, a place beside someone, a ceremonial portion, a poetic image of power, or the south, so spatial reference and symbolic significance must not be treated as one fixed code.
In Josh. 1. 7, joshua is commanded to observe the instruction given through Moses without turning from it to the right or the left. In Ps. 16. 8, the psalmist sets the Lord continually before him and says he will not be shaken because God is at his right hand. H3225 opens teaching on the hand that acts, the side where someone stands, and the biblical imagery of Gods strong and sustaining presence without making bodily difference a measure of human worth.
It corrects interpretations that turn right and left into universal moral labels, stigmatize left-handed or disabled people, or transfer poetic language about Gods power into unchecked authority for human leaders. H3225 can be ordinary direction or weighty imagery: Joshua must not turn from Gods instruction to the right or left, the psalmist trusts because the Lord is at his right hand, and Jonah closes with people unable to discern their right hand from their left.
A side can mark a path, a supporting presence, or limited understanding. None of these uses makes one kind of body morally superior, and divine right-hand language speaks analogically of Gods action rather than His anatomy. For H3225, responsible teaching keeps lexical meaning, passage context, canonical synthesis, and present application distinguishable. H3225 does not teach that left-handedness or disability is inferior, make political right and left biblical categories, give people at a leaders right hand divine status, or reduce Gods presence and power to a physical body part.
Sense symbol of strength, favor, and action
Definition symbol of strength, favor, and action
References Psalm 80:15
Why it matters God's right hand planted the vine and later is asked to rest on the representative man.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
בֵּן is the most common Hebrew word for son, and its very frequency is a pastoral warning: familiarity can blunt the word's force before we ever read the passage. At its most basic, בֵּן names a male child born into a family — a biological heir, the one who carries the family name forward, who stands in a line of descent and inheritance. But the word extends far beyond that, and the extension is not a distortion; it is baked into the Hebrew idiom from the earliest texts. Grandson, descendant, member of a tribe or nation, member of a particular class or guild, an animal of a certain age or kind, even a quality of character — all of these can be expressed by בֵּן in a construct relationship. 'Sons of the prophets' names an apprentice community. 'Son of man' is a phrase for human creatureliness. 'Sons of Israel' names a covenant nation. 'Sons of God' raises a set of interpretive questions all its own.
The pastoral depth of this word is not primarily in its range of idiomatic uses, though that range is genuinely wide. The depth comes from what the word carries relationally. A son in the ancient world was not merely a biological fact but a relational reality: he was the one loved, shaped, trained, corrected, named, blessed, and sent. The father who had a son had a future. The son who had a father had an identity.
This means that when the Old Testament speaks of God's relationship to Israel, to the king, and to the people He forms and calls — and does so using בֵּן language — something is at stake beyond family metaphor. God is not borrowing a warm human image to soften His theology. He is making a claim about the nature of the relationship itself: that it involves origination, love, inheritance, discipline, and belonging. 'Out of Egypt I called my son' (Hosea 11:1) is a covenant confession, not a sentimental comparison.
For the preacher, בֵּן is one of those words that can be passed over because it feels obvious. Slow down. The sonship language of the Old Testament is doing heavy theological lifting, and it carries load that runs all the way into the New Testament's confession that the Father sent His Son.
Sense son, descendant, representative heir
Definition son, descendant, representative heir
References Psalm 80:15
Why it matters The son language connects the vine and representative hope.
Pastoral Entry
This Hebrew verb concerns strength, firmness, or determination. Context decides whether that firmness is commended. Joshua is told to be strong in carrying out his commission, Isaiah calls for weak hands to be strengthened, and Deuteronomy forbids hardening the heart against a poor neighbor. Firmness directed toward obedient courage differs from firmness that shuts out another person's need.
Deuteronomy 15:7 sets a hard heart beside a closed hand, then commands generous help. Isaiah 35:3-4 addresses weakness and fear with a call to strengthen and with the promise of God's saving action. Psalm 27:14 joins courage to waiting for the Lord in a prayer that has named danger and false testimony. These passages do not make fear or bodily weakness proof of moral failure. They direct the hearer toward a particular response and a particular ground of hope, rather than requiring an invulnerable appearance.
Sense strengthened or established
Definition strengthened or established
References Psalm 80:15
Why it matters The people look for God to strengthen what He has raised up for Himself.
Pastoral Entry
אֵשׁ (esh) is the Hebrew word for fire, currently indexed about 378 times in the local Hebrew index. Fire in the OT is not merely a physical phenomenon; it is consistently the medium of divine presence, divine judgment, and divine purification. The three functions are related: the same fire that represents God's presence burns up what does not belong before him, and refines what does. The theological trajectory of esh runs from the burning bush of Exodus 3 to the fire of Hebrews 12:29 ('our God is a consuming fire').
Deuteronomy 4:24 is the foundational theological statement: 'For the Lord your God is a consuming esh (esh okhelet), a jealous God.' The fire is not a secondary attribute of God; it is a description of what God himself is in relation to everything that opposes him and competes for loyalty to him. The jealousy and the consuming fire are the same thing: God's total commitment to his own glory and to his people's exclusive devotion means that whatever rivals him will be consumed. This is not cruelty; it is the natural result of the infinite standing next to the finite, the holy next to the unholy.
Exodus 3:2-4 gives fire its most memorable OT role: the burning bush. 'The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of esh (labbat-esh) out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.' The burning-but-not-consumed bush is the visual paradox of divine fire: the esh of God's presence is consuming, yet when God chooses to be present to his people, his fire does not destroy them. The bush burns but is not burned up — divine fire without destruction. This is the OT's picture of God's covenantal self-limitation: he is the consuming fire who chooses to be present without consuming.
First Kings 18:38 uses esh for the divine confirmation of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal: 'Then the fire (esh) of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.' The esh YHWH (fire of the Lord) falls from heaven and consumes not only the sacrifice but the altar, the stones, and the water — total consumption, leaving no ambiguity. The fire is the divine response to Elijah's prayer and the proof that YHWH, not Baal, is God.
For the preacher, אֵשׁ (esh) is the word that insists God cannot be approached casually: he is fire, and the approach to him requires the mediation of the sacrifice he provides.
Sense consumed by fire
Definition consumed by fire
References Psalm 80:16
Why it matters The image describes severe judgment and destruction of the vine.
Sense cut off or cut down
Definition cut off or cut down
References Psalm 80:16
Why it matters The vine's destruction is pictured as decisive and devastating.
Sense rebuke, reprimand, threatening word
Definition rebuke, reprimand, threatening word
References Psalm 80:16
Why it matters The people perish under God's rebuke, showing that His word of judgment is powerful.
Pastoral Entry
אִישׁ is the most common Hebrew word for a man — a single, particular human being of male sex — and its sheer range of use tells you something about the Old Testament's view of human personhood. It can mean a husband, a warrior, a servant, a righteous man, a wicked man, a man of God, any man, every man, no man, or simply someone standing before you. Unlike the more generic אָדָם, which can speak of humanity as a class or species, אִישׁ tends to land on the particular, the named, the situated individual. It has a face. It occupies a specific role, carries a specific moral weight, and stands before God in a specific set of obligations.
One of the most instructive things about אִישׁ is how often it functions in compound expressions. The Old Testament identifies a man by what he is, what he does, and who he belongs to — a man of God, a man of valor, a man of covenant faithfulness, a man of wrath, a man of wickedness. Moral identity and personal identity are woven together in Hebrew thought, and אִישׁ becomes the frame onto which that character is hung. It is not merely a biological designation. It is a way of pointing to the whole person as a moral actor, covenant participant, and relational being standing in a community.
The word also carries a relational gravity. When הָאִישׁ — the man — appears with a definite article in a narrative, the text is often singling someone out for particular attention: here is the one, this specific person, in this specific moment. The indefinite אִישׁ can introduce a scenario, a type, a representative individual. In legal texts, moral wisdom literature, and prophetic speech, אִישׁ functions to universalize: any man, every man, whoever the man may be who does this thing or stands in this place.
Pastorally, what matters most about אִישׁ is this: the Old Testament consistently refuses to speak about humanity in the abstract. God does not deal with a category; he deals with persons — this man, that husband, each one. The word carries the weight of individual accountability, individual dignity, and individual call. When the prophets say 'each man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree,' or 'every man turned to his own way,' or 'I will seek the lost sheep and bring back the straying man,' the concreteness of אִישׁ is doing genuine theological work. It reminds us that the God of Israel is not a God of masses but of persons.
Sense man, male representative
Definition man, male representative
References Psalm 80:17
Why it matters The man at God's right hand becomes a focus of representative hope.
Sense human son, representative human figure
Definition human son, representative human figure
References Psalm 80:17
Why it matters The phrase contributes to royal and representative expectation that later canonical texts develop fully.
Sense strengthened or made firm for God's own purpose
Definition strengthened or made firm for God's own purpose
References Psalm 80:17
Why it matters The representative must be God-made and God-sustained.
Sense turn back from, depart
Definition turn back from, depart
References Psalm 80:18
Why it matters Restoration includes covenant loyalty, not merely relief.
Pastoral Entry
חָיָה is a common Hebrew verb meaning to live, remain alive, revive, recover, or preserve life, with the active sense shaped by stem and context. It can describe ordinary survival, renewed strength, deliverance from death, or the causative act of keeping someone alive. The local public lexicon artifact currently counts about 265 occurrences. That breadth requires teachers to distinguish biological life, historical preservation, covenant blessing, and prophetic restoration rather than importing the richest theological sense into every use.
Deuteronomy 8:3 uses the verb to teach that Israel’s life depends on every word from the Lord, not on bread alone. Psalm 119 repeatedly asks God for life so that the psalmist may continue in faithful obedience. Ezekiel 37 uses the verb for the restoration of the dry bones, presenting exiled Israel’s renewal as life granted by God. Habakkuk 2:4 contrasts the proud with the righteous person who will live by faithfulness amid coming judgment. These passages give the verb covenantal and theological weight, but many other occurrences simply concern remaining alive, reviving, or sparing life.
For pastoral use, חָיָה directs attention to God as giver and preserver of creaturely life and to the dependence of his people on his word. The Old Testament can portray restoration with bodily and national concreteness, especially in Ezekiel 37. New Testament resurrection teaching develops within that larger canonical witness, but the Hebrew verb does not mean resurrection or eternal life in every passage. Teachers should move from the immediate use to the canonical connection without collapsing those stages.
Sense give life, make alive
Definition give life, make alive
References Psalm 80:18
Why it matters The psalm asks God for renewed life that produces prayer and faithfulness.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense invoke, pray, worship by God's revealed name
Definition invoke, pray, worship by God's revealed name
References Psalm 80:18
Why it matters Revived people return to worship and dependence on the Lord.
Sense covenant LORD, God of hosts
Definition covenant LORD, God of hosts
References Psalm 80:19
Why it matters The final refrain uses the fullest divine address in the psalm.
Sense deliverance resulting from God's favorable presence
Definition deliverance resulting from God's favorable presence
References Psalm 80:19
Why it matters The psalm ends with salvation as the outcome of God restoring and shining His face.
Lexicon data: MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML (CC0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (CC BY 4.0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon (CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible Data (CC BY 4.0) · Full details
| v.10 | H6437פָּנָהPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.11 | H3680כָּסָהPual · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.12 | H7971שָׁלַחPiel · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.13 | H6555פָּרַץQal · Perfect · IndicativeH5674עָבַרQal · Participle |
| v.15 | H7725שׁוּבQal · Imperative · ImperativeH5027נָבַטHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.16 | H5193נָטַעQal · Perfect · IndicativeH553אָמַץPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.17 | H8313שָׂרַףQal · Participle passiveH3683Qal · Participle passiveH6אָבַדQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.18 | H1961הָיָהQal · Imperfect · JussiveH553אָמַץPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.19 | H5472סוּגQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH7121קָרָאQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortative |
| v.2 | H7462רָעָהQal · ParticipleH5090נָהַגQal · ParticipleH3427יָשַׁבQal · Participle |
| v.20 | H215אוֹרHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.5 | H6225עָשַׁןQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.7 | H3932לָעַגQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.9 | H5265נָסַעHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH1644גָּרַשׁPiel · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
Aspect in Hebrew is grammatical form, not tense. Perfect = completed action; Imperfect = incomplete/ongoing. Stem modifies action type (Qal=simple, Niphal=passive, Piel=intensive).
Morphology: OSHB WLC (Open Scriptures, CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible TEHMC (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
Theological Argument
Psalm 80 argues that restoration must come from the God who first shepherded, saved, planted, and expanded His people. The community does not deny divine displeasure, nor does it surrender to ruin. It appeals to God's covenant presence, His face, His name, His former saving work, His care for the vine, and His appointed representative. The psalm's logic is that only God can restore what God planted, revive those who have turned away, and save through the renewed shining of His face.
The LORD is invoked as Shepherd and enthroned King; the people plead for restoration; divine anger and tears expose crisis; exodus-vine memory grounds hope; the ravaged vine demands God's return; the man at God's right hand becomes the representative focus of revival; and the final refrain entrusts salvation to God's face shining again.
- 1.The people belong to God because He shepherded Joseph and brought the vine out of Egypt.
- 2.Salvation requires more than changed circumstances; it requires God's face to shine in favor.
- 3.The crisis is interpreted as divine anger, not merely geopolitical misfortune.
- 4.The tears and scorn of the people show the pastoral cost of covenant devastation.
- 5.The exodus and planting memory gives the community warrant to ask God to care for what He began.
- 6.The broken vineyard wall pictures exposure, vulnerability, and covenant humiliation.
- 7.God must return, look, see, and watch over the vine because no human defender can repair the devastation.
- 8.The prayer for the man at God's right hand gathers royal and representative hope into the restoration plea.
- 9.Revival is not bare national survival; it is renewed covenant calling, no turning away, and prayer in God's name.
- 10.The final refrain teaches that restored life flows from God's gracious presence.
Theological Focus
- God as Shepherd of Israel
- God enthroned above the cherubim
- Divine anger and covenant discipline
- Restoration by God's shining face
- Exodus memory and vine imagery
- God as planter and keeper of His people
- The fragility of the covenant community under judgment
- Representative hope in the man at God's right hand
- Revival as renewed covenant loyalty
- Salvation grounded in God's name and presence
- Restoration
- Divine Presence
- Covenant Memory
- Judgment and Mercy
- Representative Kingship
- Revival
- Doctrine of God
- Covenant Discipline
- People of God
- Christology
Theological Themes
The repeated refrain makes restoration the chapter's central petition.
The shining of God's face is the decisive answer to the people's distress.
The vine imagery recalls God's exodus, conquest, and planting work.
The people suffer under divine anger yet appeal for God to return and save.
The man at God's right hand becomes the focus of hope for renewed life and loyalty.
The psalm asks not merely for rescue but for life renewed so that the people call on God's name.
Covenant Significance
Psalm 80 is covenantal from beginning to end: God shepherded Israel, planted the vine from Egypt, gave the land, judged covenant unfaithfulness, and remains the only one who can restore His people through revived calling and representative strength.
- The Joseph tribes connect the prayer to the covenant people in their tribal identity.
- The cherubim throne language recalls the Lord's covenant presence above the ark.
- The face-shining refrain echoes priestly blessing and covenant favor.
- The vine from Egypt recalls exodus deliverance and land inheritance.
- The broken wall and ravaging animals signal covenant vulnerability under judgment.
- The man at God's right hand points toward representative leadership under God's strengthening hand.
- The plea for revival seeks renewed covenant loyalty: “Then we will not turn away from you.”
Canonical Connections
The request for God's face to shine echoes the priestly blessing and the need for covenant favor.
The Lord enthroned between the cherubim recalls His covenant presence above the ark.
The exodus song anticipates God bringing His redeemed people to the place He plants them.
Joseph imagery and fruitful vine language provide patriarchal background for Psalm 80's tribal and vine imagery.
Isaiah's vineyard song develops Israel-as-vineyard imagery, though with a stronger emphasis on judgment for bad fruit.
Jeremiah remembers Israel as a choice vine that became corrupt, paralleling the vine motif in covenant judgment.
Ezekiel uses vine imagery for Israel's royal house brought low, resonating with Psalm 80's ravaged vine and representative hope.
Psalm 79's plea over devastation immediately precedes Psalm 80's request for the Shepherd to restore the vine.
Psalm 81 follows with festival remembrance and covenant warning, complementing Psalm 80's restoration plea.
Psalm 89 closes Book III with the crisis of Davidic covenant hope, matching Psalm 80's representative longing.
Psalm 110 develops right-hand royal enthronement language that deepens the trajectory of Psalm 80:17.
Daniel's son-of-man vision provides later canonical development of representative rule and dominion.
Jesus the good Shepherd fulfills the deepest shepherding hope of God's people.
Jesus as the true vine gives canonical resolution to Israel-as-vine imagery without erasing Psalm 80's original communal setting.
The exaltation of Christ at God's right hand fulfills the wider royal-right-hand trajectory to which Psalm 80 contributes.
The final vision of God's servants seeing His face gives consummate resolution to the plea for the shining face of God.
Canon-Wide Connections
Cross-reference data: OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Psalm 80 shows that God's people need restoration that is deeper than repair of circumstances. They need God's face to shine, His anger to be answered, His planted people to be revived, and a faithful representative under His right hand. The gospel resolves this need in Christ, the good Shepherd and true Vine, whose death and resurrection secure reconciliation, life, and restored communion with God.
- The repeated cry “restore us” exposes human inability to save themselves.
- The shining face of God shows that salvation is relational and covenantal, not merely external rescue.
- The vine imagery shows that God must preserve what He planted.
- The plea for revival points beyond bare survival to renewed life before God.
- The man at God's right hand prepares for a representative who can secure the people's restoration.
- In Christ, God's favor shines on sinners because wrath has been borne and life has been given.
- Do not preach revival as human resolve detached from divine grace · the psalm asks God to give life.
- Do not turn the vine into a simplistic nationalistic symbol · its deepest canonical resolution is covenant life in God's appointed Shepherd-King.
- Do not bypass divine anger · gospel restoration answers judgment through atonement and reconciliation, not denial.
Primary Emphasis
Psalm 80 does not name Christ directly, but it contributes important biblical categories that reach their fullness in Him: shepherding, God's saving presence, Israel as vine, representative sonship, the man at God's right hand, revival, and salvation through God's gracious turning. In the canon, Jesus is the good Shepherd, the true vine, the Son of Man exalted at God's right hand, and the one in whom God's face shines savingly on His people.
Chapter Contribution
Psalm 80 argues that restoration must come from the God who first shepherded, saved, planted, and expanded His people. The community does not deny divine displeasure, nor does it surrender to ruin. It appeals to God's covenant presence, His face, His name, His former saving work, His care for the vine, and His appointed representative. The psalm's logic is that only God can restore what God planted, revive those who have turned away, and save through the renewed shining of His face.
Christ bears wrath so that sinners may receive God’s favor and restoration.
Jesus fulfills the shepherd theme through sacrificial death, resurrection, and gathering care.
Jesus supplies the faithful and life-giving vine reality in which His people bear fruit.
Jesus fulfills the faithful vine, representative Son, and right-hand exaltation trajectories.
Jesus enters anguished prayer and bears judgment in obedient sonship.
The covenant people may ask how long and describe sorrow without disguising grief.
The covenant people are portrayed as one vine with roots, shade, branches, and shoots.
The covenant community asks God to turn, bring back, and renew it.
Former election and flourishing do not exempt God's people from exposure under judgment.
Israel's land and flourishing arise from God's covenant purpose rather than natural entitlement.
Past redemption and flourishing become grounds for present lament and prayer.
The shining face signifies gracious presence, blessing, and restored fellowship.
The planting of Israel includes God's historical judgment upon prior inhabitants.
The cherubim-enthroned God rules and makes His covenant presence known.
Saving restoration depends upon God's awakened or manifested might.
The image implies that lasting safety depends upon God's guarding care.
God prepares space, establishes roots, and grants expansive flourishing.
Only God can renew life and enable sustained covenant response.
The people are saved only through God's coming action.
The vine's burning, cutting, rebuke, and perishing remain under God's holy governance.
The community addresses God as the One who permitted or caused the vine's protective walls to be breached.
God acts as the decisive subject of exodus, planting, rooting, and growth.
The lament attributes the bread and drink of tears to God’s governed discipline rather than random fate.
God is asked to return, look, see, and attend to His ravaged people.
God’s sustained anger is experienced within the covenant relationship and against the community’s prayer.
The covenant community may ask God why He has allowed devastating reversal.
God’s final presence will remove tears, mockery, pain, and death.
The shining face anticipates complete reconciliation and consummated life.
God's consummated dwelling will not be breached or ravaged by hostile powers.
Believers bear enduring fruit only by abiding in the crucified and risen Christ through the Spirit.
The God who commands heavenly and earthly armies remains the only sufficient source of restoration.
The Lord leads, protects, gathers, and sustains Israel as His flock.
The vine cannot transplant, plant, root, or expand itself apart from the Gardener.
The vine cannot defend itself once divine protection is withdrawn.
Renewed life leads the community to call upon God.
Passersby and destructive powers remain responsible even within a divinely governed catastrophe.
The promise not to turn back follows divine revival rather than autonomous resolve.
Hope is connected to the figure strengthened by God's hand for His purpose.
The canonical trajectory of the shining face reaches God's glory revealed in Jesus Christ.
Believers receive life and preservation through communion with the crucified and risen Christ.
The Lord is Shepherd, enthroned King, Warrior, Restorer, Vinedresser, Judge, and Savior whose face brings life.
The shining of God's face is central to salvation and restoration.
The people interpret their tears and devastation under God's anger and rebuke.
The repeated refrain makes restoration a God-given act, not a human achievement.
Israel is pictured as God's flock and vine, saved and planted by Him.
The prayer for the man at God's right hand places communal hope in a divinely strengthened representative.
The psalm asks God to give life so the people will not turn away but call on His name.
The psalm supplies shepherd, vine, right-hand, and son-of-man trajectories that find fuller canonical resolution in Christ.
Theological exposition and fulfillment
- Psalm 80 forms a people who can pray for restoration without denial, nostalgia, or self-reliance. It teaches covenant memory, grief before God, dependence on divine favor, hope in God's representative provision, and longing for revival that results in faithful worship.
Psalm 80 forms a people who can pray for restoration without denial, nostalgia, or self-reliance. It teaches covenant memory, grief before God, dependence on divine favor, hope in God's representative provision, and longing for revival that results in faithful worship.
- Corporate lament that names loss truthfully
- Prayer for God's face rather than mere relief
- Remembering God's former saving work
- Confession-aware interpretation of crisis
- Seeking divine revival for renewed obedience
- Christ-centered hope in the Shepherd, true Vine, and exalted Son of Man
- Repeated prayer that strengthens endurance
- Psalm 80 is merely a personal devotional prayer for encouragement. - The psalm is corporate, covenantal, tribal, and national, addressing God as Shepherd of Israel and remembering the vine brought out of Egypt.
- The refrain is only a request for better circumstances. - The refrain asks for God's face to shine, making restored relationship with God the core of salvation.
- The vine imagery proves Israel was abandoned permanently. - The psalm asks God to return, watch over the vine, and revive His people, showing hope grounded in God's continuing claim.
- The man at God's right hand should be treated as a fully developed New Testament statement without the psalm's own horizon. - The phrase functions first in a royal-representative restoration plea, then contributes to a broader canonical trajectory fulfilled in Christ.
- Revival is something the people can produce if they try harder. - The psalm says “revive us,” placing renewed life entirely in God's hands.
- Where do I want God to repair circumstances while avoiding the deeper need for His face to shine on me?
- What former works of God should strengthen my prayers when the present feels ravaged?
- Where has spiritual vulnerability left me or my community exposed like a vineyard with broken walls?
- Do my prayers acknowledge both suffering and the seriousness of divine displeasure against sin?
- Am I asking God merely to rescue me, or to revive me so that I do not turn away from Him?
- How does Christ as Shepherd, true Vine, and exalted Son of Man deepen my hope for restoration?
- What would renewed calling on the name of the Lord look like in my household, church, or ministry?
- How can a church pray Psalm 80 without drifting into nostalgia, blame, or shallow revivalism?
- Use Psalm 80 to lead churches in honest prayer when spiritual vitality, unity, fruitfulness, or public witness has been damaged.
- The repeated refrain gives sufferers a stable prayer: restore us, make Your face shine, save us.
- The psalm guards renewal efforts from technique-driven thinking by locating restoration in God's presence, God's care, and God's reviving power.
- Trace shepherd, vine, right-hand, and son-of-man trajectories to Christ while first honoring the psalm's communal restoration setting.
- The prayer for the man at God's right hand reminds leaders that representative strength must come from God, not charisma or institutional control.
- Psalm 80 teaches believers to lament devastation without denying that divine displeasure may be part of the crisis.
- The refrain can structure responsive readings or congregational prayers around restoration, face-shining, and salvation.
The psalm does not romanticize the past; it remembers God's saving work as the basis for present dependence.
The broken vineyard wall exposes the people, but the Shepherd-King remains the only true protector.
The people are fed with tears, yet they ask for life from God and renewed calling on His name.
Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh frame the lament, while the man at God's right hand opens representative hope beyond the immediate crisis.
C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–91) — public domain
The Biblical World
Chapter At A Glance
The psalm moves from an opening cry to the Shepherd of Israel, through the repeated restoration refrain, into lament over divine anger and tears, then into the extended vine-from-Egypt memory, a plea for God to return to the ravaged vine, and finally a prayer for the man at God's right hand through whom revival and renewed covenant calling will come.
Psalm 80 is covenantal from beginning to end: God shepherded Israel, planted the vine from Egypt, gave the land, judged covenant unfaithfulness, and remains the only one who can restore His people through revived calling and representative strength.
Psalm 80 shows that God's people need restoration that is deeper than repair of circumstances. They need God's face to shine, His anger to be answered, His planted people to be revived, and a faithful representative under His right hand. The gospel resolves this need in Christ, the good Shepherd and true Vine, whose death and resurrection secure reconciliation, life, and restored communion with God.
Focus Points
- God as Shepherd of Israel
- God enthroned above the cherubim
- Divine anger and covenant discipline
- Restoration by God's shining face
- Exodus memory and vine imagery
- God as planter and keeper of His people
- The fragility of the covenant community under judgment
- Representative hope in the man at God's right hand
- Revival as renewed covenant loyalty
- Salvation grounded in God's name and presence
- Restoration
- Divine Presence
- Covenant Memory
- Judgment and Mercy
- Representative Kingship
- Revival
- Doctrine of God
- Covenant Discipline
- People of God
- Christology
Biblical Theology
- Divine PresenceTrace the divine presence thread from covenant nearness and holy manifestation to God's abiding presence with His people through Christ.Trace thread →
- Zion RestorationTrace the Zion restoration thread from prophetic hope and refuge to the heavenly Zion where God's gathered people draw near through Christ.Trace thread →
- Covenant Love and ObedienceTrace the covenant love and obedience theme from God's commanded covenant fidelity to the new-covenant life of walking in truth, love, and obedience through Christ.Trace thread →
- People of GodTrace the people of God thread from covenant calling and gathered identity to the redeemed community united in Christ and gathered for God's name.Trace thread →
- RemnantTrace the remnant thread where God preserves, purifies, gathers, and reestablishes a people for His covenant purposes through judgment and mercy.Trace thread →
- Messianic HopeTrace the messianic hope thread from covenant promise and prophetic expectation to the clearer identification of Jesus as the promised ruler, priest, and deliverer.Trace thread →
- KingdomTrace the kingdom thread from God's royal rule and promised dominion to the unshakable reign received and secured in Christ.Trace thread →
- Gospel and Repentance and FaithThe gospel calls sinners not merely to admire Jesus Christ or agree with Christian ideas, but to repent and believe. Repentance and faith are the fitting human response to the saving announcement of Christ crucified and risen, and they belong together as grace-enabled turning from sin and turning to God in Christ. The gospel is not complete in ministry if it is explained without this summons. Where the gospel is central, repentance and faith are preached clearly, pastorally, and urgently as the necessary response to the lordship and saving work of Jesus.
- Gospel and SufferingThe gospel and suffering belong together because the crucified and risen Christ saves His people not only from sin's guilt, but also teaches them how to endure affliction in union with Him. Suffering is not itself the gospel, yet the gospel gives suffering its truest interpretation by revealing God's holiness, Christ's cross, resurrection hope, and the promise that present affliction will not have the final word. Christian suffering is therefore neither meaningless pain nor automatic evidence of divine displeasure. Where the gospel is central, the church learns to suffer honestly, endure faithfully, comfort wisely, and hope stubbornly in the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Gospel and PerseveranceThe gospel of Jesus Christ not only saves sinners but secures and sustains them to the end. Through union with Christ and the preserving work of God, those who truly belong to Christ continue in faith, repentance, and obedience. Perseverance therefore reveals the enduring power of the cross and resurrection in the life of the believer. The same grace that begins salvation also carries believers forward until the final day of redemption.
Passages
Chapter opening: Psalms 80:1-3
Psa 80:4-7 In the second strophe there issues forth bitter complaint concerning the form of wrath which the present assumes, and, thus confirmed, the petition rises anew. The transferring of the smoking (עשׁן) of God’s nostrils = the hard breathing of anger (Psa 74:1, Deu 29:19), to God Himself is bold, but in keeping with the spirit of the Biblical view of the wrath of God (vid.
, on Psa 18:9), so that there is no need to avoid the expression by calling in the aid of the Syriac word עשׁן, to be strong, powerful (why art Thou hard, why dost Thou harden Thyself...) The perfect after עד־מתי has the sense of a present with a retrospective glance, as in Exo 10:3, cf. עד־אנה, to be understood after the analogy of חרה בּ (to kindle = to be angry against any one), for the prayer of the people is not an object of wrath, but only not a means of turning it aside.
While the prayer is being presented, God veils Himself in the smoke of wrath, through which it is not able to penetrate. The lxx translators have read בתפלת עבדיך, for they render ἐπὶ τὴν προσευχήν τῶν δούλων σου (for which the common reading is τοῦ δούλου σου). Bread of tears is, according to Psa 42:4, bread consisting of tears; tears, running down in streams upon the lips of the praying and fasting one, are his meat and his drink.
השׁקה with an accusative signifies to give something to drink, and followed by Beth , to give to drink by means of something, but it is not to be translated: potitandum das eis cum lacrymis trientem (De Dieu, von Ortenberg, and Hitzig). שׁלישׁ (Talmudic, a third part) is the accusative of more precise definition (Vatablus, Gesenius, Olshausen, and Hupfeld): by thirds (lxx ἐν μέτρῳ, Symmachus μέτρῳ); for a third of an ephah is certainly a very small measure for the dust of the earth (Isa 40:12), but a large one for tears.
The neighbours are the neighbouring nations, to whom Israel is become מדון, an object, a butt of contention. In למו is expressed the pleasure which the mocking gives them.
Psa 80:4-7 In the second strophe there issues forth bitter complaint concerning the form of wrath which the present assumes, and, thus confirmed, the petition rises anew. The transferring of the smoking (עשׁן) of God’s nostrils = the hard breathing of anger (Psa 74:1, Deu 29:19), to God Himself is bold, but in keeping with the spirit of the Biblical view of the wrath of God (vid.
, on Psa 18:9), so that there is no need to avoid the expression by calling in the aid of the Syriac word עשׁן, to be strong, powerful (why art Thou hard, why dost Thou harden Thyself...) The perfect after עד־מתי has the sense of a present with a retrospective glance, as in Exo 10:3, cf. עד־אנה, to be understood after the analogy of חרה בּ (to kindle = to be angry against any one), for the prayer of the people is not an object of wrath, but only not a means of turning it aside.
While the prayer is being presented, God veils Himself in the smoke of wrath, through which it is not able to penetrate. The lxx translators have read בתפלת עבדיך, for they render ἐπὶ τὴν προσευχήν τῶν δούλων σου (for which the common reading is τοῦ δούλου σου). Bread of tears is, according to Psa 42:4, bread consisting of tears; tears, running down in streams upon the lips of the praying and fasting one, are his meat and his drink.
השׁקה with an accusative signifies to give something to drink, and followed by Beth , to give to drink by means of something, but it is not to be translated: potitandum das eis cum lacrymis trientem (De Dieu, von Ortenberg, and Hitzig). שׁלישׁ (Talmudic, a third part) is the accusative of more precise definition (Vatablus, Gesenius, Olshausen, and Hupfeld): by thirds (lxx ἐν μέτρῳ, Symmachus μέτρῳ); for a third of an ephah is certainly a very small measure for the dust of the earth (Isa 40:12), but a large one for tears.
The neighbours are the neighbouring nations, to whom Israel is become מדון, an object, a butt of contention. In למו is expressed the pleasure which the mocking gives them.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Psa 80:8-19 The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus , inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew.
§136, b ). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בּן) of a fruitful growth (פּרת), whose shoots (בּנות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גּפן פּריּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הסּיע, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פּנּהּ, to clear, from פּנה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija , to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i. e. , struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6).
The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תּשׁלּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שׁלח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תּשׁרשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid.
, Deu 11:24 and other passages). צלּהּ and ענפיה are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קציר is a cutting = a branch; יונקת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; ארזי־אל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical.
But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore? ” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (ארה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin ) cuts it off (כּרסם, formed out of כּסם = גּזם viz.
, with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid. , concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i. e. , the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e. g. , the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt.
The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs. In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נא הבּט is to be understood according to Ges.
§142. The junction by means of ו is at once opposed to the supposition that וכּנּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפקד. Nor can it mean its (the vine’s) stand or base, כּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand. ” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper.
aor . 1. med. , therefore in the sense of כּוננה. But the alternation of על (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ , to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כּנן = כּוּן, but from כּנן Arab. kanna = גּנן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn , a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...
or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כּנּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גּל, volve , Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כנּה.
At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אשׁר, eum quem , also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16 . Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פּקד על can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine?
If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant.
אמּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti. The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גּפן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for ארה; Arabic, ksḥ , to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יאבדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God.
The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תּהי־ידך על coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf.
Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus , vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation.
To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i. e. , make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time.
The name of God is here threefold.
Ps 80, which looks back into the time of the leading forth out of Egypt, is followed by another with the very same Asaphic thoroughly characteristic feature of a retrospective glance at Israel’s early history (cf. More particularly Psa 81:11 with Psa 80:9). In Psalms 81 the lyric element of Ps 77 is combined with the didactic element of Ps 78. The unity of these Psalms is indubitable.
All three have towards the close the appearance of being fragmentary. Fro the author delights to ascend to the height of his subject and to go down into the depth of it, without returning to the point from which he started. In Ps 77 Israel as a whole was called “the sons of Jacob and Joseph;” in Ps 78 we read “the sons of Ephraim” instead of the whole nation; here it is briefly called “Joseph.
” This also indicates the one author. Then Psalms 81, exactly like Psa 79:1-13, is based upon the Pentateuchal history in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Jahve Himself speaks through the mouth of the poet, as He did once through the mouth of Moses - Asaph is κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν the prophet (חזה) among the psalmists. The transition from one form of speech to another which accompanies the rapid alternation of feelings, what the Arabs call talwı̂n el - chitab , “a colouring of a speech by a change of the persons,” is also characteristic of him, as later on of Micah (e.
g. , Mic 6:15.) This Psalms 81 is according to ancient custom the Jewish New Year’s Psalm, the Psalm of the Feast of Trumpets (Num 29:1), therefore the Psalm of the first (and second) of Tishri; it is, however, a question whether the blowing of the horn ( shophar ) at the new moon, which it calls upon them to do, does not rather apply to the first of Nisan, to the ecclesiastical New Year.
In the weekly liturgy of the Temple it was the Psalm for the Thursday. The poet calls upon them to give a jubilant welcome to the approaching festive season, and in Psa 81:7. Jahve Himself makes Himself heard as the Preacher of the festival. He reminds those now living of His loving-kindness towards ancient Israel, and admonishes them not to incur the guilt of like unfaithfulness, in order that they may not lose the like tokens of His loving-kindness.
What festive season is it? Either the Feast of the Passover or the Feast of Tabernacles; for it must be one of these two feasts which begin on the day of the full moon. Because it is one having reference to the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, the Targum, Talmud (more particularly Rosh ha - Shana , where this Psalm is much discussed), Midrash, and Sohar understand the Feast of Tabernacles; because Psa 81:2-4 seem to refer to the new moon of the seventh month, which is celebrated before the other new moons (Num 10:10), as יום התּרוּעה (Num 29:1, cf.
Lev 23:24), i. e. , to the first of Tishri, the civil New Year; and the blowing of horns at the New Year, is, certainly not according to Scripture, but yet according to tradition (vid. , Maimonides, Hilchoth Shophar Psa 1:2), a very ancient arrangement. Nevertheless we must give up this reference of the Psalm to the first of Tishri and to the Feast of Tabernacles, which begins with the fifteenth of Tishri: - (1) Because between the high feast-day of the first of Tishri and the Feast of Tabernacles on the fifteenth to the twenty-first (twenty-second) of Tishri lies the great day of Atonement on the tenth of Tishri, which would be ignored, by greeting the festive season with a joyful noise from the first of Tishri forthwith to the fifteenth.
(2) Because the remembrance of the redemption of Israel clings far more characteristically to the Feast of the Passover than to the Feast of Tabernacles. This latter appears in the oldest law-giving (Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22) as חג האסיף, i. e. , as a feast of the ingathering of the autumn fruits, and therefore as the closing festival of the whole harvest; it does not receive the historical reference to the journey through the desert, and therewith its character of a feast of booths or arbours, until the addition in Lev 23:39-44, having reference to the carrying out of the celebration of the feasts in Canaan; whereas the feast which begins with the full moon of Nisan has, it is true, not been entirely free of all reference to agriculture, but from the very beginning bears the historical names פּסח and חג המּצּות.
(3) Because in the Psalm itself, viz. , in Psa 81:6 , allusion is made to the fact which the Passover commemorates. Concerning על־הגּתּית vid. , on Psa 8:1. The symmetrical, stichic plan of the Psalm is clear: the schema is 11. 12. 12.
Psa 81:1-5 The summons in Psa 81:2 is addressed to the whole congregation, inasmuch as הריעוּ is not intended of the clanging of the trumpets, but as in Ezr 3:11, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:3 is addressed to the Levites, the appointed singers and musicians in connection with the divine services, 2Ch 5:12, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:4 is addressed to the priests, to whom was committed not only the blowing of the two (later on a hundred and twenty, vid.
, 2Ch 5:12) silver trumpets, but who appear also in Jos 6:4 and elsewhere (cf. Psa 47:6 with 2Ch 20:28) as the blowers of the shophar. The Talmud observes that since the destruction of the Temple the names of instruments שׁופרא and חצוצרתּא are wont to be confounded one for the other ( B. Sabbath 36 a , Succa 34 a ), and, itself confounding them, infers from Num 10:10 the duty and significance of the blowing of the shophar ( B.
Erachin 3 b ). The lxx also renders both by σάλπιγξ; but the Biblical language mentions שׁופר and חצצרה, a horn (more especially a ram’s horn) and a (metal) trumpet, side by side in Psa 98:6; 1Ch 15:28, and is therefore conscious of a difference between them. The Tôra says nothing of the employment of the shophar in connection with divine service, except that the commencement of every fiftieth year, which on this very account is called שׁנת היּבל, annus buccinae , is to be made known by the horn signal throughout all the land (Lev 25:9).
But just as tradition by means of an inference from analogy derives the blowing of the shophar on the first of Tishri, the beginning of the common year, from this precept, so on the ground of the passage of the Psalm before us, assuming that בּחרשׁ, lxx ἐν νεομηνίᾳ, refers not to the first of Tishri but to the first of Nisan, we may suppose that the beginning of every month, but, in particular, the beginning of the month which was at the same time the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was celebrated by a blowing of the shophar, as, according to Josephus, Bell . iv.
9, 12, the beginning and close of the Sabbath was announced from the top of the Temple by a priest with the salpinx. The poet means to say that the Feast of the Passover is to be saluted by the congregation with shouts of joy, by the Levites with music, and even beginning from the new moon ( neomenia ) of the Passover month with blowing of shophars, and that this is to be continued at the Feast of the Passover itself.
The Feast of the Passover, for which Hupfeld devises a gloomy physiognomy, was a joyous festival, the Old Testament Christmas. 2Ch 30:21 testifies to the exultation of the people and the boisterous music of the Levite priests, with which it was celebrated. According to Num 10:10, the trumpeting of the priests was connected with the sacrifices; and that the slaying of the paschal lambs took place amidst the Tantaratan of the priests (long-drawn notes interspersed with sharp shrill ones, תקיעה תרועה וקיעה), is expressly related of the post-exilic service at least.
The phrase נתן תּף proceeds from the phrase נתן קול, according to which נתן directly means: to attune, strike up, cause to be heard. Concerning כּסה (Pro 7:20 כּסא) tradition is uncertain. The Talmudic interpretation ( B. Rosh ha-Shana 8 b , Betza 16 a , and the Targum which is taken from it), according to which it is the day of the new moon (the first of the month), on which the moon hides itself, i.
e. , is not to be seen at all in the morning, and in the evening only for a short time immediately after sunset, and the interpretation that is adopted by a still more imposing array of authorities (lxx, Vulgate, Menahem, Rashi, Jacob Tam, Aben-Ezra, Parchon, and others), according to which a time fixed by computation (from כּסה = כּסס, computare ) is so named in general, are outweighed by the usage of the Syriac, in which Keso denotes the full moon as the moon with covered, i.
e. , filled-up orb, and therefore the fifteenth of the month, but also the time from that point onwards, perhaps because then the moon covers itself, inasmuch as its shining surface appears each day less large (cf. the Peshîto, 1Ki 12:32 of the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 2Ch 7:10 of the twenty-third day of the seventh month, in both instances of the Feast of Tabernacles), after which, too, in the passage before us it is rendered wa - b - kese , which a Syro-Arabic glossary (in Rosenmüller) explains festa quae sunt in medio mensis .
The Peshîto here, like the Targum, proceeds from the reading חגּינוּ, which, following the lxx and the best texts, is to be rejected in comparison with the singular חגּנוּ. If, however, it is to be read chgnw, and כּסה (according to Kimchi with Segol not merely in the second syllable, but with double Segol כּסה, after the form טנא = טנא) signifies not interlunium , but plenilunium (instead of which also Jerome has in medio mense , and in Pro 7:20, in die plenae lunae , Aquila ἡμέρᾳ πανσελήνου), then what is meant is either the Feast of Tabernacles, which is called absolutely החג in 1Ki 8:2 (2Ch 5:3) and elsewhere, or the Passover, which is also so called in Isa 30:29 and elsewhere.
Here, as Psa 81:5 will convince us, the latter is intended, the Feast of unleavened bread, the porch of which, so to speak, is ערב פּסח together with the ליל שׁמּרים (Exo 12:42), the night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of Nisan. In Psa 81:2, Psa 81:3 they are called upon to give a welcome to this feast. The blowing of the shophar is to announce the commencement of the Passover month, and at the commencement of the Passover day which opens the Feast of unleavened bread it is to be renewed.
The ל of ליום is not meant temporally, as perhaps in Job 21:30 : at the day = on the day; for why was it not ביום? It is rather: towards the day, but בכסה assumes that the day has already arrived; it is the same Lamed as in Psa 81:2, the blowing of the shophar is to concern this feast-day, it is to sound in honour of it.
Psa 81:1-5 The summons in Psa 81:2 is addressed to the whole congregation, inasmuch as הריעוּ is not intended of the clanging of the trumpets, but as in Ezr 3:11, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:3 is addressed to the Levites, the appointed singers and musicians in connection with the divine services, 2Ch 5:12, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:4 is addressed to the priests, to whom was committed not only the blowing of the two (later on a hundred and twenty, vid.
, 2Ch 5:12) silver trumpets, but who appear also in Jos 6:4 and elsewhere (cf. Psa 47:6 with 2Ch 20:28) as the blowers of the shophar. The Talmud observes that since the destruction of the Temple the names of instruments שׁופרא and חצוצרתּא are wont to be confounded one for the other ( B. Sabbath 36 a , Succa 34 a ), and, itself confounding them, infers from Num 10:10 the duty and significance of the blowing of the shophar ( B.
Erachin 3 b ). The lxx also renders both by σάλπιγξ; but the Biblical language mentions שׁופר and חצצרה, a horn (more especially a ram’s horn) and a (metal) trumpet, side by side in Psa 98:6; 1Ch 15:28, and is therefore conscious of a difference between them. The Tôra says nothing of the employment of the shophar in connection with divine service, except that the commencement of every fiftieth year, which on this very account is called שׁנת היּבל, annus buccinae , is to be made known by the horn signal throughout all the land (Lev 25:9).
But just as tradition by means of an inference from analogy derives the blowing of the shophar on the first of Tishri, the beginning of the common year, from this precept, so on the ground of the passage of the Psalm before us, assuming that בּחרשׁ, lxx ἐν νεομηνίᾳ, refers not to the first of Tishri but to the first of Nisan, we may suppose that the beginning of every month, but, in particular, the beginning of the month which was at the same time the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was celebrated by a blowing of the shophar, as, according to Josephus, Bell . iv.
9, 12, the beginning and close of the Sabbath was announced from the top of the Temple by a priest with the salpinx. The poet means to say that the Feast of the Passover is to be saluted by the congregation with shouts of joy, by the Levites with music, and even beginning from the new moon ( neomenia ) of the Passover month with blowing of shophars, and that this is to be continued at the Feast of the Passover itself.
The Feast of the Passover, for which Hupfeld devises a gloomy physiognomy, was a joyous festival, the Old Testament Christmas. 2Ch 30:21 testifies to the exultation of the people and the boisterous music of the Levite priests, with which it was celebrated. According to Num 10:10, the trumpeting of the priests was connected with the sacrifices; and that the slaying of the paschal lambs took place amidst the Tantaratan of the priests (long-drawn notes interspersed with sharp shrill ones, תקיעה תרועה וקיעה), is expressly related of the post-exilic service at least.
The phrase נתן תּף proceeds from the phrase נתן קול, according to which נתן directly means: to attune, strike up, cause to be heard. Concerning כּסה (Pro 7:20 כּסא) tradition is uncertain. The Talmudic interpretation ( B. Rosh ha-Shana 8 b , Betza 16 a , and the Targum which is taken from it), according to which it is the day of the new moon (the first of the month), on which the moon hides itself, i.
e. , is not to be seen at all in the morning, and in the evening only for a short time immediately after sunset, and the interpretation that is adopted by a still more imposing array of authorities (lxx, Vulgate, Menahem, Rashi, Jacob Tam, Aben-Ezra, Parchon, and others), according to which a time fixed by computation (from כּסה = כּסס, computare ) is so named in general, are outweighed by the usage of the Syriac, in which Keso denotes the full moon as the moon with covered, i.
e. , filled-up orb, and therefore the fifteenth of the month, but also the time from that point onwards, perhaps because then the moon covers itself, inasmuch as its shining surface appears each day less large (cf. the Peshîto, 1Ki 12:32 of the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 2Ch 7:10 of the twenty-third day of the seventh month, in both instances of the Feast of Tabernacles), after which, too, in the passage before us it is rendered wa - b - kese , which a Syro-Arabic glossary (in Rosenmüller) explains festa quae sunt in medio mensis .
The Peshîto here, like the Targum, proceeds from the reading חגּינוּ, which, following the lxx and the best texts, is to be rejected in comparison with the singular חגּנוּ. If, however, it is to be read chgnw, and כּסה (according to Kimchi with Segol not merely in the second syllable, but with double Segol כּסה, after the form טנא = טנא) signifies not interlunium , but plenilunium (instead of which also Jerome has in medio mense , and in Pro 7:20, in die plenae lunae , Aquila ἡμέρᾳ πανσελήνου), then what is meant is either the Feast of Tabernacles, which is called absolutely החג in 1Ki 8:2 (2Ch 5:3) and elsewhere, or the Passover, which is also so called in Isa 30:29 and elsewhere.
Here, as Psa 81:5 will convince us, the latter is intended, the Feast of unleavened bread, the porch of which, so to speak, is ערב פּסח together with the ליל שׁמּרים (Exo 12:42), the night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of Nisan. In Psa 81:2, Psa 81:3 they are called upon to give a welcome to this feast. The blowing of the shophar is to announce the commencement of the Passover month, and at the commencement of the Passover day which opens the Feast of unleavened bread it is to be renewed.
The ל of ליום is not meant temporally, as perhaps in Job 21:30 : at the day = on the day; for why was it not ביום? It is rather: towards the day, but בכסה assumes that the day has already arrived; it is the same Lamed as in Psa 81:2, the blowing of the shophar is to concern this feast-day, it is to sound in honour of it.
Psa 81:1-5 The summons in Psa 81:2 is addressed to the whole congregation, inasmuch as הריעוּ is not intended of the clanging of the trumpets, but as in Ezr 3:11, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:3 is addressed to the Levites, the appointed singers and musicians in connection with the divine services, 2Ch 5:12, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:4 is addressed to the priests, to whom was committed not only the blowing of the two (later on a hundred and twenty, vid.
, 2Ch 5:12) silver trumpets, but who appear also in Jos 6:4 and elsewhere (cf. Psa 47:6 with 2Ch 20:28) as the blowers of the shophar. The Talmud observes that since the destruction of the Temple the names of instruments שׁופרא and חצוצרתּא are wont to be confounded one for the other ( B. Sabbath 36 a , Succa 34 a ), and, itself confounding them, infers from Num 10:10 the duty and significance of the blowing of the shophar ( B.
Erachin 3 b ). The lxx also renders both by σάλπιγξ; but the Biblical language mentions שׁופר and חצצרה, a horn (more especially a ram’s horn) and a (metal) trumpet, side by side in Psa 98:6; 1Ch 15:28, and is therefore conscious of a difference between them. The Tôra says nothing of the employment of the shophar in connection with divine service, except that the commencement of every fiftieth year, which on this very account is called שׁנת היּבל, annus buccinae , is to be made known by the horn signal throughout all the land (Lev 25:9).
But just as tradition by means of an inference from analogy derives the blowing of the shophar on the first of Tishri, the beginning of the common year, from this precept, so on the ground of the passage of the Psalm before us, assuming that בּחרשׁ, lxx ἐν νεομηνίᾳ, refers not to the first of Tishri but to the first of Nisan, we may suppose that the beginning of every month, but, in particular, the beginning of the month which was at the same time the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was celebrated by a blowing of the shophar, as, according to Josephus, Bell . iv.
9, 12, the beginning and close of the Sabbath was announced from the top of the Temple by a priest with the salpinx. The poet means to say that the Feast of the Passover is to be saluted by the congregation with shouts of joy, by the Levites with music, and even beginning from the new moon ( neomenia ) of the Passover month with blowing of shophars, and that this is to be continued at the Feast of the Passover itself.
The Feast of the Passover, for which Hupfeld devises a gloomy physiognomy, was a joyous festival, the Old Testament Christmas. 2Ch 30:21 testifies to the exultation of the people and the boisterous music of the Levite priests, with which it was celebrated. According to Num 10:10, the trumpeting of the priests was connected with the sacrifices; and that the slaying of the paschal lambs took place amidst the Tantaratan of the priests (long-drawn notes interspersed with sharp shrill ones, תקיעה תרועה וקיעה), is expressly related of the post-exilic service at least.
The phrase נתן תּף proceeds from the phrase נתן קול, according to which נתן directly means: to attune, strike up, cause to be heard. Concerning כּסה (Pro 7:20 כּסא) tradition is uncertain. The Talmudic interpretation ( B. Rosh ha-Shana 8 b , Betza 16 a , and the Targum which is taken from it), according to which it is the day of the new moon (the first of the month), on which the moon hides itself, i.
e. , is not to be seen at all in the morning, and in the evening only for a short time immediately after sunset, and the interpretation that is adopted by a still more imposing array of authorities (lxx, Vulgate, Menahem, Rashi, Jacob Tam, Aben-Ezra, Parchon, and others), according to which a time fixed by computation (from כּסה = כּסס, computare ) is so named in general, are outweighed by the usage of the Syriac, in which Keso denotes the full moon as the moon with covered, i.
e. , filled-up orb, and therefore the fifteenth of the month, but also the time from that point onwards, perhaps because then the moon covers itself, inasmuch as its shining surface appears each day less large (cf. the Peshîto, 1Ki 12:32 of the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 2Ch 7:10 of the twenty-third day of the seventh month, in both instances of the Feast of Tabernacles), after which, too, in the passage before us it is rendered wa - b - kese , which a Syro-Arabic glossary (in Rosenmüller) explains festa quae sunt in medio mensis .
The Peshîto here, like the Targum, proceeds from the reading חגּינוּ, which, following the lxx and the best texts, is to be rejected in comparison with the singular חגּנוּ. If, however, it is to be read chgnw, and כּסה (according to Kimchi with Segol not merely in the second syllable, but with double Segol כּסה, after the form טנא = טנא) signifies not interlunium , but plenilunium (instead of which also Jerome has in medio mense , and in Pro 7:20, in die plenae lunae , Aquila ἡμέρᾳ πανσελήνου), then what is meant is either the Feast of Tabernacles, which is called absolutely החג in 1Ki 8:2 (2Ch 5:3) and elsewhere, or the Passover, which is also so called in Isa 30:29 and elsewhere.
Here, as Psa 81:5 will convince us, the latter is intended, the Feast of unleavened bread, the porch of which, so to speak, is ערב פּסח together with the ליל שׁמּרים (Exo 12:42), the night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of Nisan. In Psa 81:2, Psa 81:3 they are called upon to give a welcome to this feast. The blowing of the shophar is to announce the commencement of the Passover month, and at the commencement of the Passover day which opens the Feast of unleavened bread it is to be renewed.
The ל of ליום is not meant temporally, as perhaps in Job 21:30 : at the day = on the day; for why was it not ביום? It is rather: towards the day, but בכסה assumes that the day has already arrived; it is the same Lamed as in Psa 81:2, the blowing of the shophar is to concern this feast-day, it is to sound in honour of it.