Restore Us, God
1 For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm by Asaph. Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit above the cherubim, shine out. 2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up your might! Come to save us! 3 Turn us again, God. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved. 4 Yahweh God of Armies, how long will you be angry against the prayer of your people? 5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure. 6 You make us a source of contention to our neighbors. Our enemies laugh among themselves. 7 Turn us again, God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved. 8 You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it. 9 You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with its shadow. Its boughs were like God’s cedars. 11 It sent out its branches to the sea, its shoots to the River. 12 Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it? 13 The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it. 14 Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine, 15 the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself. 16 It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke. 17 Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself. 18 So we will not turn away from you. Revive us, and we will call on your name. 19 Turn us again, Yahweh God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.
A vine brought out of Egypt, planted, grown, and then left with its walls broken down for anyone to pick.
For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm by Asaph. Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit above the cherubim, shine out.
Two images in one verse and they are deliberately mismatched. A shepherd walks ahead of animals in open country; the one enthroned above the cherubim is in the inner room of the sanctuary, behind a veil. The psalm asks the second to behave like the first.
Turn us again, God. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.
The refrain, and it returns at verses seven and nineteen with the divine title growing longer each time — God, then God of Armies, then Yahweh God of Armies. The prayer intensifies by expanding the name it is addressed to.
And the grammar of it matters. Turn us again — the restoration asked for is of the people, not of their circumstances, and it is something God is asked to do to them rather than something they undertake.
You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.
Grief as the whole diet, food and drink both, and served in quantity. The phrase is literally tears by the third — a measure, as though it were being poured out by the bowl.
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it. 9 You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, and filled the land.
The great image of the psalm, and it retells the whole national history as horticulture. Four verbs of careful work: brought, planted, cleared, and then the growth. The mountains were covered with its shadow. Its boughs were like God's cedars Psalms 80:10.
Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?
The question is the psalm's whole complaint. A vineyard's wall is what makes it a vineyard rather than scrub; without it, the fruit belongs to whoever is walking past. And the psalm does not ask who broke it down. It asks God why he did.
The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.
A wild pig in a vineyard destroys far more than it eats, rooting up the stock itself.
Isaiah takes up the same figure and turns it into a case at law, where the vineyard is judged for producing bad fruit Isaiah 5:1–7; Jesus takes it further and says I am the true vine John 15:1 — the vine that does what this one failed to do.
Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself.
The psalm's request narrows to one figure. Whatever the writer meant by it, the phrase son of man placed beside a vine is the vocabulary the Gospels later use, and the request is that God's hand be on him rather than against him.
So we will not turn away from you. Revive us, and we will call on your name.
The order is the psalm's theology: revival first, then calling.
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