Bird's-eye view
This section of Psalm 80 is a raw and honest lament from a people under the heavy hand of God's discipline. The psalmist, speaking for the nation, is in a state of confusion and desperation. They are praying, as they have been taught, but their prayers seem only to provoke God's anger. Their national life is characterized by sorrow, humiliation, and mockery from their neighbors. This is not just bad luck; the psalmist recognizes God's own hand in their misery. He is the one feeding them tears and setting them up as an object of strife. The passage climaxes with the second iteration of the psalm's central refrain, a desperate and yet faith-filled plea for God to act, to restore them, and to turn His favorable countenance back toward them. This is the cry of a covenant people who know that their only hope for salvation lies in the very God who is currently chastising them.
The core of the problem is a kind of divine Catch-22. Because they are under judgment, they are moved to pray. But because they are under judgment, God is angry with their very prayers. This is a profound spiritual crisis. The solution, as the psalmist knows, is not to be found in their own efforts or in trying to appease God through some new ritual. The solution is entirely of grace. God must be the one to initiate the restoration. He must turn them, and then His face shining upon them will be their salvation. This is a deep recognition of the sovereignty of God in both judgment and salvation, and it points forward to the gospel, where God turns His face to shine upon us in the face of Jesus Christ, the one who drank the ultimate cup of tears on our behalf.
Outline
- 1. The Paradox of Prayer Under Discipline (Ps 80:4-7)
- a. The Agonized Question: God's Anger at Prayer (Ps 80:4)
- b. The Diet of Judgment: A Feast of Tears (Ps 80:5)
- c. The Public Humiliation: A Spectacle of Strife (Ps 80:6)
- d. The Only Solution: The Plea for Divine Restoration (Ps 80:7)
Context In Psalms
Psalm 80 is one of the psalms of Asaph, a national lament likely written after the northern kingdom of Israel was taken into Assyrian captivity. The mention of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh (v. 2) points to the northern tribes. The psalm is structured around a threefold refrain that builds in intensity: "Restore us, O God; cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved" (v. 3), "Restore us, O God of hosts..." (v. 7), and "Restore us, O Yahweh God of hosts..." (v. 19). This section (vv. 4-7) forms the first full lament after the initial invocation. It establishes the severity of the people's condition and the apparent paradox of their relationship with God before the psalm moves into the extended metaphor of Israel as a vine that God planted and then abandoned to be ravaged (vv. 8-16).
Key Issues
- The Nature of God's Anger
- Divine Chastisement of the Covenant People
- The Efficacy of Prayer During Judgment
- Corporate Suffering and Repentance
- The Meaning of God's "Face"
- The Sovereignty of God in Salvation
The Smoke of God's Anger
When we find ourselves in deep trouble, the first thing we are told to do is pray. But what happens when our prayers seem to make things worse? What do you do when the heavens are not brass, but are instead actively hostile? This is the crisis at the heart of this passage. The psalmist uses a striking image: God's anger "smolders" against their prayer. The Hebrew word here means to smoke. It is as though their prayers are ascending to God, but instead of being a sweet-smelling incense, they are met with the smoke of divine displeasure. This is a terrible place to be.
It is crucial that we understand this is not the petulance of a pagan deity. This is the disciplined, covenantal anger of a holy Father. When God's people are walking in sin, their sin infects everything they do, including their worship. Their prayers are still the prayers of a people in rebellion, and so God, in His holiness, cannot simply receive them as though nothing were wrong. The chastisement is intended to bring them to a point of genuine, heartfelt repentance, not just a flurry of desperate petitions to make the pain stop. This is a hard but necessary lesson. Until the heart is right, the prayers will continue to be met with smoke.
Verse by Verse Commentary
4 O Yahweh God of hosts, How long will You smolder against the prayer of Your people?
The address itself is significant. He calls on Yahweh God of hosts, the covenant-keeping God who is Lord of armies. This is an appeal to God's character and power. He is the God who made promises to them, and He is the God who commands all the powers of heaven. The question is one of desperation: "How long?" This is the cry of every saint under trial. But the object of God's smoldering anger is shocking. It is not directed at their sin, though that is the root cause. It is directed against their prayer. They are doing the very thing they are supposed to do in a crisis, and it is not working. This reveals the depth of their predicament. When the lines of communication to headquarters are not just down, but are seemingly met with return fire, the situation is dire indeed. This is the dark night of the soul for a nation.
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, And You have made them to drink tears in large measure.
The psalmist does not attribute their suffering to fate or to the superior power of their enemies. He sees the sovereign hand of God squarely behind it. "You have fed them... You have made them to drink." God is hosting a banquet of judgment, and the only items on the menu are sorrow and grief. The "bread of tears" signifies that their sorrow is their daily sustenance; it is as common and as necessary as bread. But it does not nourish. And the drink is the same: tears, served not in a dainty cup, but "in large measure." The word for "large measure" (shalish) can refer to a large bowl, perhaps a third of an ephah. God is making them drink their grief from a bucket. This is a picture of overwhelming, immersive sorrow, a sorrow that has been decreed and administered by God Himself as a necessary part of their covenant discipline.
6 You set us as an object of strife to our neighbors, And our enemies mock us among themselves.
Again, the pronoun is emphatic: "You set us." Their political and social humiliation is also part of God's curriculum. He has made them an "object of strife." This means their neighbors contend and quarrel over them, likely over who gets to plunder their land. Israel has become a bone for dogs to fight over. They are no longer a respected nation, a light to the Gentiles, but have become pathetic and contemptible. This strife is accompanied by mockery. Their enemies laugh at them. And why not? The people of Yahweh, who claimed their God was the one true God, are now prostrate and defeated. Their plight is seen as proof of their God's impotence, and so the mockery is not just directed at Israel, but ultimately at God Himself. This public shame is a profound element of the chastisement.
7 O God of hosts, restore us And cause Your face to shine upon us, that we might be saved.
After detailing the problem, the psalmist returns to the only possible solution. This is the central refrain of the psalm. He cries out again to the "God of hosts," the God of armies who is able to save. The plea has two parts. First, "restore us." The Hebrew is literally "turn us back." This is a recognition that they cannot turn themselves. Repentance itself is a gift. They are asking God to do the work in them that is necessary for fellowship to be restored. They are not saying, "We will repent, and then You restore us." They are saying, "You must initiate the turning, or it will never happen." Second, he asks God to "cause Your face to shine upon us." This is a direct echo of the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6:25. The shining face of God is the manifestation of His favor, His grace, His blessing. When God's face is turned toward His people, there is light, warmth, and life. When He turns His face away, there is darkness, judgment, and death. The psalmist knows that salvation is not found in a change of circumstances, but in a change in their relationship with God. If God will simply turn His face back to them in favor, salvation will be the inevitable result.
Application
This passage is a bucket of cold water for any Christian who imagines that the life of faith is a stroll through a field of daisies. There are times when God, out of love, will discipline His children, and that discipline can be severe. There will be seasons when our prayers seem to hit a ceiling of smoke, when our life is characterized more by tears than by laughter, and when the world looks on and mocks our faith.
What do we do in such a time? We do what the psalmist does. We refuse to blame circumstances. We acknowledge God's sovereign hand in our afflictions, knowing that He is our Father and does not discipline us for His pleasure, but for our good, that we may share in His holiness. We also refuse to give up on prayer. Even when it feels like our prayers are angering God, we persist, because He is our only hope. We must learn to distinguish between God's ultimate, unchanging love for us in Christ and His present, fatherly displeasure with our sin.
Most importantly, we must anchor our hope not in our own ability to repent or fix ourselves, but in God's sovereign grace to restore us. Our prayer must be, "Lord, turn me! Turn my heart back to you, for I cannot do it on my own." And we must long for the shining face of God. We have seen that face most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). When we are eating the bread of tears, we must remember the true Bread of Life who was broken for us, and who, by His suffering, ensures that one day God's face will shine upon us forever, and all our tears will be wiped away.