The Broken Hedge and the Man of Your Right Hand Text: Psalm 80:8-19
Introduction: The Logic of Covenant History
The story of God's people is a story of covenant. It is a story with a distinct grammar, a divine logic. And that logic includes both blessing and cursing, growth and judgment, exile and restoration. We modern Christians often want a story with only a second act. We want the blessings, the growth, the victory, but we are frequently baffled and offended when the curses for disobedience arrive right on schedule. We want the vine to fill the land, but we don't want to hear anything about the hedges being broken down. But God is not a sentimentalist; He is a covenant-keeping God, and He keeps all of His covenant promises, including the threats.
Psalm 80 is a corporate lament. It is the cry of a people who have known staggering blessing and are now experiencing staggering discipline. Asaph, the psalmist, is not questioning God's existence; he is appealing to God's history. He is taking God's own resume, spreading it out before Him, and asking a question that is both audacious and entirely faithful: "Why?" This is not the "why" of faithless rebellion, but the "why" of covenantal confusion. "You planted us. You made us grow. You are the one who did all this. So why are you now the one tearing it all down?"
This psalm teaches us how to pray when we are in the wreckage. It teaches us how to think when our nation, our church, or our family is experiencing the sharp end of God's fatherly displeasure. It is a psalm that recounts the story of God's goodness, confronts the reality of God's judgment, and points to the only hope of restoration: a divine intervention centered on a particular Man, the Man of God's right hand.
The Text
You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and then You planted it. You cleared the ground before it, And it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shadow, And the cedars of God with its boughs. It sent out its branches to the sea And its shoots to the River. Why have You broken down its hedges, So that all who pass that way pick its fruit? A boar from the forest devours it And whatever moves in the field feeds on it. O God of hosts, return now, we beseech You; Look down from heaven and see, and visit this vine, Even the sapling which Your right hand has planted, And on the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; They perish at the rebuke of Your face. Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself. Then we shall not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name. O Yahweh God of hosts, restore us; Cause Your face to shine upon us, that we might be saved.
(Psalm 80:8-19 LSB)
God the Gardener (vv. 8-11)
The psalmist begins by recounting God's mighty acts in the Exodus and the conquest. He uses the metaphor of a vineyard, a common biblical symbol for Israel.
"You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and then You planted it. You cleared the ground before it, And it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shadow, And the cedars of God with its boughs. It sent out its branches to the sea And its shoots to the River." (Psalm 80:8-11)
Notice the emphasis on God's sovereign action. "You removed... You drove out... You planted it... You cleared the ground." Israel did not deliver herself. She was a passive vine, wholly dependent on the divine Vinedresser. God did everything. He took this vine out of the sandy soil of Egypt, a place of bondage. He acted as a divine horticulturalist, driving out the wicked pagan nations, the "weeds" of Canaan. He prepared the soil, removing the rocks and thorns of idolatry, and He planted Israel in the good land He had promised.
And the result of God's careful work was explosive, supernatural growth. The vine "took deep root and filled the land." This is a picture of the success of the conquest and the settlement under Joshua, and the expansion under David and Solomon. The vine's shadow covered mountains. Its branches intertwined with the mighty cedars of Lebanon, an image of strength and majesty. Its reach extended from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Euphrates River in the east, the full extent of the promised land. This was the golden age. This was the blessing of covenant faithfulness. God did exactly what He said He would do. He planted, and the vine flourished.
The Broken Hedge (vv. 12-13)
After recounting this glorious history of blessing, the psalmist pivots to the devastating present. The tone shifts from praise to bewildered lament.
"Why have You broken down its hedges, So that all who pass that way pick its fruit? A boar from the forest devours it And whatever moves in the field feeds on it." (Psalm 80:12-13)
Here is the heart of the problem. "Why have You broken down its hedges?" The psalmist knows exactly who is responsible for the disaster. He doesn't blame the Assyrians. He doesn't blame bad luck or geopolitical forces. He looks straight at God and says, "You did this." The hedge was the protective barrier of God's law, His presence, and His power. As long as Israel was faithful, that hedge was impenetrable. But when Israel broke the covenant, God Himself dismantled their protection. This is the logic of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Obedience brings the blessing of security; disobedience brings the curse of vulnerability.
And the consequences are immediate and brutal. With the hedge gone, the vineyard is exposed. "All who pass that way pick its fruit." Passing armies and opportunistic neighbors plunder the nation. But it gets worse. "A boar from the forest devours it." A wild boar is not a careful harvester. It is a destructive, filthy, rampaging beast. It doesn't just eat the grapes; it rips up the roots, tramples the vines, and turns the entire vineyard into a muddy ruin. This is a picture of a pagan nation, likely Assyria, laying waste to the northern kingdom of Israel. The "whatever moves in the field" refers to all the other lesser powers that come to feast on the carcass. The point is total devastation, brought about by God's own hand as a righteous judgment for sin.
A Desperate Appeal (vv. 14-16)
Faced with this ruin, the psalmist turns to the only possible source of help: the very God who ordained the destruction.
"O God of hosts, return now, we beseech You; Look down from heaven and see, and visit this vine, Even the sapling which Your right hand has planted, And on the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; They perish at the rebuke of Your face." (Psalm 80:14-16)
This is the prayer of corporate repentance. "Return now." The problem is not that God is absent, but that He has turned His face away in judgment. The psalmist asks God to "look down... and see." He is appealing to God's covenant memory. "Visit this vine... which Your right hand has planted." He is saying, "Remember what you did! This is your project. This is your reputation on the line." He reminds God that this vine is not just any plant, but the "son whom You have strengthened for Yourself." The word for son here, ben, can refer to a shoot or branch, but it carries the weight of a covenantal relationship. Israel is God's son (Ex. 4:22).
The description of the damage is stark. "It is burned with fire, it is cut down." This is the result of God's active judgment. "They perish at the rebuke of Your face." The Aaronic blessing in Numbers 6 was for God to make His face shine upon His people. Here we see the terrifying reverse. The rebuke of God's countenance is a consuming fire. His displeasure is death. If His shining face is salvation, His frowning face is damnation. The psalmist understands that their only hope is for God's disposition toward them to change.
The One True Hope (vv. 17-19)
The psalm concludes with a remarkable, prophetic request. The psalmist sees that the restoration of the people is tied to the establishment of one particular man.
"Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself. Then we shall not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name. O Yahweh God of hosts, restore us; Cause Your face to shine upon us, that we might be saved." (Psalm 80:17-19)
Who is this "man of Your right hand"? Who is this "son of man"? In the immediate context, Asaph may have been praying for a righteous king from David's line, a new David to lead the people. The "man of God's right hand" is a position of honor and delegated authority. But the language strains past any mere earthly king. It points forward, prophetically, to the ultimate King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the one who sits at God's right hand (Ps. 110:1; Heb. 1:3). "Son of Man" was His own favorite title for Himself, connecting Him both to humanity and to the figure of divine authority in Daniel 7. The psalmist, perhaps dimly, understands that the nation's problem is a leadership problem at the highest level. They need a perfect representative, a true federal head. They need a mediator. The prayer is, "God, place your favor, your power, your hand of blessing, upon your chosen one, and through him, save us." This is a profoundly Christological prayer.
And look at the result. When God's hand is on this Man, "Then we shall not turn back from You." The work of this Son of Man secures the perseverance of the saints. He doesn't just give us a second chance to mess things up again. His strength becomes our strength. His faithfulness is credited to us. Because of Him, we are revived, quickened, made alive again. And the result of that revival is that we "will call upon Your name." True revival is always God-centered. It leads to worship and prayer.
The psalm ends by repeating the great refrain for a third time, now with the full name of God. "O Yahweh God of hosts, restore us; Cause Your face to shine upon us, that we might be saved." The problem was covenant breaking. The solution is covenant restoration. The means of that restoration is the Man of God's right hand. And the experience of that restoration is the light of God's face shining upon us once more. This is salvation.
The True Vine
This psalm is a national lament for a vine that failed. Israel was the vine God planted, but as the prophets make clear, she ultimately produced wild, bitter grapes (Is. 5:1-7). She was unfaithful. So what did God do? Did He abandon the vineyard project? No. He sent His Son.
Jesus stood before His disciples and said, "I am the true vine" (John 15:1). He is the true Israel. He is the faithful Son who never produced a bad grape. He is the one who perfectly fulfilled the covenant. And on the cross, He endured the full force of the curse described in this psalm. The hedges were broken down around Him. The boar from the forest, the power of Rome and the Sanhedrin, devoured Him. He was cut down and burned with the fire of God's wrath against our sin. He perished under the rebuke of His Father's face when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Why? So that God's hand could be upon Him in resurrection. He is the Man of God's right hand, made strong for God's own glory. And now, we who are faithless branches are grafted into Him, the True Vine. Our only hope is to be found in Him. When we are in Him, God's hand is upon us. When we are in Him, we are revived. When we are in Him, God's face shines upon us, and we are saved.
Therefore, when we see our nation in disarray, when we see the Church compromised, when we see the hedges broken down around us because of our sin, we must pray as Asaph prayed. We must confess that God's judgments are righteous. We must appeal to His covenant promises. And we must fix our eyes on the only hope for restoration, the Man of His right hand, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is only when God's hand is on Him that we can be revived. It is only through Him that God's face will shine upon us again. And it is only in the light of that face that we will be saved.