1 O God, Thou hast cast us off, hast broken us, Hast been angry with us--restore us again. 2 Thou hast shaken the land, hast rent it-- Heal its breaches, for it trembles. 3 Thou hast made Thy people see hard things, Thou hast given them to drink reeling as wine. 4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, [Only] that they may flee before the bow. Selah.
5 That Thy beloved ones may be delivered, Save with Thy right hand, and answer us. 6 God has spoken in His holiness,--I will exult: I will divide Shechem, and measure out the valley of Succoth. 7 Mine is Gilead, and mine Manasseh, And Ephraim is the strength of my head, Judah, my baton of command. 8 Moab is my wash basin, Upon Edom will I throw my shoe, Because of me, Philistia, shout aloud.
9 Who will bring me into the fenced city? Who has guided me into Edom? 10 Hast not Thou, O God, cast us off? And goest not out, O God, with our hosts. 11 Give us help from the oppressor For vain is help of man. 12 In God we shall do prowess: And He, He will tread down our oppressors.
This psalm has evidently a definite historical background. Israel has been worsted in fight, but still continues its campaign against Edom. Meditating on God's promises, the psalmist anticipates victory, which will cover defeat and perfect partial successes, and seeks to breathe his own spirit of confidence into the ranks of his countrymen. But the circumstances answering to those required by the psalm are hard to find. The date assigned by the superscription cannot be called satisfactory; for David's war there referred to (2 Sam. viii.) had no such stunning defeats as are here lamented. The Divine Oracle, of which the substance is given in the central part of the psalm, affords but dubious indications of date. At first sight it seems to imply the union of all the tribes in one kingdom, and therefore to favour the Davidic authorship. But it may be a question whether the united Israel of the Oracle is fact or prophecy. To one school of commentators, the mention of Ephraim in conjunction with Judah is token that the psalm is prior to the great revolt; to another, it is proof positive that the date is after the destruction of the northern kingdom. The Maccabean date is favoured by Olshausen, Hitzig, and Cheyne among moderns; but, apart from other objections, the reappearance of vv. 5-12 in Psalm cviii. implies that this piece of Hebrew psalmody was already venerable when a later compiler wove part of it into that psalm. On the whole, the Davidic authorship is possible, though clogged with the difficulty already mentioned. But the safest conclusion seems to be Baethgen's modest one, which contrasts strongly with the confident assertions of some other critics--namely, that assured certainty in dating the psalm "is no longer possible."
It falls into three parts of four verses each, of which the first (vv. 1-4) is complaint of defeat and prayer for help; the second (vv. 5-8), a Divine Oracle assuring victory; and the third (vv. 9-12), the flash of fresh hope kindled by that God's-word.
The first part blends complaint and prayer in the first pair of verses, in each of which there is, first, a description of the desperate state of Israel, and then a cry for help. The nation is broken, as a wall is broken down, or as an army whose ordered ranks are shattered and scattered. Some crushing defeat is meant, which in ver. 2 is further described as an earthquake. The land trembles, and then gapes in hideous clefts, and houses become gaunt ruins. The state is disorganised as in consequence of defeat. It is an unpoetical mixture of fact and figure to see in the "rending" of the land allusion to the separation of the kingdoms, especially as that was not the result of defeat.