1 Shepherd of Israel, give ear, Thou who leddest Joseph like a flock, Thou that sittest [throned upon] the cherubim, shine forth. 2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up Thy strength, And come for salvation for us. 3 O God, restore us, And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
4 Jehovah, God [of] Hosts, How long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people? 5 Thou hast made them eat tears [as] bread, And hast given them to drink [of] tears in large measure. 6 Thou makest us a strife to our neighbours, And our enemies mock to their hearts' content. 7 God [of] Hosts, restore us, And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
8 A vine out of Egypt didst Thou transplant, Thou didst drive out the nations and plant it. 9 Thou didst clear a place before it, And it threw out its roots and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with its shadow, And its branches [were like] the cedars of God. 11 It spread its boughs [even] unto the sea, And to the River its shoots.
12 Why hast Thou broken down its fences, So that all who pass on the way pluck from it? 13 The boar of the wood roots it up And the beasts of the field feed on it. 14 God [of] Hosts, turn, we beseech Thee, Look from heaven and see, And visit this vine. 15 And protect what Thy right hand has planted, And the son whom Thou madest strong for Thyself. 16 Burned with fire is it--cut down; At the rebuke of Thy countenance they perish. 17 Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, Upon the son of man [whom] Thou madest strong for Thyself. 18 And we will not go back from Thee; Revive us, and we will invoke Thy name. 19 Jehovah, God [of] Hosts, restore us, And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
This psalm is a monument of some time of great national calamity; but its allusions do not enable us to reach certainty as to what that calamity was. Two striking features of it have been used as clues to its occasion--namely, the designation of the nation as "Joseph," and the mention of the three tribes in ver. 2. Calvin, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, and others are led thereby to regard it as a prayer by an inhabitant of Judah for the captive children of the northern kingdom; while others, as Cheyne, consider that only the Persian period explains the usage in question. The name of "Joseph" is applied to the whole nation in other Asaph psalms (lxxvii. 15; lxxxi. 5). It is tempting to suppose, with Hupfeld, that this nomenclature indicates that the ancient antagonism of the kingdoms has passed away with the captivity of the Ten Tribes, and that the psalmist, a singer in Judah, looks wistfully to the ideal unity, yearns to see breaches healed, and the old associations of happier days, when "Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh" encamped side by side in the desert, and marched one after the other, renewed in a restored Israel. If this explanation of the mention of the tribes is adopted, the psalm falls in some period after the destruction of the northern kingdom, but prior to that of Judah. The prayer in the refrain "turn us" might, indeed, mean "bring us back from exile," but may as accurately be regarded as asking for restored prosperity--an explanation which accords better with the rest of the psalm. We take the whole, then, as a prayer for the nation, conceived of in its original, long-broken unity. It looks back to the Divine purpose as expressed in ancient deeds of deliverance, and prays that it may be fulfilled, notwithstanding apparent thwarting. Closer definition of date is unattainable.
The triple refrain in vv. 3, 7, 19, divides the psalm into three unequal parts. The last of these is disproportionately long, and may be further broken up into three parts, of which the first (vv. 8-11) describes the luxuriant growth of Israel under the parable of a vine, the second (vv. 12-14) brings to view the bitter contrast of present ruin, and, with an imperfect echo of the refrain, melts into the petitioning tone of the third (vv. 15-19), which is all prayer.