The urgent question "How long?" is not petulant impatience, but hope deferred, and, though sick at heart, still cleaving to God and remonstrating for long-protracted calamities. The bold imagery of ver. 4 _b_ cannot well be reproduced in translation. The rendering "wilt Thou be angry?" is but a feeble reproduction of the vigorous original, which runs "wilt Thou smoke?" Other psalms (_e.g._, lxxiv. 1) speak of God's anger as smoking, but here the figure is applied to God Himself. What a contrast it presents to the petition in the refrain! That "light" of Israel has become "as a flaming fire." A terrible possibility of darkening and consuming wrath lies in the Divine nature, and the very emblem of light suggests it. It is questionable whether the following words should be rendered "against the prayer of Thy people," or "while Thy people are praying" (Delitzsch). The former meaning is in accordance with the Hebrew, with other Scripture passages, and with the tone of the psalm, and is to be preferred, as more forcibly putting the anomaly of an unanswering God. Ver. 5 presents the national sorrows under familiar figures. The people's food and drink were tears. The words of _a_ may either be rendered "bread of tears"--_i.e._, eaten with, or rather consisting of, tears; or, as above, "tears [as] bread." The word rendered "in large measure" means "the third part"--"of some larger measure." It is found only in Isa. xl. 12. "The third part of an ephah is a puny measure for the dust of the earth, [but] it is a large measure for tears" (Delitzsch, _in loc._). Ver. 6 adds one more touch to the picture--gleeful neighbours cynically rejoicing to their hearts' content (lit., for themselves) over Israel's calamities. Thus, in three verses, the psalmist points to an angry God, a weeping nation, and mocking foes, a trilogy of woe. On all he bases an urgent repetition of the refrain, which is made more imploring by the expanded name under which God is invoked to help. Instead of the simple "God," as in ver. 3, he now says "God of Hosts." As sense of need increases, a true suppliant goes deeper into God's revealed character.
From ver. 8 onwards the parable of the vine as representing Israel fills the singer's mind. As has been already noticed, this part of the psalm may be regarded as one long strophe, the parts of which follow in orderly sequence, and are held closely together, as shown by the recurrence of the refrain at the close only. Three stages are discernible in it--a picture of what has been, the contrast of what is now, and a prayer for speedy help. The emblem of the vine, which has received so great development in the prophets, and has been hallowed for ever by our Lord's use of it, seems to have been suggested to the psalmist by the history of Joseph, to which he has already alluded. For, in Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix. 22 _seqq._), Joseph is likened to a fruitful bough. Other Old Testament writers have drawn out the manifold felicities of the emblem as applied to Israel. But these need not concern us here, where the point is rather God's husbandry and the vine's growth, both of which are in startling contrast with a doleful present. The figure is carried out with much beauty in detail. The Exodus was the vine's transplanting; the destruction of the Canaanites was the grubbing up of weeds to clear the ground for it; the numerical increase of the people was its making roots and spreading far. In ver. 10 _b_ the rendering may be either that adopted above, or "And the cedars of God [were covered with] its branches." The latter preserves the parallelism of clauses and the unity of representation in vv. 10, 11, which will then deal throughout with the spreading growth of the vine. But the cedars would not have been called "of God,"--which implies their great size,--unless their dimensions had been in point, which would not be the case if they were only thought of as espaliers for the vine. And the image of its running over the great trees of Lebanon is unnatural. The rendering as above is to be preferred, even though it somewhat mars the unity of the picture. The extent of ground covered by the vine is described, in ver. 11, as stretching from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates (Deut. xi. 24; 1 Kings iv. 24). Such had been the glories of the past; and they had all been the work of God's hand.