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PSALM 74

An instructive Psalm of Asaph.

1. Why, O god, have you cast us off for ever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2. Remember your congregation which you did purchase of old; which you did redeem as the tribe of your inheritance; mount Zion, in which you did dwell.
3. Lift up your steps to the perpetual desolations; the enemy has destroyed every thing in the sanctuary.
4. Yours adversaries roar in the midst of your solemn assemblies; they set up their ensigns for signs.
5. The enemy appears as one raising up axes against the thick forest.
6. For now they break down at once its carved work with axes and hammers.
7. They have cast fire into your sanctuary; they have defiled the dwelling-place of your name, by casting it down to the earth.
8. They have said in their heart, Let us oppress them together; they have burnt up all god's places of assembly in the earth.
9. We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet; neither is there among us any that knows how long.
10. How long, O god, shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy despise your name for ever?
11. Why withdrawest you your hand,—your right hand? pluck it out of your bosom.
12. For god is my King of old, working salvations in the midst of the earth.
13. You did divide the sea by your strength; you did break the heads of the whales in the waters;
14. You did break in pieces the heads of Leviathan; you did give him to be meat to the ravenous birds of the wilderness;
15. You did divide the fountain and the river; you did dry up mighty rivers.
16. The day is yours, the night also is yours; you have prepared the light of the sun;
17. You have set all the borders of the earth; you have made summer and winter.
18. Remember this, the enemy has reproached jehovah, and the foolish people has despised your name.
19. Give not the soul of your turtle dove to the beast; forget not the life of your afflicted for ever.
20. Have respect to the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
21. O let not the oppressed return ashamed; let the afflicted and needy praise your name.
22. Arise, O god, plead your own cause; remember how the foolish one reproaches you daily.
23. Forget not the voice of your enemies; the tumult of those that rise up against you ascends continually.

Verses 3, 4. The enemy has destroyed every thing in the sanctuary, your adversaries roar in the midst of your solemn assemblies. Enemy signifies evil from hell, sanctuary the church, solemn assemblies worship, hence it is manifest what those words signify. AE 601.

Verses 3, 4, 9. The enemy has destroyed every thing in the sanctuary, your adversaries roar in the midst of your solemn assemblies; they set up their ensigns for signs; we see not our signs, there is no more any prophet. The enemy has destroyed every thing in the sanctuary, signifies that evil has destroyed the holy things of the church; your adversaries roar in the midst of your solemn assemblies, signifies that falses have destroyed all things of worship; they have set up their ensigns for signs, signifies that, they have testified and persuaded by all things; we see not our signs, signifies that no testifications of truth are accepted in the church; no more any prophet, signifies that there is no longer any doctrine of truth. AE 706.

Verses 13, 14, 15. You did divide the sea by your strength, you did break the heads of the whales in the waters; you did break in pieces the heads of Leviathan; you did give him to be meat to the ravenous birds of the wilderness; you did divide the fountain and the river, you did dry up mighty rivers. In this passage by fountains and rivers are signified the falses of doctrine which are derived from self-intelligence; mighty rivers are the principles of what is false thence confirmed; by whales and the Leviathan are signified the scientifics which are of the sensual and natural man, from which are derived every false principle, when the spiritual man is closed above them; in the sensual and natural man the selfhood [proprium] of man resides, wherefore what is concluded from them alone is concluded from the selfhood [or proprium] or from self-intelligence; for what is divine flows-in through the spiritual man into the natural, but not into the natural when the spiritual is closed above it; but the spiritual man is opened by truths and by a life according to them; the ravenous birds of the wilderness to which Leviathan is given for meat signifies those who are in infernal falses. AE 483.

Verse 15. You did dry up mighty rivers. To dry up mighty rivers denotes to dissipate the more potent falses. AC 8185.

The subject here treated of in the internal sense is concerning sciences destroying the truths of faith; the whales whose heads shall be broken, are scientifics in general; in like manner Leviathan; the ravenous birds to which, he was to be given for food, are they who are in falses, or falses themselves; hence it is evident what the sea is, namely that it is the scientific principle misapplied to weaken and destroy truths. AC 9755.

Verses 16, 17. The day is yours, the night also is yours; you have prepared the light of the sun; you have set all the borders of the earth; you have made summer and winter. That a regenerate person has his vicissitudes, namely that at times he has no charity, and at times he has some charity, may be sufficiently manifest from this consideration, that with every one, even a regenerate person, there is nothing but evil, and that all good is of the lord alone; inasmuch as there appertains to him nothing but evil, he must of necessity undergo vicissitudes, and at one time be as it were in summer, that is, in charity, but at another time in winter, that is, in no charity; such are the vicissitudes, that man may be more and more perfected, and thus that he may be rendered more and more happy. Such vicissitudes not only appertain to a regenerate man, whilst he lives in the body, but also when he comes into the other life, for without vicissitudes as it were of summer and winter, as to things voluntary, and as it were of day and night as to things intellectual, he is never perfected and rendered more happy: but their vicissitudes in the other life are like the vicissitudes of summer and winter in the temperate zones, and like the vicissitudes of day and night in the time of spring. AC 935.

Verses 18, 19. The enemy has reproached jehovah, and the foolish people has despised your name; give not the soul of your turtle-dove to the beast: forget not the life of your afflicted for ever. By the enemy who reproaches jehovah, is signified hell and the evil thence; by the foolish people who despise his name, are signified the falses which are contrary to the truths of doctrine; they are called people who are in truths, and in the opposite sense who are in falses, who are a foolish people, and the name of jehovah signifies every truth of doctrine and of the church; give not the soul of your turtledove to the beast, signifies that spiritual good should not be given to those who are in the lusts of evil; by the life of the poor is signified spiritual life oppressed by evils and falses. AE 630, 388.

Verse 21. Let the afflicted and needy praise your name. The reason why the two expressions, afflicted and needy, are so frequently conjoined in the Sacred Scriptures is because it is according to the style of the word, that where mention is made of truth, mention should also be made of good, and in the opposite sense, where mention is made of what is false, mention should also be made of what is evil, because they make one and as it were constitute a marriage, wherefore mention is made of the poor and at the same time of the needy, for by the poor are meant those who are in a defect of the knowledges of good: that such a marriage has place in the prophetical parts of the Word almost throughout, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia, n. 683, 793, 801, 2516, 2712, 3004, 3005. AE 238.