Psalm 74:10

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10-15) ln the true prophetic spirit, as Moses brought the cries of distress “by reason of their bondage” from the oppressed Israelites to God (Exodus 5:22), so this poet carries to the same God the pathos of this later cry, How long? how long? In answer, the deliverances of old rush into his mind. He recalls the right hand once stretched out to save (now thrust in inaction into the bosom), the wonders at the Red Sea, and all the long-continued providential guiding. Surely the same God will do the same wonders now!

Benson Commentary

Psalm 74:10-12. How long shall the adversary reproach — Namely, thy name, (which is expressed in the next clause,) by saying that thou art either unkind to thy people, or unfaithful in thy covenant, or unable to deliver us out of our miseries. Why withdrawest thou thy hand? — Why dost thou suspend or forbear the exercise of that power which thou hast so often exerted in behalf of thy people? Pluck it out of thy bosom — In which thou now seemest to hide it, as idle persons used to do. This is spoken after the manner of men. It means, Why art thou an inactive spectator of our miseries? Why dost thou not put forth thy power and deliver us? For God is my king of old — In a singular manner. It belongs to thine office to protect and save us; working salvation in the midst of the earth — In the view of the world: saving thy people so eminently and gloriously, that all the nations around observed and admired it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

74:1-11 This psalm appears to describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans. The deplorable case of the people of God, at the time, is spread before the Lord, and left with him. They plead the great things God had done for them. If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to believe, that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Infidels and persecutors may silence faithful ministers, and shut up places of worship, and say they will destroy the people of God and their religion together. For a long time they may prosper in these attempts, and God's oppressed servants may see no prospect of deliverance; but there is a remnant of believers, the seed of a future harvest, and the despised church has survived those who once triumphed over her. When the power of enemies is most threatening, it is comfortable to flee to the power of God by earnest prayer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?... - How long shall this state of things be allowed to continue? Is there to be no end to it? Are these desolations never to be repaired - these ruins never to be rebuilt? It "seemed" so; and hence, this earnest appeal. So to us it often appears as if our trials were never to come to an end. One calamity succeeds another; and there comes no relief. Yet there is relief. Deliverance may come, and soon come, in the present life; or if not in the present life, yet to all those who are the children of God it will soon come by their removal to a world where trial will be forever unknown.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. (Compare Ps 31:1).

how long … reproach?—us, as deserted of God.

blaspheme thy name—or, "perfections," as power, goodness, &c. (Ps 29:2).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Reproach; understand here thy name, which is expressed in the next clause of the verse, by saying that thou art either unkind to thy people, or unfaithful in thy covenant, or unable to deliver thine out of their miseries.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?.... The name of God, as in the next clause, the divine Persons and perfections, the purposes and providence of God, his people, ways, worship, truths, and ordinances:

shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? The "adversary" and "enemy" being in the singular number, may intend some particular one, as antichrist; who is emphatically and eminently "the enemy" of God, he opposing himself to, and exalting himself above, all that is called God; and the adversary of Christ, as his name shows; not only setting himself in his room and stead, but undermining him in all his offices; changing his laws as a King, dishonouring his sacrifice and intercession as a priest, and doing injury to his word and ordinances as a Prophet; and who has a mouth speaking blasphemies against God, his name, and tabernacle, heaven, and they that dwell therein, angels and saints, Revelation 13:5. He reproaches and blasphemes God himself, by showing himself to be God, by suffering himself to be so called, and to be worshipped as if he was God; by taking infallibility to himself, and setting up image worship, and obliging persons to it: he reproaches and blasphemes the Son of God, in whom the name of God is, by pretending to be his vicar on earth, and head of the church; to transubstantiate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; and to offer him up again in the blasphemous service of the mass: he reproaches and blasphemes his Gospel, which is his name, Acts 9:15, by introducing doctrines contrary to it, as the doctrines of merit, of works of supererogation, and justification by works; and the Scriptures, which bear the name and authority of God, by making them a nose of wax, taking upon himself to be the infallible interpreter of Scripture, and sole judge of controversies; by setting up his own unwritten traditions upon an equality with them, and forbidding the use of them to the people in their mother tongue: and he reproaches and blasphemes his name and authority by assuming it to himself in civil things, deposing and setting up kings at his pleasure; in religious affairs, dispensing with the laws of God, and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men; yea, in matters of salvation, giving out pardons and indulgences, pretending to open and shut heaven at pleasure. Moreover, these terms may be understood of many enemies and adversaries, even of all the enemies of the grace of God, and person of Christ; such reproach and blaspheme the name of God the Father; by denying some of his perfections, as his sovereignty, omniscience, and punitive justice, and by charging his decrees with injustice, insincerity, and cruelty; they reproach and blaspheme the name of Christ, by denying his deity, eternal sonship, and distinct personality, and by speaking contemptuously of his righteousness, blood, and sacrifice; and they do despight unto the Spirit of grace, and speak evil of his person, and the operations of his grace on the souls of men; and such a day of rebuke and blasphemy is the present one: and these things give good men that observe them a great concern for the name of God, who are ready to fear there will be no end to these reproaches and blasphemies; but there will, the time is coming when the name of the Lord will be excellent in all the earth, and the Lord alone shall be exalted; but it is not known how long it will be to it.

Geneva Study Bible

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. How long] Taking up the last words of Psalm 74:9, the Psalmist begins the second division of the Psalm with an appeal parallel to that in Psalm 74:1-3. There he entreats God to have pity on His people’s need, here to have regard to His own honour.

reproach … blaspheme] In act and word. Like the Assyrians, Isaiah 10:7 ff; Isaiah 37:23 ff.; and Syrians, Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:25; Daniel 11:36; 1Ma 2:6.

10, 11. Once more the Psalmist expostulates with God for His inaction.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy Name forever? There is no contradiction between these two clauses. The psalmist wishes to ask two things:

1. Is the present distress to continue forever?

2. And if not, how long is it to endure? It is true that he inverts the natural order of the questions; but this is so common a mode of speech, that grammarians have given it a name, and call it ὔστερον(πρότερον. Psalm 74:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The worst thing the poet has to complain of is that God has not acknowledged His people during this time of suffering as at other times. "Our signs" is the direct antithesis to "their sings" (Psalm 74:4), hence they are not to be understood, after Psalm 86:17, as signs which God works. The suffix demands, besides, something of a perpetual character; they are the instituted ordinances of divine worship by means of which God is pleased to stand in fellowship with His people, and which are now no longer to be seen because the enemies have set them aside. The complaint "there is not prophet any more" would seem strange in the period immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, for Jeremiah's term of active service lasted beyond this. Moreover, a year before (in the tenth year of Zedekiah's reign) he had predicted that the Babylonian domination, and relatively the Exile, would last seventy years; besides, six years before the destruction Ezekiel appeared, who was in communication with those who remained behind in the land. The reference to Lamentations 2:9 (cf. Ezekiel 7:26) does not satisfy one; for there it is assumed that there were prophets, a fact which is here denied. Only perhaps as a voice coming out of the Exile, the middle of which (cf. Hosea 3:4; 2 Chronicles 15:3, and besides Canticum trium puerorum, Psalm 74:14 : καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τούτῳ ἄρχων καὶ προφήτης καὶ ἡγούμενος) was truly thus devoid of signs or miracles, and devoid of the prophetic word of consolation, can Psalm 74:9 be comprehended. The seventy years of Jeremiah were then still a riddle without any generally known solution (Daniel 9). If, however, synagogues are meant in Psalm 74:8, Psalm 74:9 now too accords with the like-sounding lament in the calamitous times of Antiochus (1 Macc. 4:46; 9:27; 14:41). In Psalm 74:10 the poet turns to God Himself with the question "How long?" how long is this (apparently) endless blaspheming of the enemy to last? Why dost Thou draw back (viz., ממּנוּ, from us, not עלינוּ, Psalm 81:15) Thy hand and Thy right hand? The conjunction of synonyms "Thy hand and Thy right hand" is, as in Psalm 44:4, Sirach 33:7, a fuller expression for God's omnipotent energy. This is now at rest; Psalm 74:11 calls upon it to give help by an act of judgment. "Out of the midst of Thy bosom, destroy," is a pregnant expression for, "drawing forth out of Thy bosom the hand that rests inactive there, do Thou destroy." The Chethb חוקך has perhaps the same meaning; for חוק, Arab. ḥawq, signifies, like חיק, Arab. ḥayq, the act of encompassing, then that which encompasses. Instead of מחיקך (Exodus 4:7) the expression is מקּרב חיקך, because there, within the realm of the bosom, the punitive justice of God for a time as it were slumbers. On the כלּה, which outwardly is without any object, cf. Psalm 59:14.