Psalm 74:11

Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? pluck it out of thy bosom.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Why withdrawest thou.—Literally, returnest, i.e., into the ample folds of the Eastern robe. The poet is thinking of Exodus 4:7.

Pluck it out of thy bosom.—Literally, out of the midst of thy bosom consume. For the same absolute use of this verb comp. Psalm 59:13. The clause is an instance of pregnant construction (comp. Psalm 74:7), and is plainly equivalent to, Why dost thou not pluck out thy right hand to consume?

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

Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? - Why dost thou not stretch forth thy hand for our deliverance? The hand, especially the right hand, is the instrument by which we wield a sword, or strike a blow; and the expression here is equivalent to asking why God did not interfere and save them.

Pluck it out of thy bosom - As if God had hidden his hand beneath the folds of his garment, or had wrapped his robe tightly around him. It "seemed" as if he had done this, as if he looked calmly on, and saw the temple fired, the synagogues burned up, the land laid waste, and the people slaughtered, without an attempt to interpose. How often are we constrained to use similar language - to ask a similar question - when iniquity abounds, when crime prevails, when sinners are perishing, when the church mourns - for God seems to have withdrawn his hand, and to be looking on with unconcern! No one can tell why this is so; and, without irreverence, or a spirit of complaining, but deeply affected with the mystery of the fact, we may ask "Why" this is so.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. Why cease to help us? (Compare Ps 3:7; 7:6; 60:5).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Why withdrawest thou thy hand? why dost thou suspend or forbear the exercise of that power, which thou hast so oft put forth on the behalf of thy people?

Pluck it out of thy bosom, in which thou now seemest to hide it, as idle persons use to do, Proverbs 19:24 26:15. Bestir thyself on the behalf of thy people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even that right hand?.... By which is meant the power of God; by which he made the heavens and the earth, and all things therein, and supports them in their beings; by which the work of his grace is wrought in the hearts of his people, and they are upheld; and by which he conquers their enemies, and saves them: this may be said to be withdrawn when he denies his people the help and succour they have had from him; when he seems to have forsaken the work of his hands; when there is not that success in the ministry of the word there formerly was, his arm being not revealed and made bare; and when the enemies of religion prosper and get ground; and when the Lord seems to be altogether inactive and unconcerned, like a man that folds up his arms under his arm holes, or hides his hands in his bosom, see Psalm 44:23 wherefore it follows:

pluck it out of thy bosom; as he will one day, and strike with a home blow, antichrist and his followers, and destroy them with his rod of iron, with which he will break them in shivers as a potter's vessel; and all his enemies shall feel the lighting down of his arm with the indignation of his anger; and then this request will be fulfilled: the word used signifies to "consume" (a); and Kimchi interprets it, consume the enemy out of thy bosom, which is the house of the sanctuary; his secret place, as the bosom is to man; but both senses of the word maybe retained, and the meaning be, pluck it out of thy bosom to consume them (b): also it signifies to restrain (c); and the sense may be, as the above writer observes, restrain it, that it may not return to thy bosom, till thou hast executed judgment on the wicked.

(a) "consume", Montanus, Gejerus. (b) So some in Vatablus. (c) "Cohibe", Junius & Tremellius.

Geneva Study Bible

Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? {g} pluck it out of thy bosom.

(g) They join their deliverance with God's glory and power, knowing that the punishment of the enemy would be their deliverance.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Why drawest thou back thy hand, even thy right hand?

(Pluck it) out of thy bosom (and) consume (them).

The right hand which in days of old was stretched out to annihilate the Egyptians (Exodus 15:12), is now as it were thrust idly into the folded garment. Cp. Lamentations 2:3.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Why dost thou keep back the right hand of thy power, hiding it in thy besom? Why not show forth thy power, and consume them, as it were, in a moment? (See the next clause.) Pluck it out of thy bosom; rather, out with it frown thy bosom, and consume them. The psalmist sees no reason why the Babylonians should not be consumed, and Israel delivered, at once. He has an insufficient sense of the greatness of Israel's sin. Psalm 74:11

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.