Psalm 74

What’s Happening?

When Israel’s temple in Jerusalem stood, it was proof that God was present with and communicating to his people. But Israel neglected their temple. So God sent the Babylonians to raze the walls of Jerusalem and destroy the temple they discarded (2 Kings 25:8–17). The psalmist Asaph recalls the soldiers laying waste to the temple's wood carvings with axes (Psalm 74:6), and how the prophets, who were responsible for communicating on God’s behalf, have either fled or been killed (Psalm 74:9). Any means of communication with God has been severed because of Israel’s failures (Psalm 74:1). Nevertheless, Asaph pleads with God to respond to Babylon’s attack and remember his people (Psalm 74:1, 10–11).

As Asaph waits for God’s response, Asaph remembers the ways God has used his power to save his people (Psalm 74:12). When God’s people were cornered by the Egyptians, God split open the sea, rescued his people, and drowned an entire army (Psalm 74:13; Exodus 14:26–30). When his people were thirsty, God made a fountain from stone (Psalm 74:15a). And when God’s people needed safe passage, he turned the Jordan River into a road (Psalm 74:15b). Asaph knows that God is powerful enough to save his people again. 

Besides, even when the world’s neglect of God invited a flood, God didn’t reject his people. God remembered and rescued Noah. After the flood, God also reassured him that while the earth remained, summer and winter would never end (Genesis 8:22). This is why Asaph takes it as good news that day and night, dark and light, summer and winter still endure (Psalm 74:16-17). God hasn’t discarded his most ancient promises. God has been eager to use his sea-splitting, river-making, day-bringing power in the past, which means he will not abandon his people to Babylon now (Psalm 74:19-20). 

Finally, Asaph asks God to remember that Babylon’s attack on the temple is also an attack against God and his reputation (Psalm 74:18, 22). As long as Babylon rules it will seem as if their armies, their promises, and their words are more powerful than God (Psalm 74:23). For the sake of both God’s promises and God’s reputation, Asaph asks God to end Babylon’s reign and rebuild their temple soon.

Where is the Gospel?

By the time of Jesus, the temple that Babylon destroyed was rebuilt. But when Jesus’ disciples admire the massive stones of the rebuilt temple, Jesus warns that the temple of their day will soon be destroyed too (Matthew 24:2–4). The disciples are confused. Asaph’s prayers have been answered. Babylon is destroyed. God has rebuilt his temple. If God’s temple is destroyed again, that means God’s presence and communication with his people will end again too. But then Jesus says he is the true temple of God (John 2:20–22). Jesus is how God will be present with and communicate to his people.

But Jesus also says that he, as God’s new embodied temple, will be destroyed. He will repeat the temple’s destruction by Babylon in his own body. The first temple was destroyed because of Israel’s failure. Likewise Jesus’ body would be destroyed because of his people’s sins. On the cross Jesus would experience the divine silence and rejection of God (Matthew 27:46). And for a time God’s enemies seemed more powerful than God’s promises. But Jesus rose from the dead. Unlike the temple, he would never be destroyed again. God’s reputation is secure; he is more powerful than both the weight of Israel’s sins and death itself. And since Jesus will never die again, God’s presence and our communication with God can never die either. In Jesus, God’s sea-splitting, river-making, day-bringing power is always available to save his people.

See For Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who remembers and rescues his people. And may you see Jesus as the resurrected temple who secures God’s presence and our communication with him.