A prayer of the church under grievous persecutions.

¹ The understanding of Asaph. O God, why have you rejected us to the end. Why has your fury become enraged over the sheep of your pasture?

² Be mindful of your congregation, which you have possessed from the beginning. You redeemed the scepter of your inheritance, mount Zion, in which you have dwelt.

³ Lift up your hands against their arrogance in the end. How great the malice of the enemy has been in the sanctuary!¹

1. 73:3This last part is literally: “How much the enemy has been malicious in the sanctuary!”(Conte)

⁴ And those who hate you have been glorified, in the midst of your solemnity. They have set up their own signs as a proof,¹

1. 73:4Their ensigns, etc: They have fixed their colours for signs and trophies, both on the gates, and on the highest top of the temple: and they knew not, that is, they regarded not the sanctity of the place. This psalm manifestly foretells the time of the Machabees, and the profanation of the temple by Antiochus.(Challoner)

⁵ as if it had been issued from on high; yet they did not understand. As in a forest of chopped wood,¹

1. 73:5They set up their own signs and then they use those signs as their proof. And they do not even understand that such signs are not valid because they come from themselves, but they consider such signs as if they had the validity of signs issued from on high (from God).(Conte)

⁶ they have cut down the entrances themselves. With axe and hatchet, they have brought it down.

⁷ They have set fire to your Sanctuary. They have polluted the tabernacle of your name on earth.

⁸ They have said in their heart, the whole group of them together: “Let us cause all the feast days of God to cease from the land.

⁹ We have not seen our proof; there is now no prophet. And he will no longer know us.”

¹⁰ How long, O God, will the enemy place blame? Is the adversary to provoke your name until the end?

¹¹ Why do you turn your hand away, even your right hand, from the midst of your sinews, until the end?

¹² But God is our king before all ages. He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

¹³ In your virtue, you confirmed the sea. You crushed the heads of the serpents in the waters.¹

1. 73:13The sea firm: By making the waters of the Red Sea stand like firm walls, whilst Israel passed through: and destroying the Egyptians called here dragons from their cruelty, in the same waters, with their king: casting up their bodies on the shore to be stripped by the Ethiopians inhabiting in those days the coast of Arabia.(Challoner)

¹⁴ You have broken the heads of the serpent. You have given him as food for the people of the Ethiopians.

¹⁵ You have disrupted the fountains and the torrents. You have dried up the rivers of Ethan.¹

1. 73:15Ethan rivers: That is, rivers which run with strong streams. This was verified in Jordan, Jos. 3, and in Arnon, Num. 21.14.(Challoner)

¹⁶ Yours is the day, and yours is the night. You have made the morning light and the sun.

¹⁷ You have made all the limits of the earth. The summer and the spring were formed by you.

¹⁸ Be mindful of this: the enemy placed blame against the Lord, and a foolish people has incited against your name.

¹⁹ Do not hand over to beasts the souls that confess to you; and do not forget the souls of your poor until the end.

²⁰ Consider your covenant. For those who have been darkened upon the earth have been filled by the iniquity of the houses.¹

1. 73:20The obscure of the earth: Mean and ignoble wretches have been filled, that is, enriched, with houses of iniquity, that is, with our estates and possessions, which they have unjustly acquired.(Challoner)

²¹ Do not allow the humble to be turned away in confusion. The poor and the needy will praise your name.

²² Rise up, O God, judge your own case. Call to mind the accusations against you, which are made by the foolish all day long.

²³ Do not forget the voices of your adversaries. The arrogance of those who hate you rises up continually.