Psalm 80 - Restore Us, God of Angel Armies!
- Chad Werkhoven
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
As God revives us, we will call on His name.
Psalm 80
For the director of music. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” Of Asaph. A psalm.
1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,
shine forth 2 before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.
Awaken your might;
come and save us.
3 Restore us, O God;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved.
4 How long, Lord God Almighty,
will your anger smolder
against the prayers of your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.
6 You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors,
and our enemies mock us.
7 Restore us, God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved.
8 You transplanted a vine from Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it,
and it took root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 Its branches reached as far as the Sea,
its shoots as far as the River.
12 Why have you broken down its walls
so that all who pass by pick its grapes?
13 Boars from the forest ravage it,
and insects from the fields feed on it.
14 Return to us, God Almighty!
Look down from heaven and see!
Watch over this vine,
15 the root your right hand has planted,
the son you have raised up for yourself.
16 Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire;
at your rebuke your people perish.
17 Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself.
18 Then we will not turn away from you;
revive us, and we will call on your name.
19 Restore us, LORD God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved.
Canons of Dordt
Point 4 - Irresistible Grace
Article 13 & 14: The Incomprehensible Way of Regeneration and the Way God Gives Faith
In this life believers cannot fully understand the way this regeneration occurs;
meanwhile, they rest content with knowing and experiencing that,
by this grace of God,
they do believe with the heart and love their Savior.
In this way, therefore, faith is a gift of God,
not in the sense that it is offered by God for people to choose,
but that it is in actual fact bestowed on them,
breathed and infused into them.
Nor is it a gift in the sense that God bestows only the potential to believe, but then awaits assent—the act of believing—by human choice;
rather, it is a gift in the sense that God who works both willing and acting
and, indeed, works all things in all people and produces in them both the will to believe and the belief itself.
Summary
As we've seen so often as we've turned to the Psalms each Friday this year, Psalm 80 takes the form of a prayer. It's been fascinating to see in all of these psalty prayers we've read this year the emphasis the placed on acknowledging who God is, and Psalm 80 doesn't disappoint in this regard!
Psalm 80 is comprised of three strophes (stanzas), each separated by a refrain. Each of the refrains begins with a calling out to God, but the intensity of each of these acknowledgements grows as the psalm unfolds:
v3 - Restore us, O God...
v7 - Restore us, God Almighty...
v19 - Restore us, LORD God Almighty...
Notice that as the psalmist's angst and desire for restoration grows, his theology grows accordingly. This is one of the ways God uses the suffering we experience in life: to bring us to a greater knowledge of Him.
Dig Deeper
There's so much we could dig into here in Psalm 80, but we'll content ourselves with the final few verses of the final strophe:
17 Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself.
As Christians its almost impossible to read that and not see Christ! But of course, Asaph wrote this psalm hundreds of years before Jesus was born, and he was calling God to raise up a faithful king for Israel. But Asaph didn't write this by himself; he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, who very much meant to point readers to The faithful King who'd be born in Bethlehem.
It's the next verse that captures the theme put forth by this week's article from the Canons:
18 Then we will not turn away from you;
revive us, and we will call on your name.
When God sovereignly revives His elect, our desire to call on His name becomes irresistible. Martin Luther leaned on these verses in Psalm 80 to write the second verse of A Mighty Fortress is Our God:
Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right Man on our side,
the Man of God's own choosing.
You ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth his name,
from age to age the same;
and he must win the battle.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, the LORD God Almighty (literally: LORD Sabaoth - the God of angel armies);
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray the refrain of Psalm 80: Restore us, LORD God Almighty, make your face shine on us, that we may be saved;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 2 Corinthians 11
