Catholic Commentary on Psalm 79

"Help us, God our Saviour, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name's sake." (Psalm 79:9)

A Prayer after Catastrophe

Psalm 79 is a communal lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, most likely composed in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest of 587 BC. The psalmist does not minimise what has happened: the nations have invaded the inheritance of God, the Temple has been defiled, Jerusalem lies in ruins, the bodies of the servants of God lie unburied. The prayer is brutally honest about the scale of the catastrophe.

But the plea that rises from the ruins is theological: Help us, God our Saviour, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name's sake. The appeal is not to Israel's merit but to God's own reputation. The nations are mocking: where is their God? The psalmist turns that mockery into a reason for God to act: your name is at stake, your glory is at issue. This is a profound prayer strategy. The Catechism notes that in the Lord's Prayer itself, the hallowing of God's name is placed first, before any petition for our own needs (CCC 2807). When we ask God to act for the sake of his name, we are praying most in alignment with what God himself desires.

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, the Church in parts of the world today knows the experience of Psalm 79: desecrated churches, persecuted communities, scattered faithful. When catastrophe strikes the people of God, this psalm gives us the language to pray it honestly and to appeal to the only foundation that does not shift: the name and the glory of the God who called us.

Prayer

Lord God, Saviour and Redeemer, in every catastrophe that strikes your people we cry out for your name's sake. Let the nations not mock. Act for your glory. Forgive our sins and restore what has been destroyed. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

79
A Prayer for Deliverance
(Psalms 74:1–23; Jeremiah 52:1–11)
A Psalm of Asaph.
 
1 The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance;
they have defiled Your holy temple
and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
2 They have given the corpses of Your servants
as food to the birds of the air,
the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water
all around Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury the dead.
4 We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those around us.
 
5 How long, O LORD?
Will You be angry forever?
Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that do not acknowledge You,
on the kingdoms
that refuse to call on Your name,
7 for they have devoured Jacob
and devastated his homeland.
 
8 Do not hold past sins against us;
let Your compassion come quickly,
for we are brought low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of Your name;
deliver us and atone for our sins,
for the sake of Your name.
10 Why should the nations ask,
“Where is their God?”
Before our eyes, make known among the nations
Your vengeance for the bloodshed of Your servants.
 
11 May the groans of the captives reach You;
by the strength of Your arm preserve those condemned to death.
12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors
sevenfold the reproach they hurled at You, O Lord.
13 Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture,
will thank You forever;
from generation to generation
we will declare Your praise.

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