Psalms 74

If the sun had been set lower, it would have burned us; if higher, it would not have warmed us with its beams. God's wisdom is seen in appointing the seasons of the year (Psalm 74:17). You have made summer and winter.

He who has various bullets shot at him needs armor; when various afflictions assault, we need patience as armor of proof. 3. God sometimes lets the affliction continue long (Psalm 74:9), as it is with diseases, there are some chronic, that linger and hang about the body several…

Rule 7. Quiet your trembling hearts by recording and consulting your past experiences of the care and faithfulness of God in former distresses. These experiences are food for your faith in a wilderness condition (Psalm 74:14). By this David kept his heart in times of danger (1 S…

And yet it does not follow, that the public meeting-places must be pulled down, for the consecrating of them is an abuse of things necessary, and not of things indifferent. The Scripture mentions it as a good work to build them, He loveth our Nation, and has built us a Synagogue…

2. Neither yet is it meant of all images for religious use, but only images of their own devising, for God does not forbid his own institutions, but only our inventions, and therefore one says both wittily and wisely, Non Imago, non simulachrum prohibetur, sed non facies tibi. T…

But when the Lord corrects his children, this has in it some appearance of rejection, as we may gather from the ordinary complaints of the faithful: Lord, why have you put us away forever? Why is your wrath kindled against the sheep of your pasture? (Psalm 74:1). For we apprehen…

But especially they were to retain the future tense, will your God say? for in these words there lies hid a close opposition between that doleful silence whereof I have spoken, and that comfortable doctrine which came in place of it. This prophecy is like to the complaint of the…

All the rooms in this great house are not alike pleasant and commodious for the Inhabitants of it. You read Psalm 74:20 of the dark places of the Earth, which are full of the habitationr of cruelty: and many such dismal places are found in the habitable Earth. What a vast tract…

Without this, we lose the usefulness and beneit of all the works of God for us or others, which would be an unspeakable loss indeed to us. This is the food. our aith lives upon in days of distress, Psalm 74:14 Thou rakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be me…

The breaking of Rahab, that is Egypt, so called here, and (Psalm 87:4; Psalm 89:11) for her great strength which the word signifies, and the wounding of the dragon, that great and crooked Afflictour Pharaoh is remembered, and urged for a motive to a new needed deliverance. So (P…

For ought then appears to the contrary, the Ark might be in the second House, and be carried from there to Rome with the Book of the Law, which Josephus expressly mentions. And therefore the same Abarbinel, in his Comment. on Joel tells us, that Israel by captivity out of his ow…

But there is no pregnant instance of this coincidence. For although [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] do sometimes signify to restrain or shut up, as Psalm 74:11, yet [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] no where signifies to consummate, finish, or complete. The first thing therefore promised…

He is gone there, 1. To feed in the gardens. By gardens, in the plural number, are understood the subdivisions, and particular plots of that one garden, formerly mentioned; the Jews had their synagogues, where the people did meet, and the law was read (as we have our distinct co…

Sweet experiences of past deliverances are not the least part of a Christian's treasure: though I would not have you dote upon them, or imagine that God can go no further than he has gone, which may more daunt you in new and greater troubles, yet nonetheless, do not despise them…

He did his utmost against the people, and to his utmost opposed their redemption. But it is said, that when God redeemed his people out of Egypt, he broke the heads of the dragons in the waters, and broke the head of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat for the people in…

They used to assemble at the temple at their great feasts, and were directed, when they were at a loss about anything in the law, to go to the priest for instruction; and they used also to resort to the prophet's houses: and we read of synagogues in the land before. Psalm 74:8.…

"Which alone—treadeth upon the waves of the sea." So as to casting out devils: Psalm 74:14. "Thou breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces."

How pathetically does Joshua plead (chapter 7:9): what will you do to your great name? And with what a concern does the Psalmist in the name of the church insist upon this (Psalm 74:10): O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever? A…

Why should we go to servants, when we may go to the King himself? So, (Psalm 74:12) For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. God will defend his kingdom, and right his injured subjects.

Now this actual help is necessary: 1. Partly to direct us (Psalm 74:24). You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.

1. They are disciplinary; they teach us. The Psalmist having very elegantly described the church's trouble, Psalm 74, prefixes this title to the Psalm, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩, which signifies a Psalm giving instruction; that which seals up instruction, works for good. God put…

All the damage, mischief, [illegible] that is done to the vineyard falls upon the Owner; he looks upon himself as touched in it, and thereupon concerned to sue for reparation. God accounts that they who touch his people, touch the apple of his eye, and therefore when they suffer…

True mourning is like the water of jealousy — it makes the thigh of sin to rot (Numbers 5:12). Psalm 74:14: you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters; the heads of our sins, these dragons, are broken in the waters of true repentance. True tears are cleansing; they are lik…

2. God does sometimes lay diverse afflictions on the Saints, Job 19. 17. He multiplieth my wounds: as we have diverse ways of sinning, so the Lord has diverse ways of afflicting; some he melts away their estates, others he chains to a sick bed, others he confines to a Prison; Go…

Secondly, the fiery trial is then high when there remain no visible hopes of deliverance or outward encouragements to sense that the scene will alter. 'When we see not our signs, there is no more any prophet, nor any that can tell us how long' — as the case of the church was in…