contumely · noun, common feminine singular absolute
neighbours
לִשְׁכֵנֵ֑ינוּlish.khe.Nei.nu
H7934
a resident · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
scorn
לַ֥עַגLa.'ag
H3933
derision · noun, common masculine singular absolute
derision
וָ֝קֶ֗לֶסva.Ke.les
H7047
a laughing-stock · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
about
לִסְבִיבוֹתֵֽינוּlis.vi.vo.Tei.nu
H5439
(as noun) a circle · preposition + noun, common both genders plural construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 80:6 Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Psalms 89:41 All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours.
Lamentations 5:1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
Ezekiel 36:15 Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, nei…
Deuteronomy 28:37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.
1 Kings 9:7 Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my…
Nehemiah 2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despi…
Nehemiah 4:1-4 But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 79:1-5
We have here a sad complaint exhibited in the court of heaven. The world is full of complaints, and so is the church too, for it suffers, not only with it, but from it, as a lily among thorns. God is complained to; whither should children go with their grievances, but to their father, to such a father as is able and willing to help? The heathen are complained of, who, being themselves aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, were sworn enemies to it. Though they knew not God, nor owned him, yet, God having them in chain, the church very fitly appeals to him against them; for he is King of nations, to overrule them, to judge among the heathen, and King of saints, to favour and protect them.
I.…
We are become a reproach to our neighbours,.... That is, those that remained; so the Jews were to the Edomites, especially at the time of the Babylonish captivity, Psalm 137:7,
a scorn and derision to them that are round about us; as the Christians in all ages have been to the men of the world, and especially will be insulted and triumphed over when the witnesses are slain, Revelation 11:10.
John Calvin on Psalms 79:1-4
Psalm 79:1-4
1. O God! the heathen [or the nations] have come into thy inheritance; they have defiled the temple of thy holiness; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps. 2. They have given the dead bodies of thy servants for food to the fowls of the heaven; the flesh of thy meek ones to the beasts of the earth. 3. They have shed their blood like water, around Jerusalem: and there was none to bury them. 4. We have been a reproach to our neighbors; a scorn and a derision to them that are around us.
1. O God! the heathen have come into thy inheritance. Here the prophet, in the person of the faithful, complains that the temple was defiled, and the city destroyed. In the second and third verses, he…
If you shut the heavens, who will open them? And if you let loose your torrents, who will restrain them? It is an easy thing in your eyes to make some people poor and others rich, to make some alive and to kill others, to strike some with illness and to heal others. Whatever you do according to your will is perfect. You are angry, and we have sinned, someone said long ago, in making confession. Now it is time for me to say the opposite, "We have sinned, and you are angry"; therefore "we have become a reproach to our neighbors." You turned your face from us, and we were filled with dishonor. But stay, Lord; cease, Lord; forgive, Lord; deliver us not up forever because of our iniquities, and let not our chastisements be a warning for others, when we might learn wisdom from the trials of others.
"We have become," he says, "a reproach to our neighbours" [Psalm 79:4]. Therefore precious not in the sight of men, from whom this reproach was, but "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." "A scoffing and derision:" or, as some have interpreted it, "a mockery to them that are in our circuit." It is a repetition of the former sentence. For that which above has been called, "a reproach," the same has been repeated in, "a scoffing and derision:" and that which above has been said in, "to our neighbours," the same has been repeated in, "to them that are in our circuit." Moreover, in reference to the earthly Jerusalem, the neighbours, and those in the circuit of that nation, are certainly understood to be other nations. But in reference to the free Jerusalem our mother, [Galatians 4:26] there are neighbours even in the circuit of her, among whom, being her enemies, the Church dwells in the circuit of the round world.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Wailing-place, Jews’ — A section of the western wall of the temple area, where the Jews assemble every Friday afternoon to bewail their desolate condition (Ps. 79:1, 4, 5). The stones in this part of the wall are of great…
Jews, The · Denunciations against those who: Slaughtered — Denunciations against those who: Slaughtered
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Psalm begins with a plaintive description, and in fact one that makes complaint to God. Its opening sounds like Lam 1:10. The defiling does not exclude the reducing to ashes, it is rather spontaneously suggested in Psa 74:7 in company with wilful incendiarism. The complaint in Psa 79:1 reminds one of the prophecy of Micah, Mic 3:12, which in its time excited so much vexation (Jer 26:18); and Psa 79:2, Deu 28:26. עבדיך confers upon those who were massacred the honour of martyrdom. The lxx renders לעיים by εἰς ὀπωροφυλάκιον, a flourish taken from Isa 1:8. Concerning the quotation from memory in 1 Macc. 7:16f., vid., the introduction to Ps 74. The translator of the originally Hebrew Firs…
Ps 79 This lament describes the occasion of Jerusalem’s fall in 586 BC. The early history of Israel’s rebellions described in Ps 78 provoked God’s wrath, resulting in the desolation of Zion described here as the defilement of the Temple and the disgraced bodies that littered the landscape. The psalmist then prays for forgiveness and rescue (79:8-9), as well as for God to pay back the nation’s enemies (79:12-13). Other psalms lamenting the Exile include Pss 42–44, 102, 107, 126, 137.
79:1-4 The poet laments the desecration of the Temple and the success of the enemy.
79:1 your special possession: This phrase might refer to the land, the Temple (see 61:5), or the people (see 79:2; 78:71).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 79:4
We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
"We are become a reproach to our neighbours." Those who have escaped the common foe make a mockery of us, they fling our disasters into our face, and ask us, "Where is your God?" Pity should be shown to the afflicted, but in too many cases it is not so, for a hard logic argues that those who suffer more than ordinary calamities must have been extraordinary sinners. Neighbours especially are often the reverse of neighbourly; the nearer they dwell the less they sympathize. It is most pitiable it should be so. "A scorn and a derision to them that are round about us." To find mirth in others' miser…
