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Psalms

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Psalm 79

1 A psalm of Asaph. O God, foreigners have invaded your chosen land; they have polluted your holy temple and turned Jerusalem into a heap of ruins. 2 They have given the corpses of your servants to the birds of the sky, the flesh of your loyal followers to the beasts of the earth.⁠ 3 They have made their blood flow like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. 4 We have become an object of disdain to our neighbors; those who live on our borders taunt and insult us. 5 How long will this go on, O Lord? Will you stay angry forever? How long will your rage burn like fire? 6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the kingdoms that do not pray to you.⁠ 7 For they have devoured Jacob and destroyed his home. 8 Do not hold us accountable for the sins of earlier generations. Quickly send your compassion our way, for we are in serious trouble. 9 Help us, O God, our deliverer! For the sake of your glorious reputation, rescue us. Forgive our sins for the sake of your reputation.⁠ 10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”⁠ Before our very eyes may the shed blood of your servants be avenged among the nations. 11 Listen to the painful cries of the prisoners. Use your great strength to set free those condemned to die. 12 Pay back our neighbors in full. May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord. 13 Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will continually thank you. We will tell coming generations of your praiseworthy acts.

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 28:26 and Psalm 79:2

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Psalm 79 draws on the covenant curse in Deuteronomy 28, which describes bodies left for birds and animals as a result of disobedience. The psalm applies this language to Jerusalem after enemy invasion and destruction.

Passages

Deuteronomy 28:26

Hebrew Bible
24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Psalm 79:2

Hebrew Bible
1 A psalm of Asaph. O God, foreigners have invaded your chosen land; they have polluted your holy temple and turned Jerusalem into a heap of ruins. 2 They have given the corpses of your servants to the birds of the sky, the flesh of your loyal followers to the beasts of the earth. 3 They have made their blood flow like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. 4 We have become an object of disdain to our neighbors; those who live on our borders taunt and insult us.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

References

"... The depiction of the community in exile as righteous becomes rhetorically more evident in Tobit’s activity of burying unidentified dead bodies of his murdered compatriots. In the Scriptures, Israel refused burial of her enemies on occasion (compare Psalm 79:2–3; 2 Maccabees 5:10) as a sign of divine judgment. The denial of burial is thought of as a divine declaration that the dead are depraved. As Sirach 11:28 notes, “call no man happy before his death; for by how he ends, a man is known.” Indeed, a clear example of the public declaration of divine judgment is the end of the arrogant Antiochus IV whose demise reveals his true character. 2 Maccabees 5:9–10 says of him that “he who had exiled so many from their country perished in exile; and he who had cast out so many to lie unburied went unmourned himself with no funeral of any kind or any place in the tomb of his ancestors.” In another text that likely dates to the 1st century BCE, the second psalm in the collection Psalms of Solomon refers to Pompey as an arrogant dragon who died on the mountains of Egypt and whose “body was carried about on the waves in great insolence” with “no one to bury him for he had rejected God in dishonor” (compare Psalms of Solomon 2:27–29). Postmortem shame is viewed as a fitting divine sentence for Israel’s persecutors. The lack or refusal of burial, disinterment or dishonorable burial is a severe but suitable penalty not only for Israel’s enemies but also for those within Israel who are judged as wicked or as violators of the covenant (compare 1 Kings 14:11; Jeremiah 14:16; Deuteronomy 28:26) ..."
Francis M. Macatangay, “The Rhetorical Function of Burying the Dead in the Book of Tobit,” in Understanding Texts in Early Judaism: Studies on Biblical, Qumranic, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature in Memory of Géza Xeravits, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2022), 161–175.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 28:26 and Psalm 79:2

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