Psalm 80:
80 Listen, Shepherd of Israel,
Who leads Joseph like a flock;
You who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!
2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, awaken Your power,
And come to save us!
3 God, restore us
And make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
4 Lord God of armies,
How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears,
And You have made them drink tears in large measure.
6 You make us an object of contention to our neighbors,
And our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 God of armies, restore us
And make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
8 You removed a vine from Egypt;
You drove out the]nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground before it,
And it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow,
And the cedars of God with its branches.
11 It was sending out its branches to the sea
And its shoots to the Euphrates River.
12 Why have You broken down its hedges,
So that all who pass that way pick its fruit?
13 A boar from the forest eats it away,
And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
14 God of armies, do turn back;
Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
15 The shoot which Your right hand has planted,
And of the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself.
16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down;
They perish from the rebuke of Your face.
17 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand,
Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
18 Then we will not turn back from You;
Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
19 Lord God of armies, restore us;
Make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
This psalm seems to be specifically a prayer for the northern kingdom of God(v 2) for restoration after being conquered by the Assyrian nation.
This psalm provides a glimpse into the psalmists, and perhaps all of Israel’s thinking and theological understanding of God. Verses 4, 7, 8, 14, 19 they envision a God who is the God of or the God that is driving, their armies. They see God as on their side. They see God as punishing other nations or punishing them. They see God as directly involved in war. In the slaughtering of people over property rights. My question is how can they see God that way? I think partly because that is how other nations and religions saw their Gods. But I also have to keep in mind Christ had not come yet. Jesus, being God fully manifested as one of us, shows us who the Father is. Whatever we see in Christ, is who God is. Despite Israel being given the law, somehow they justified killing, even though it explicitly says, “Thou shall not kill”. And somehow all the laws that teach loving your neighbor and welcoming the foreigner were buried under Israel’s political and military agenda.
This psalm, like much of the OT accurately reveals Israel’s understanding of who God is but does not accurately reveal God himself. God does not change, our understanding of Him does. He was seen as God of their armies fighting on behalf of their agenda and conquests. But was he really? And don’t we do the same. We see God as on our side, fighting for our beliefs. We have our agenda and we bring it before God and ask him to bless us. And if He doesn’t give us what we want, we start thinking He must be punishing us for our wrongdoings. I could be wrong but when Jesus tells us that we have to lose our life to find it, I believe that this is what He is talking about. We have to give up our agenda, our conquests, our plans and goals and ambitions, not that they are all evil, but they are often not rooted in the will of God, they are often shortsighted and rooted in our desires for for what serves us, and again they are not necessarily evil, but the will of God is that we serve others. So the idea that God is for us as we enter someone else’s property and take ownership of it by killing them seems absurd. Especially if we think that Jesus is leading the charge!
But an idea that they seem to understand that I believe is congruent with the nature of God is that God initiates with us and all goodness springs from that. When they ask God to make His face shine upon them, there is always a, “then we will…” I when I started seeking God, I was presented with the scenario that God is pissed at us and we disgust him and we therefore have to make amends for our wrongdoings and in doing so, we will appease His anger and He will bless our sacrifices. And we are so disgusting to God that Jesus had to atone for all our sins because our efforts would never be enough. And though God’s anger burned against us and He doesn’t like us very much, Jesus atoned for our sins so God has to let us into Heaven. That’s paganism. That is seeing a relationship with God as transactional and I initiate the transaction. The thinking of, “God I will do this for you because I need you to do this for me” is faulty and dangerous. But Israel does seem to have an understanding that it is God who initiates with us and all we can do is respond to His love.
Understanding that all that we see in Jesus is revealing to us who the Father is, we see that the father loves us and always has. God is not angry with us. God became one of us because He loves us. God desires for us to be involved in the doing of His will because He delights in us. Perhaps a little better way for me to grasp this is to pray for God to help me see his love for me and defeat my enemy, Satan, who wants me to believe the lies that God is punishing me for my sins and I have to earn his love back with my goodness. Pray that I see how God’s face is always shining upon us and respond to His love from that place. Praying thanking God that I get to participate in his will to conquer evil and darkness, in all its various forms.