Read & explore together
A Prayer for Deliverance
Psalm 79 is a prayer from deep ruin and shame. It speaks plainly about loss, asks hard questions, pleads for mercy, and appeals to God’s name as the reason for help.
Understanding the passage
Read these words in context
This passage is a prayer addressed to God. The speaker describes nations entering God’s inheritance, defiling the temple, and leaving Jerusalem in ruins. The prayer moves through grief, reproach, questions about God’s anger, requests for mercy and forgiveness, and a stated resolve to give thanks and praise.
Psalms 79:1–13Main takeaway
Psalm 79 teaches that in desperate need God’s people may bring grief, confession, requests for justice, and a resolve to praise him before him in prayer.
Explore the prayer
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Ruin and reproachThe prayer begins by naming the disaster without softening it. Nations have come into God’s inheritance, defiled his holy temple, and left Jerusalem in heaps.
Explanation
The prayer begins by naming the disaster without softening it. Nations have come into God’s inheritance, defiled his holy temple, and left Jerusalem in heaps. The dead are left unburied, and the people become a reproach, facing scoffing and derision from those around them.
02How long, Yahweh?The psalm asks how long God’s anger will last and pictures his jealousy burning like fire.
Explanation
The psalm asks how long God’s anger will last and pictures his jealousy burning like fire. It also asks God to pour out wrath on nations and kingdoms that do not know him or call on his name, because they have devoured Jacob and destroyed his homeland.
03Mercy, help, and forgivenessThe prayer then asks for mercy in a specific way. It asks God not to hold the iniquities of forefathers against them and asks that his tender mercies meet them speedily, because they are in desperate need.
Explanation
The prayer then asks for mercy in a specific way. It asks God not to hold the iniquities of forefathers against them and asks that his tender mercies meet them speedily, because they are in desperate need. It calls him the God of their salvation and asks for help, deliverance, and forgiveness for his name’s sake.
04Justice and praiseThe closing requests ask why the nations should say, “Where is their God?” and ask that it be known among the nations that vengeance for God’s servants’ blood is being poured out.
Explanation
The closing requests ask why the nations should say, “Where is their God?” and ask that it be known among the nations that vengeance for God’s servants’ blood is being poured out. The prayer also asks God to hear prisoners’ sighing, preserve those sentenced to death, and repay reproach. It ends with the people’s stated resolve to give thanks and praise forever.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What details in the opening show the depth of the disaster?
Notice the ruined city, the defiled temple, the unburied dead, and the neighbours’ scorn.
02What does the prayer ask God to do for his own people?
Look for requests about mercy, help, deliverance, forgiveness, and preservation.
03How does verse 13 answer the grief at the start of the psalm?
Compare the opening reproach and ruin with the closing words about thanks and praise.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Psalms 79:1–13
1God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
2They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth.
3They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.
4We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
5How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, on the kingdoms that don’t call on your name,
7for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.
8Don’t hold the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your tender mercies speedily meet us, for we are in desperate need.
9Help us, God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.
10Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let it be known among the nations, before our eyes, that vengeance for your servants’ blood is being poured out.
11Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you. According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.
12Pay back to our neighbors seven times into their bosom their reproach with which they have reproached you, Lord.
13So we, your people and sheep of your pasture, will give you thanks forever. We will praise you forever, to all generations.