Psalms 80 – Bible with Free Grace study notes

1Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit above the cherubim, shine out.

2Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might! Come to save us!

3Turn us again, God. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.

Free Grace note

The deepest need is God's face, not fixed circumstances

Three times the psalm cries, turn us again, God, cause your face to shine, and we will be saved, in verses 3, 7, and 19, growing more urgent each time. Notice what they ask for. Not merely better conditions or removed enemies, but God Himself, His shining face turned toward them. This echoes the great priestly blessing of Numbers 6:25, the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. Grace is precisely a face turned toward us in favor we did not earn. A believer may pray for relief from hard circumstances, but the truest prayer reaches past the circumstances to the God who stands behind them. When His favor rests on you, everything else finds its place, and that favor in Christ is a settled gift, not a fluctuating mood.

4Yahweh God of Armies, How long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?

5You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.

6You make us a source of contention to our neighbors. Our enemies laugh among themselves.

7Turn us again, God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.

8You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it.

9You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, and filled the land.

10The mountains were covered with its shadow. Its boughs were like God’s cedars.

11It sent out its branches to the sea, Its shoots to the River.

12Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?

13The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.

14Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine,

15the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself.

16It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.

17Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself.

Free Grace note

Rescue hangs on the man of God's right hand

The whole vine's rescue narrows to one figure: let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself. The salvation of the entire people rests on one chosen man. Believers have long read here a shadow of Christ, the true Son of Man seated at God's right hand, Acts 2:33 and Hebrews 1:3, in whom His whole people are saved. Some object that this is only about a king of Israel. It surely spoke first to Israel's need, yet the pattern points forward. God saves a people through one representative man, never through the collective effort of the people themselves. That is exactly how the gospel works. We are rescued in Christ, the man of God's right hand, received by faith, not by our own strength for the journey.

18So we will not turn away from you. Revive us, and we will call on your name.

19Turn us again, Yahweh God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.

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