Psalm 79:4

We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) This verse occurs Psalm 44:13. Also possibly a Maccabæan psalm. (See Introduction to that psalm.)

The scenes still witnessed by travellers at the Jews’ wailing-place offer a striking illustration of the foregoing verses, showing, as they do, how deep-seated is the love of an ancient place in the Oriental mind. (See a striking description in Porter’s Giant Cities of Bashan.)

Benson Commentary

Psalm 79:4. We are become a reproach, &c. — We, who were the terror of our neighbours, and whom they stood in awe of, and were afraid to offend, are now neither feared nor pitied, but are become the objects of their scoffs and reproaches. For they study to abuse us and load us with contempt, upbraiding us with our sins and sufferings, and giving the lie to our relation to God, and expectations from him. If God’s professing people degenerate from what themselves and their fathers were, they must expect to be told of it; and it is well if a just reproach will help to bring them to a true repentance. But it has been the lot of the gospel Israel to be unjustly made a reproach and derision. The apostles and evangelists themselves, who were the wisest and best men that ever lived, and the greatest friends and benefactors of the human race, were counted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

79:1-5 God is complained to: whither should children go but to a Father able and willing to help them? See what a change sin made in the holy city, when the heathen were suffered to pour in upon them. God's own people defiled it by their sins, therefore he suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence. They desired that God would be reconciled. Those who desire God's favour as better than life, cannot but dread his wrath as worse than death. In every affliction we should first beseech the Lord to cleanse away the guilt of our sins; then he will visit us with his tender mercies.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

We are become a reproach to our neighbours - See the language in this verse explained in the notes at Psalm 44:13. The words in the Hebrew are the same, and the one seems to have been copied from the other.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. (Compare Ps 44:13; Jer 42:18; La 2:15).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We, who were their terror and scourge, are now neither feared nor pitied, but become the matter of their scoffs and reproaches. See Psalm 80:6 137:7 Ezekiel 35:2,12, &c.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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.

Geneva Study Bible

We are become a reproach to our {d} neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

(d) Of which some came from Abraham but were degenerate: and others were open enemies to your religion, but they both laughed at our miseries.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. A repetition of Psalm 44:13, with the change of ‘thou makest us’ to ‘we are become.’ Cp. Psalm 80:6; Ezekiel 22:4; Ezekiel 25:6 ff. Daniel 9:16 combines this verse with Psalm 79:8 a.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - We are become a reproach to our neighbours (comp. Psalm 44:13; Lamentations 2:15; Lamentations 5:1. The "neighbours" intended are the nations in the vicinity of the Holy Land - the Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, etc. Their attitude towards Israel under the circumstances may be gathered from what is related of the Edomites in Psalm 137:7. A scorn and derision to them that are round about us. It was not so much the "reproaches" of their enemies that vexed and grieved Israel, as the jeers and scoffs which they heard on every side (comp. Lamentations 1:7, 20; Lamentations 2:15; Lamentations 3:62, 63). Psalm 79:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Psalm begins with a plaintive description, and in fact one that makes complaint to God. Its opening sounds like Lamentations 1:10. The defiling does not exclude the reducing to ashes, it is rather spontaneously suggested in Psalm 74:7 in company with wilful incendiarism. The complaint in Psalm 79:1 reminds one of the prophecy of Micah, Micah 3:12, which in its time excited so much vexation (Jeremiah 26:18); and Psalm 79:2, Deuteronomy 28:26. עבדיך confers upon those who were massacred the honour of martyrdom. The lxx renders לעיים by εἰς ὀπωροφυλάκιον, a flourish taken from Isaiah 1:8. Concerning the quotation from memory in 1 Macc. 7:16f., vid., the introduction to Psalm 74. The translator of the originally Hebrew First Book of the Maccabees even in other instances betrays an acquaintance with the Greek Psalter (cf. 1 Macc. 1:37, καὶ ἐξέχεαν αἷμα ἀθῷον κύκλῳ τοῦ ἁγιάσματος). "As water," i.e., (cf. Deuteronomy 15:23) without setting any value upon it and without any scruple about it. Psalm 44:14 is repeated in Psalm 79:4. At the time of the Chaldaean catastrophe this applied more particularly to the Edomites.