The Synagogue a Post-Exilian Institution
Psalm 74:8
They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.


Dr. Prideux affirms that the Jews had no synagogues before the Babylonish captivity; for the main service of the synagogue being the reading of the law unto the people, where there was no book of the law to be read, there certainly would be no synagogue. How rare the book of the law was through all Judaea before the captivity, many texts of Scripture tell us. Dr. Fairbairn, in support of the same view, says, "There is every reason to think that this psalm was composed during the Babylonish captivity, and was intended to describe the desolation which had been brought by the Chaldeans upon all the sacred spots of Palestine. The word for synagogue in the original, however, properly expresses the places of the revelation of God, and can refer only to the temple, that one place on which God had chosen to put His name."



Parallel Verses
KJV: They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

WEB: They said in their heart, "We will crush them completely." They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.




The Destructive Work of Man and the Constructive Work of God
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