Songs are both expressive and volitional. They give voice to and move us through a whole range of experiences and emotions. People will often say that they were “moved” by a piece of music, and they are probably more right than they realize. Because music is a gift from God, and we are creatures made in God’s image, music takes us somewhere.
Consider the psalms of David. These are songs of movement. They take us back, they move us forward. They ebb and flow in a way that is always directing our hearts and minds and communities toward a certain end.
So is the case with repetition in the psalms. Rather than retreading ground already covered, the repetition serves as a spiraling staircase leading us to higher ground. Repeating something is not just for the purpose of remembering, although that is immensely important. It’s also for the purpose of strengthening our longing and anticipation for what the song is leading us toward.
Psalm 80 is one of those songs. It divides up into three sections by a chorus that is repeated three times. Depending on the liturgical tradition you are familiar with, repeating choruses in a song several times evokes different responses. Many of us have had some experience with choruses gone wild. We know what it’s like to be singing a song that feels more like being stuck in a whirlpool that wears you out with endless repeating circles rather than lifting you up in a spiraling ascent.
But choruses, used rightly, can stir the waters in ways that help the song move us in the right direction. The chorus employed in this psalm is far from simple refrain as we will see.
The Sheep of God’s Pasture
The psalm begins by picturing God as the Shepherd of Israel. This is actually quite striking. Asaph has been using the pastoral image of shepherding in many of his psalms already. But he has been using it up to this point to describe Israel as the sheep of God’s pasture.
God is pictured as the owner of the sheep. He is the one who has gathered them together to be his sheep. He has provided pasture and care and protection because they are His sheep.
O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? (Ps. 74)
Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Ps. 77)
Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. (Ps. 78)
But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise. (Ps. 79)
Asaph traces God’s care over his sheep through shepherds turned prophets, Moses and Aaron, and through a shepherd turned king in David. And what a sorry bunch of sheep they prove to be! All of Psalm 78 is a scathing indictment against the unbelief and ingratitude of the people. God had brought them into his sheepfold. He had given them good shepherds to guide them. He had provided for them and protected them in the wilderness. He had gone before them to clear out and defeat the wild beasts of pagan nations that inhabited the land so that they could possess a land of good pasture in which to dwell from generation to generation. a
The image thus far has been an emphasis on God’s ownership and provision of the sheep. But in the opening lines of Psalm 80, Asaph introduces us to an even greater reality. We are not only the sheep of God’s pasture being led by shepherds given by Him, but God Himself is our true shepherd. This is only one of two times in all of the Psalms that God is referred to as Israel’s shepherd, here and in Psalm 23. And it is this image that the Psalmist draws our attention to in the first stanza of the Psalm.
The LORD is Our Shepherd
1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. 2 You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us!
Psalm 80:1-2
It’s most likely that this psalm is referring to the time when the two kingdoms were divided- Israel to the north and Judah to the south. He refers here to the people by the patriarch Joseph rather than Judah. Ephraim and Manasseh were two of the most prominent tribes in the northern kingdom.
While both kingdoms had their troubles, the northern kingdom was especially grievous to the Lord. But here they are reminded that they all have only one Shepherd. They have no true identity apart from him who called them into being.
The psalmist lifts up prayers on behalf of the northern ten tribes in particular, and he implores the Shepherd to save a lost and dying flock. This is not the gentle shepherd lying in the shade while his sheep graze lazily in the meadow. This is a shepherd who “sits enthroned upon the cherubim.” He is the Almighty One who makes earth and heaven his footstool.
The northern kingdom had forsaken the true worship of Yahweh. King Jeroboam was threatened by the need of his people to travel to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to Yahweh. So he built two golden calves, setting up one in Bethel and another in Dan. And he said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.” b
So the people forsook the worship of their true Shepherd and turned to idols that could not lead, could not protect, could not provide. And just as this worship stirred up God’s anger against the people, now the Psalmist asks that in his mercy, God would stir up his might and save them once again.
It would be a saving from themselves as much as it would be from the Assyrians who threatened to wipe them from the earth. Where the rebellious sheep deserved nothing but curses, Asaph prays for blessing. And here we get the first of our three refrains.
3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 80:3
God is referred to here by his most common name, Elohim. He is the one true God of power and majesty and glory. He is the mighty One and only the light of his favor can bring salvation. Interestingly, it is the name Moses uses for God in the creation story and highlights the truth that in Him alone we live and move and have our being. The God who brought light and life into existence must be the One to restore light and life again.
The second stanza builds on this and reminds us, as so many of the psalms do, that Israel’s greatest threat was not the surrounding nations, but their own unfaithfulness. In the fullest sense salvation is not escape but restoration.
4 O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? 5 You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. 6 You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Psalm 80:4-6
The northern tribes were facing destruction. But their prayers were no longer sweet incense rising before the face of Yahweh. The smoke of God’s anger against the unfaithfulness, the unrepentance, and the pride of Israel had overtaken their prayers. Now instead of feeding his people with manna, they eat the bread of their own tears. Instead of quenching their thirst with water from the rock, they are given salty tears to drink.
The glory they sought for themselves has become an object of shame and mockery. The nations that once trembled in fear at the advancing hosts of Israel as they entered into the land of promise, now laugh and scorn with no fear whatsoever.
This leads us into the second refrain of the chorus. Notice the spiraling movement upward in its repetition.
7 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 80:7
Now God is referred to as Elohim Sabaoth, the God of hosts. Just as Elohim draws us back to creation, now this name draws us to the exodus out of Egypt when God delivered His people from the tyranny of Pharaoh and went before them by cloud and fire to deliver into their hands a land of peace and plenty. His people must repent of putting their trust in chariots and horses (the strength of men) and put their trust in the God who commands armies of angels and men if they are ever to return again to the shalom they once knew.
In directing our eyes to the great Shepherd of Israel, the psalmist has moved us in song to look to Him for life and light and deliverance. But he has one more image to put before us and one more repetition to move us.
The Vineyard of the LORD
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. 9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. 11 It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River.
Psalm 80:8-11
Like the image of the shepherd, this image would also be very familiar to the people of Israel. The prophets in particular had used this imagery many times as they spoke God’s words to His people. For example, in Jeremiah 2:21, God says, “I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?”
And again, like the image of sheep, the picture gives us both an understanding of God’s relationship to His people and their unfortunate response to His faithfulness and blessings.
The vines did not produce the fruit of the vine they were intended to produce. God cultivated them into what should have been choice grapes, but they consistently produced wild, sour grapes.
Asaph mentions Joseph in verse 1. In Genesis 49, Jacob gives his final blessings for the tribes that would come from his family. In his blessing for Joseph, he also mentions these two images of shepherd and vine.
Joseph is a fruitful bough (vine), a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel), by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings from heaven above…
Genesis 49:22
So now, Asaph’s song brings to remembrance before the face of Elohim Sabaoth, the God of hosts, how this vine came to be in the first place. God Himself had called this vine forth. Out of Egypt, God called forth a vine that He would care for as His very own.
He provided rich soil for the vine by driving out the nations. This is not a wild vine growing up in hostile territory. God cultivated a protected vineyard in the midst of the wilderness. Here, in a land flowing with milk and honey, God planted His vine and caused it to grow. We are told that this vine established deep roots and filled the land.
And what a vine it was! Mountains are said to have enjoyed its shade. The mighty cedars had their branches covered with it. The picture is one of abundant blessing and favor from the divine Vinedresser.
In fact, the vine had graciously been grown up into the very inheritance that had been promised so long ago. The psalm describes its branches as reaching from the great Mediterranean Sea to the River Euphrates. But as Asaph considers the present condition of the vine, it raises an important question.
12 Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? 13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed upon it.
Psalm 80:12-13
The branches had lost their greatness and glory because the God of Hosts no longer protected them. They had turned their faces from the Almighty, so His favor no longer shined upon them. He gave them up to the nations because they had become like them both inside and out.
The answer to their present situation is quite clear. If it was the mercy and might of God that brought them up the first time, it will only be a return of God’s favor upon His people that will restore them again.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted and for the son whom You made strong for yourself.
Psalm 80:14
Yahweh had established this vineyard through His servants, His “right hand.” He had strengthened Israel as a son who in turn would bring glory to his Father.
It was these very servants that unbelieving Israel had rejected and killed time and time again. Unbelief and ingratitude had brought great calamity upon the nation. It had divided the kingdom. It had brought fear and enslavement. It had caused great riches to be plundered.
The vine can only be restored if the God of hosts regards it with favor once more. The man of His right hand must establish them and the strength of the Son of man must rescue and restore them to true life and glory.
17But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself. Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Psalm 80:17
This is salvation! God’s face shining upon His people and their faces fixed in faithful worship and eternal gratitude toward Him. Salvation is covenantal. It is the union and communion of the Triune God with His people. Thus, the cry of the faithful has always been, “Give us life! And we will use that life to call upon Your name!” We want to live that we might worship!
Therefore, the psalm ends with the third and final refrain of the chorus. It ends with a final cry of restoration.
18 Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 80:18
The psalmist prays now that Yahweh, the God of Hosts, would make His face shine upon them again. That Yahweh- who created them for His glory c, who established a covenant with their father Abraham that through his seed all the nations would be blessed, who called out Israel to be a people when they were not a people, who made a great nation out of small beginnings, whose faithfulness endures forever- that He would fight for them, that He would save them once again.
This is not a Psalm speaking specifically about the coming Messiah, but everything in it is pointing us in that direction. The movement of the song inescapably carries us to the coming of Christ. Yahweh had always been moving the song of history to this grand chorus.
He shepherded His people through the prophet Moses, through Aaron and the priests, through David the king. But all of it was moving toward the great coming of One who would shepherd His people as Prophet, Priest, and King.
The chorus repeats the sounding joy as it moves from Elohim to Elohim Sabaoth to Elohim Sabaoth Yahweh to now Emmanuel- God with Us!
The great Triune God, who had always been a great Shepherd to Israel, now comes in the flesh to fully restore what had only been glimpsed in the Old Testament. True salvation has come!
Jesus becomes the Good Shepherd who leads His sheep, and His sheep hear his voice and follow. d
Jesus becomes the true vine, and out of him would come many branches that bear fruit to feed and cover the nations. e
Jesus is the true Son who glorifies the Father and the suffering servant who now sits at the right hand of the Father. f
God has indeed made His face to shine, and it shines on us in the person of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle John states it, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” g
God has given us life and light through the coming of Jesus into the world. What shall we do with that life? Do our faces shine with the radiance of His face? Do we say, “Give us life, that we may call upon your name?”
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Hebrews 13:20-21
- Joshua 21:43 (back)
- 2 Kings 12:28 (back)
- Isaiah 43:7 (back)
- John 10 (back)
- John 15 (back)
- Mark 10:45 (back)
- John 1:4 (back)
