This Psalm seems to be in connection with the preceding. Psalm 79:13 suggests Psalm 80:1. Accordingly the soul of the Remnant advances in liberty and confidence. There is not the same confession of sin, but a stronger appeal for deliverance, and a fuller intelligence of the divine counsels. The Man at God’s right hand is pleaded—the Son of Man made strong for God’s purposes. What a thought, as we utter it! to think that there is a Man, “a real Man,” now glorified in the highest heavens. And such is Jesus in resurrection and ascension. (See Matt. 28:18; Psa. 110:1; Dan. 7:13; 1 Peter 3:22.)
Psalm 80:2 refers to Numbers 10, where, on the journeying of the camp, we learn that the Ark went immediately before the standard of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, and on the moving forward there was a cry to the Lord as here.
Psalm 80:17 may remind us very specially of Matthew 26:64.
The prophet, in pleading for Israel, is animated by tender and lofty thoughts of Israel’s ancient glories, as the Apostle afterward is. (See Rom. 9:1-5.) And very beautiful is this. The very nature of the ruin bespeaks the grandeur of the building, and awakens the deeper sympathy.
On the burden of this Psalm, so to call it (see Psa. 80:3,7,19), it may be observed that we get the person of the Lord strikingly revealed through Scripture. Thus, regarded in different lights, He is both the answerer of prayer and the suppliant. He receives the Spirit, and pours out the Spirit. (Zech. 12:10; Acts 2:33.) He is the Rock (Matt. 16:18), and yet He looks to God as the Rock (Psa. 62). He is one of the flock (Psa. 23), and yet the Shepherd of the flock (John 10). He is on the throne praised, and yet the leader of the people’s praise (Psa. 116; Rev. 5). He is a Priest, and yet the redeemed are priests to Him (Rev. 20:6). In one respect He is a Jew, desiring the divine favor for His nation, and waiting for the face of Jehovah to be turned again to His people (Isa. 8:17). In another respect He is as Jehovah Himself, the God of Israel, with His face turned away from His people (Matt. 23:39), thus strikingly revealed in both His divine and human place, both as the expectant head of Israel, and yet as Israel’s God. All this can be understood when the great mystery of “God manifest in the flesh” and its glorious results are understood. But who can utter it all? (See on Psa. 18).