I listen to this Psalm as the expression of the sorrow of the captives after Jerusalem had fallen into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. But equally do I read it as the sorrows of the Remnant under the hand of the great enemy in the latter day.
And we might observe that the captives in Babylon would express their sorrow in language suited to the Jews till Messiah and the kingdom come, because the age is one. The times of the Gentiles began with the captivity, and will not end till the throne of David revive in the hand of Messiah. The mind of a righteous Jew, if I may so speak; in one sense is the same throughout this age. And we have a similar thing in the history of the church. St. Paul prophesies of certain evils in “the latter times,” and in the “last days,” but yet speaks about them to Timothy as though they had then come. (1 Tim. 4; 2 Tim. 3.) And so, in one sense, they had, inasmuch as the same spirit was working then. The whole age of Christendom, as of Israel in the discerning judgment of the Spirit of God, sustains one character from beginning to end.
More specifically this Psalm, I judge, is the cry of the Remnant in the hour of their deepest distress under the pressure of the beast (Rev. 13) after the slaughter of the witnesses (Rev. 11). It may be read as the impassioned cry of the preserved remnant after their brethren had been martyred (Psa. 79:33Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them. (Psalm 79:3)). Such two remnants, or two portions of the same remnant, the Lord contemplates in His great prophetic word in Matthew 24. The Revelation of St. John, I believe, proceeds upon the same distinction of preserved and martyred portions of the faithful Israel in those days.
They own their sin, trust only in mercy, plead the glory of God’s own name, present to God their reproach and grief, and the enemies’ infidelity and oppressions, and make their reproach God’s reproach—their cause His cause.
I would observe a difference that has struck me. The psalmist or the prophets, rehearsing the cause of Israel’s present rejection, speaks of their iniquities and sins as in this Psalm; but the Apostle in the same connection speaks of Israel’s not submitting themselves to God’s righteousness. (Rom. 9,10.) Such difference is easily and beautifully intelligible.