Why should the nations ask, “Where is their God?” Before our eyes, make known among the nations Your vengeance for the bloodshed of Your servants.
This psalm belongs to the time when the Church lay under genuine oppression, either when Assyria burnt the temple and dragged the people into captivity or when Antiochus defiled it with slaughter. The faithful bewail their calamities while acknowledging they were justly chastised, yet they take courage because God's own dishonor is bound up with theirs: the ungodly blaspheme His sacred name in persecuting His Church.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 79:1-13
Why should impious mouths feast on food so sweet to them, so bitter to us? When sinners mock the afflictions of God's people and ridicule religion itself, we have warrant to cry out for justice. The destruction of Antichrist is the recompense of the martyrs' blood, and it is one of the most glorious hopes of the latter days.
AI summary
Pour out the full vials of wrath on those who know not God and call not upon His name; they have devoured Jacob, plundered and depopulated the land, which is crime enough before Him who counts His people the apple of His eye. Yet the Church owns its own sins as the procuring cause of all calamities: God was righteous in permitting what men wickedly performed.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 79:6-13