for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland.
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
"For they have devoured Jacob." The oppressor would quite eat up the saints if he could. If these lions do not swallow us, it is because the Lord has sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths. "And laid waste his dwelling place, " or his pasture. The invader left no food for man or beast, but devoured all as the locust. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
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