Restore Us O God of Our Salvation

The word of the Lord by his prophets has been fulfilled. The leaders of Judah have been struck down and those that weren’t are deported to Babylon. Some, the poorest, are left behind, but the Lord says in 2 Kings 25:21 “Judah has been removed from the land”. Now we hear the lament in Psalm 74:1 “have you rejected us forever?”, and in Psalm 74:10 “Will the enemy treat your name with contempt forever?”. They are saying, as we often may, “God, When will you do something about this!”. But the issues the house of Israel faced here were not with God’s side of the covenant. Eventually, their cries turn in Psalm 74, to “help us” then in Psalm 79, “restore us” and in Psalm 85:4, “show us” and finally, to in Psalm 85:8 “I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak”. Now they are in a place to move forward. Do you remember what the Lord had said in Jeremiah 33:3 ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great things and inaccessible things that you have not known.’

The City (Jerusalem) Came Under Siege

Jeremiah 52:11–20

The King of Babylon Struck Them Down

Jeremiah 52:21–30
The Lord had spoken through the prophet directly to the king Zedekiah in

Jeremiah 38:18 But if you do not go surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire, and you will not escape from their hand.’ ”

Then he went on to say in Jeremiah 38:21 “But if you are refusing to surrender, this is the thing that Yahweh has shown me” … Jeremiah 38:23 “And all your wives and your children will be led out to the Chaldeans, and you will not escape from their hand, but by the hand of the king of Babylon you will be seized, and this city will burn with fire.”

So after the city was taken and as it was being plundered and burned, the Babylonian army captured Zedekiah, and these men in the city as recorded in 2 Kings 25:18-19 and also recorded here in

Jeremiah 52:24–25 “Then the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and three keepers of the threshold. 25 And from the city he took one high official who was chief officer over the soldiers, and seven men of the king’s advisors who were found in the city, and the secretary of the commander of the army who levied for military service the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the midst of the city”.

These who were captured as leaders in Jeremiah 52:27 “the king of Babylon struck them down and killed them at Riblah”. The others who lived were taken to Babylon as had happened with Daniel and others previously in Jeremiah 52:30 “the captain of the guard, deported seven hundred and forty-five Judean persons”. The king and his leaders could have gone with them if they had been willing to yield to God’s word.

Have You Rejected Us Forever?

Psalm 74:1–8

How Long Will the Adversary Taunt?

Psalm 74:9–17

Have Regard for the Covenant

Psalm 74:18–23
This lament is said to have been written at the time of the exile. Certainly it would seem that the Lord had rejected them and allowed their adversary to overtake them. So, they cry out in

Psalm 74:20 “Have regard for the covenant, because the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence”.

But this request to the Lord to “have regard for the covenant” had been made before, saying that they are gods people and that these foreign nations around them were uncircumcised, heathen, pagan, without any relationship with God. They are still depending on the power of the Lords covenant and are still not recognizing their actions need to change. It is their culture, that has been tainted by the nations around them. It is their religious profession that God is for them followed by complete disregard by them to be for God. Here is what the Lord had been saying to them all along in

Jeremiah 7:3 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good and let me dwell with you in this place”.

Help Us, O God of Our Salvation

Psalm 79:1–13