Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause

Psalm 74

1 O GOD, why have You cast us off forever?
Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? 2 Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old,
The tribe of Your inheritance, which You have redeemed -
This Mount Zion where You have dwelt. 3 Lift up Your feet to the perpetual desolations.
The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary.

4 a Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place;
b They set up their banners for signs. 5 They seem like men who lift up
Axes among the thick trees. 6 And now they break down its carved work, all at once,
With axes and hammers. 7 They have set fire to Your sanctuary;
They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. 8 c They said in their hearts,
"Let us 1 destroy them altogether."
They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land.

9 We do not see our signs;
d There is no longer any prophet;
Nor is there any among us who knows how long. 10 O God, how long will the adversary 2 reproach?
Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever? 11 e Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand?
Take it out of Your bosom and destroy them.

12 For f God is my King from of old,
Working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13 g You divided the sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the 3 sea serpents in the waters. 14 You broke the heads of 4 Leviathan in pieces,
And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness. 15 h You broke open the fountain and the flood;
i You dried up mighty rivers. 16 The day is Yours, the night also is j Yours;
k You have prepared the light and the sun. 17 You have l set all the borders of the earth;
m You have made summer and winter.

18 Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O LORD,
And that a foolish people has blasphemed Your name. 19 Oh, do not deliver the life of Your turtledove to the wild beast!
Do not forget the life of Your poor forever.

20 n Have respect to the covenant;
For the 5 dark places of the earth are full of the 6 haunts of 7 cruelty. 21 Oh, do not let the oppressed return ashamed!
Let the poor and needy praise Your name.

22 Arise, O God, plead Your own cause;
Remember how the foolish man 8 reproaches You daily. 23 Do not forget the voice of Your enemies;
The tumult of those who rise up against You increases continually.

  1. Cross References
    Lamentations 2:7
    The Lord has spurned His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces Into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As on the day of a set feast.
  2. Cross References
    Numbers 2:2
    Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard, beside the emblems of his father's house; they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting.
  3. Cross References
    Psalms 83:4
    They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.
  4. Cross References
    1 Samuel 3:1
    Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.
    Lamentations 2:9
    Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The Law is no more, And her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
    Ezekiel 7:26
    Disaster will come upon disaster, And rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; But the law will perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders.
    Amos 8:11
    Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord GOD, "That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD.
  5. Cross References
    Lamentations 2:3
    He has cut off in fierce anger Every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand From before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire Devouring all around.
  6. Cross References
    Psalms 44:4
    You are my King, O God; Command victories for Jacob.
  7. Cross References
    Exodus 14:21
    Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.
  8. Cross References
    Exodus 17:5
    And the LORD said to Moses, "Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go.
    Exodus 17:6
    Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
    Numbers 20:11
    Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.
    Psalms 105:41
    He opened the rock, and water gushed out; It ran in the dry places like a river.
    Isaiah 48:21
    And they did not thirst When He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them; He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out.
  9. Cross References
    Exodus 14:21
    Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.
    Exodus 14:22
    So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
    Joshua 2:10
    For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
    Joshua 3:13
    "And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap."
  10. Cross References
    Job 38:12
    Have you commanded the morning since your days began, And caused the dawn to know its place.
  11. Cross References
    Genesis 1:14 - 18
    Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years.
  12. Cross References
    Deuteronomy 32:8
    When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.
    Acts 17:26
    And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.
  13. Cross References
    Genesis 8:22
    While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.
  14. Cross References
    Genesis 17:7
    And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
    Genesis 17:8
    "Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."
    Leviticus 26:44
    Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.
    Leviticus 26:45
    But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.'
New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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