Psalm 79:1

The Message

God! Barbarians have broken into your home, violated your holy temple, left Jerusalem a pile of rubble! They’ve served up the corpses of your servants as carrion food for birds of prey, Threw the bones of your holy people out to the wild animals to gnaw on. They dumped out their blood like buckets of water. All around Jerusalem, their bodies were left to rot, unburied. We’re nothing but a joke to our neighbors, graffiti scrawled on the city walls.

Cross References

Psalm 50:1

The God of gods—it’s God!—speaks out, shouts, “Earth!” welcomes the sun in the east, farewells the disappearing sun in the west. From the dazzle of Zion, God blazes into view. Our God makes his entrance, he’s not shy in his coming. Starbursts of fireworks precede him.

Jeremiah 39:8

Meanwhile, the Babylonians burned down the royal palace, the Temple, and all the homes of the people. They leveled the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan, commander of the king’s bodyguard, rounded up everyone left in the city, along with those who had surrendered to him, and herded them off to exile in Babylon. He didn’t bother taking the few poor people who had nothing. He left them in the land of Judah to eke out a living as best they could in the vineyards and fields. * * *

Jeremiah 51:51

How we’ve been humiliated, taunted and abused, kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are! And we hardly know what to think— our old Sanctuary, God’s house, desecrated by strangers.

Lamentations 1:10

The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom you posted orders: keep out: this assembly off-limits.

Ezekiel 9:7

He told the executioners, “Desecrate the Temple. Fill it with corpses. Then go out and continue the killing.” So they went out and struck the city. While the massacre went forward, I was left alone. I fell on my face in prayer: “Oh, oh, God, my Master! Are you going to kill everyone left in Israel in this pouring out of your anger on Jerusalem?”