Psalm 74:21

Psalm 74:21

Praise in the dark places

It’s impossible to know, but I wonder at what point during the captivity in Babylon did Asaph wrote this Psalm? I would suggest that it may have been early on for he talks of retreat here, and the captivity lasted for around 70 years. I think the generation that was still in Babylon in those later years may have stopped thinking about retreating, many would have adapted to life away from the Promised Land. Their oppression was, of course, their slavery but also the fact that they were no longer free to make their own rules, to live their lives corporately for God. They were completely under the control of the Babylonians and the Babylonian way of life. All the things that set them apart from their contemporaries were gone, Jerusalem was gone, the temple was gone, the ceremonies and practices of their religion were gone. Indeed, it must have seemed to them as if God Himself was gone! They were abandoned!

And yet Asaph is still writing his songs and in this one he pleads that there must be no disgrace, that the poor and needy must continue to praise the name of the Lord. In other words, they will remember that He is their God and even in the darkest of circumstances they will praise Him. In fact, it is in the dark places that we need to praise Him. Praise is our means of deliverance. If we can praise the Lord when all around us is dark and forbidding and there seems no way out, we are already on the first rung of the ladder that will take us out of the pit. Hallelujah!

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