Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 79:11
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;
11. The same phrases recur in Psa 102:20.
thy power ] Lit. thine arm, a word which recalls the memories of a glorious past (Exo 15:16; Psa 44:3).
those that are appointed to die ] Lit., the sons of death. It is not necessary to understand these expressions literally of prisoners sentenced to execution: more probably they denote the prison and the living death of exile (Isa 42:7; Isa 49:9; Isa 61:1).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee – The sighing of him who is bound. The allusion here is, doubtless, to those among the Hebrews who had been taken captives, and who sighed not only on account of the sufferings which they endured in their bondage, but because they had been taken from their country and home. The meaning is, Hear those sighs, and come for the deliverance of those who are thus held in captivity.
According to the greatness of thy power – Margin, as in Hebrew, thine arm. The arm is the symbol of power. It is implied here that great power was needful to deliver those who were held in captivity, power such as God only could exert – power which could be wielded only by an Omnipotent Being. It was the power of God only which could rescue them, as it is only by the power of God that sinners can be saved.
Preserve thou those that are appointed to die – Margin, Reserve the children of death. The literal meaning is, Let remain the sons of death; that is, Preserve those who are in such circumstances that death is impending, and who may be called the sons of death. This might apply to those who were condemned to death; or, to those who were sick and in danger of death; or to those who were prisoners and captives, and who were, by their sufferings, exposed to death. The prayer is that such might be suffered to remain on the earth; that is, that they might be kept alive.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 79:11
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee.
The prisoners sigh
How difficult is it in earthly courts for the poor and sick to get access to the monarchs earl There is a fearful contrast between the king thus surrounded with magnificence and pomp, and the prisoner alone in his sad dungeon, the prey of hunger, of nakedness, and cold–the music of the monarchs court, the silence of the captives cell, the monarchs prospects of power and glory for to-morrow, and the prisoners that the morrow will be even as wretched as to-day. But what we cannot contemplate in things temporal is oftentimes plainly shown in things spiritual. The court of the Most High is unlike all others, for there the poor, the wretched, and the sad have entrance when they will.
I. The prisoner.
1. There is the prisoner under forced bondage to sin, who is held in degrading thraldom against his will, perhaps by some peculiar effort of the devil, perhaps by some evil habit which he has allowed to become ascendant in his heart. Be encouraged, we say to such an one, with all your sins you are not shut out from life and hope, your state is dangerous but it is not desperate, provided that you make Gods throne the destination of these sighs.
2. The prisoner under the bondage of conviction. Whilst you are sighing in your captivity, our message is to sustain you, not to do away with your convictions, or bid you cease to sigh, but to make your convictions lead you to the Cross, and to tell you that your sighs are surely heard.
3. The prisoner in the dungeon of despair. We approach such an one and say, How earnest thou in hither? Who has denied the entrance of hope into thy cell, and fast bound thy soul in iron? Why shouldest thou at one time rage, and at another time be sullen? Hast thou ever petitioned for thy relief? We tell this man of Christ, and of the free love of God, and of mercy shown to such sinners as David and myriads more, and exalting the power of the Cross; we show how Jesus is able to save even to the very uttermost all that, come unto God by Him; but what the immediate effect of this might be none can tell. At the sound of this Gospels trump, the walls of some mens dungeons will immediately fall fiat, as Jerichos fell prostrate at the sounding of the priests. Then the captive of despair, seeing that there is salvation in Christ, will be set free by the Son, and so be free indeed.
II. The prisoners application for relief.
1. A sigh is an unexpected declaration. Although we do not speak, still we can tell a long tale of sorrow with a sigh.
2. An unexpressed with for deliverance. A sigh indicates a condition of the mind: it tells us that there is sorrow there. Do you indeed feel this? If you do, is it possible that you can thus express your sadness without Gods being well acquainted with it all? Surely not; and if God knows this, is His heart hardened that He will not feel; is His hand shortened that it cannot save?
III. The source from which this prisoner looked for help. According to the greatness of Thy power. This preservation shall be vouchsafed to every one of you who sigh for it to God. He Will deliver you from the place where you are confined with a sentence of death upon you, and will altogether reverse the sentence itself. It were of no use to escape from the prison-house with our sentence still impending over us; we might be apprehended again, and lose our life at last. Deliverance, however, and remission, shall both be yours; and the greatness of the power you have invoked shall be seen in each. And who will come forth, and bring you from your captivity, but Jesus Christ Himself? (P. B. Power, M. A.)
The condemned prisoner
I. Our sad and gloomy condition as fallen creatures. There are many sorts of prisoners; some are so from debt, some by being taken captive in battle, some for criminal offences. The sinner is all these. He is, as the word may be rendered, a son of death; a criminal, respited, but not pardoned. He is as one waiting for execution. His doom is delayed, but not averted.
II. What are the obstacles to deliverance? In the King who can reprieve he sees the adversary whom he has wronged, and the Judge who has appointed him to die. Omnipotent power, injured dignity, and immutable justice are leagued against him. What can the prisoner do?
III. That there is a way of escape. In the face of every obstacle, deliverance is attainable. In proof of this we may notice–
1. The infinite knowledge of God. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee. From whatever depth of guilt and misery you breathe the prayer of a broken and contrite heart, that prayer is heard by a gracious God.
2. The Almighty power on which the plea is founded–According to the greatness of Thy power. This must be exercised. (Anon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. The sighing of the prisoner] The poor captive Israelites in Babylon, who sigh and cry because of their bondage.
Those that are appointed to die] beney themuthah, “sons of death.” Either those who were condemned to death because of their crimes, or condemned to be destroyed by their oppressors. Both these senses apply to the Israelites: they were sons of death, i.e., worthy of death because of their sins against God; they were condemned to death or utter destruction, by their Babylonish enemies.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Of the prisoner; of thy poor people now in prison, or, at least, in captivity.
Those that are appointed to die, Heb. the children of death, i.e. which were either designed to death, or in manifest danger of it, as being wholly in the power of their cruel and barbarous enemies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. prisonerthe whole captivepeople.
powerliterally, “arm”(Ps 10:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee,…. Such as were so in a literal or spiritual sense; and the sighs and groans of such are not hid from the Lord; they come up into his ears as did the sighing and groaning of the children of Israel when in Egypt, Ex 2:23,
according to the greatness of thy power, preserve thou those that are appointed to die; not by the Lord, as all men are, but by men; who are under a sentence of condemnation, who are ready to die, being appointed to destruction, Pr 31:6, or are in danger of death, as Jarchi observes; the phrase is used in Talmudic writings; whose lives are exposed to danger, who are killed all the day long, and are accounted as sheep for the slaughter, Ps 44:22, these it is desired the Lord would keep from dying, or cause them to remain in life; or not suffer their lives to be taken away from them, which he was able to do through “the greatness of his power”; though these words according to the accents belong to the preceding clause. The Targum, and so Jarchi, and other Jewish writers, render the words, “loose thou those”, &c. mention being made before of prisoners, or of persons bound.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee. The people of God, I have no doubt, were in captivity when the Holy Spirit endited this prayer; and, therefore, the name of prisoners is applied to them all in general, because they were so shut up within the bounds of Assyria and Chaldea, that had they stirred one foot thence, they would have incurred the penalty of death. They are called the children of death; by which is meant, that they were appointed or condemned to death in respect of their captivity. This sentence, however, may not improperly be restricted to a small number who were shut up in prison under closer restraint. By this expression, it is intimated that those proud spirits who had before vaunted themselves against God, were now broken and effectually humbled. The greatness of God’s arm, that is to say, the greatness of his power, (383) is implored; for without a signal and extraordinary interposition on his part, no hope could be entertained of the restoration of the Church.
(383) “ C’est a dire, de la puissance de Dieu.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) Appointed to die.See margin. This expression, as well as the sighing of the prisoners, occurs, Psa. 102:20, of the sufferers in the Captivity.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee The psalmist had urged the honour and attributes of God, the covenant relation of his people, the equity of the case as between Israel and his enemies, and now carries his appeal directly to the divine pity and compassion: how can he fail here? If we accept the verbs in this and the former verse in the future, as they stand in the original, we have an expression of confidence as well as petition: “He [God] shall be known among the heathen.” “The sighing of the prisoner shall come before thee.”
Preserve thou those that are appointed to die Hebrew, the sons of death; those of the captives who are under death-sentence, or those who, by the hardships of the long march and exile, must soon succumb to death. The most literal sense, here, is the most probable. The captives, especially those of them who had distinguished themselves by resistance of the besieging army, were treated with great rigour.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Here is a blessed additional prayer of faith. Are not all sinners, as sinners, appointed to death? But when the Lord puts a cry and a sigh in their souls for sin, and directs the eye of faith to the blood and righteousness of Jesus; what are these but so many earnests of the Spirit? Eze 9:4 ; Psa 56:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 79:11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;
Ver. 11. Let the sighing of the prisoner, &c. ] It was lately in many places of this land a like difficult thing to find a wicked man in the enemy’s prisons or a godly man out of them. The sighs of such were shrill in God’s ears.
Preserve thou those that are appointed to die
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Thy power. Hebrew Thine arm. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Effect), App-6, for the power contained in and put forth by it. By Figure of speech Anthropopatheia (App-6), an “arm” attributed to God.
preserve = reserve.
those that are appointed to die = sons of death. Genitive of Relation. Compare Rom 8:36.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 79:11
Psa 79:11
“Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee:
According to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to death.”
“The sighing of the prisoner.” This is a clear reference to the fact of the nation being in captivity, servants of the king of Babylon.
“Those that are appointed to death.” The margin here gives an alternative reading, “the children of death.” The reference is to the many who would die under the rigors of Babylonian servitude, and especially those who would die during the hardship of the long journey on foot to Babylon.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 79:11. Some of the Jews had been unjustly subjugated to the power of the enemy which made them virtual prisoners. David’s prayer was that. God would hear the cry of these oppressed ones. Some of them were being held under condemnation of death and the plea of the Psalmist was for their rescue.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
sighing: Psa 12:5, Psa 69:33, Psa 102:20, Exo 2:23, Exo 2:24, Isa 42:7
according: Psa 146:6, Psa 146:7, Num 14:17-19, Mat 6:13, Eph 3:20
thy power: Heb. thine arm, Isa 33:2
preserve thou those that are appointed to die: Heb. reserve the children of death, Psa 102:20, *marg.
Reciprocal: 1Sa 20:31 – shall surely die 1Sa 26:16 – worthy to die Psa 88:2 – General Pro 31:8 – such Isa 21:2 – all the Lam 3:34 – all Act 16:26 – and every
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 79:11-12. Let the sighing of the prisoner Of thy poor people now in prison, or, at least, in captivity; come before thee Be taken cognizance of by thee, and be as prevalent with thee as these prayers; according to the greatness of thy power Hebrew, , zerognacha, of thine arm; with which no creature can contend; preserve thou those that are appointed to die Hebrew, , benee temutha, the children of death, that is, which were either designed for death, or were in manifest danger of it, as being wholly in the power of their cruel and barbarous enemies. Thus, next to those who had been slain, the case of such as groaned in captivity, lying bound in chains and fetters, under sentence of death, to be inflicted at the will of their cruel and insulting conquerors, is recommended to God. And render unto our neighbours sevenfold That is, either, 1st, Abundantly, as this phrase signifies, Isa 65:6-7; Jer 32:18; Luk 6:38. Or, 2d, Sensibly, so that it may come home to them, and fall heavily upon them in their own persons. The reproach wherewith they have reproached thee As impotent, or unfaithful, or unmerciful to thy people. As if he had said, As they have reproached thee with weakness, so manifest to others their weakness, who are but sinful dust and ashes; as they have endeavoured to make thee contemptible, so let the world have just cause to despise them, who have thus presumptuously offended; according as it is written, Them that honour me, I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed,
1Sa 2:30. And be assured, reader, however different the appearance of things may now be, this will certainly be found true in every instance at the last day.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
79:11 Let the sighing of the {i} prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou {k} those that are appointed to die;
(i) Who though in respect to God they were justly punished for their sins, yet in consideration of their cause were unjustly murdered.
(k) Who were captives among their enemies and could look for nothing but death.