Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 80:13
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
13. The boar out of the forest doth ravage it,
And the wild beasts of the field feed on it.
“Under Hermon,” says Dr Tristram, “in the vineyard districts, we heard grievous lamentations of the damage done to the vines by the boars, which not only devour the grapes, but also munch up the bearing shoots.” Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 56. Israel’s land is laid waste by remorseless enemies.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The boar out of the wood – Men come in and ravage the land, whose character may be compared with the wild boar. The word rendered boar means simply swine. The addition of the phrase out of the wood determines its meaning here, and shows that the reference is to wild or untamed swine; swine that roam the woods – an animal always extremely fierce and savage.
Doth waste it – The word used here occurs nowhere else. It means to cut down or cut off; to devour; to lay waste.
And the wild beast of the field – Of the unenclosed field; or, that roams at large – such as lions, panthers, tigers, wolves. The word here used – zyz – occurs besides only in Psa 50:11; and Isa 66:11. In Isa 66:11, it is rendered abundance.
Doth devour it – So the people from abroad consumed all that the land produced, or thus they laid it waste.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 80:13
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
People to be feared
By this homely but expressive figure, the text sets forth the bad influences which in olden time broke in upon Gods heritage, as with swines foot trampling, and as with swines snout uprooting the vineyards of prosperity. What was true then is true now. There have been enough trees of righteousness planted to overshadow the whole earth, had it not been for the axemen who hewed them down.
I. I propose to point out to you those whom I consider to be the uprooting and devouring classes of society.
1. First, the public criminals. What is the fire that burns your store down compared with the conflagration which consumes your morals? What is the theft of the gold and silver from your money safe compared with the theft of your childrens virtue?
2. Again: in this class of uprooting and devouring population are untrustworthy officials (Ecc 10:16). It is a great calamity to a city when bad men get into public authority. Too great leniency to criminals is too great severity to society.
3. Again: among the uprooting and devouring classes in our midst, are the idle. When the French nobleman was asked why he kept busy when he had so large a property, he said: I keep on engraving so I may not hang myself. I do not care who the man is, you cannot afford to be idle. It is from the idle classes that the criminal classes are made up. Character, like water, gets putrid if it stands still too long.
4. Again: among the uprooting classes I place the oppressed poor. While there is no excuse for criminality, even in oppression, I state it as a simple fact that much of the scoundrelism of the community is consequent upon ill-treatment. There are many men and women battered and bruised, and stung until the hour of despair has come, and they stand with the ferocity of a wild beast, which, pursued until it can run no longer, turns round, foaming and bleeding, to fight the hounds. I want you to know who are the uprooting classes of society.
II. Because I want you to be more discriminating in your charities. Because I want your hearts open with generosity, and your hands open with charity. Because I want you to be made the sworn friends of all city evangelization, and all newsboys lodging houses, and all Howard missions, and Childrens Aid Societies. But more than that, I have preached the sermon because I thought in the contrast you would see how very kindly God had dealt with you, and I thought that you would go to-day to your comfortable homes, and sit at your well-filled tables, and look at the round faces of your children, and that then you would burst into tears at the review of Gods goodness to you, and that you would go to your room and lock the door; and kneel down, and say: O Lord, I have been an ingrate; make me Thy child. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Ecclesiastical ruins
Whatever may have been the period when this psalm was written, it is a remarkable fact that it has been suitable for every age, from the days of the Judges until now, and been found expressive of the prayer and outlook of the people of the Lord. Failure has ever attended the ecclesiastical systems of earth. The theocracy which Joshua left was soon in ruins. The magnificent and well-ordered temple ritual organized by David and established by Solomon did not continue in its glory for one generation. Again and again it was restored by reforms, but grew worse and worse till the Lord Christ came. Then followed the Christian Church; but as that slowly rose into power it became a degenerate vine, and Catholicism grew to be such a curse that one-third of the Christian world rose in open protest, and the revolt of another third was stifled with blood. Then came the Reformed Churches. For a while they flourish, but full soon when the Master looks for fruit they bring forth wild grapes. The holiest souls in each to-day are crying, as they have through all the ages, The forest boar rends it, and the wild beast feeds upon it. This continued failure is solemn and instructive. As yet every religious system has sooner or later degenerated. Its fence has been broken down and wayfarers have mocked. Man was not made for ecclesiastical organization, but ecclesiastical organization for man. The work of the Holy Spirit of God is upon separate souls, and sometimes ecclesiastical failure drives the soul into closer communion with the true God. Grand spirits, like Asaph, are developed amidst Church disorder. Let the psalmists and the prophets, let the heroes of successive reformations, Columba and Patrick, Wickliffle and Luther, Wesley and Whitfield bear testimony to this. (J. H. Cooke.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. The boar out of the wood] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who was a fierce and cruel sovereign. The allusion is plain. The wild hogs and buffaloes make sad havoc in the fields of the Hindoos, and in their orchards: to keep them out, men are placed at night on covered stages in the fields.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The wood; where boars use to lodge, as it is noted by many authors; by which he understands their fierce and furious enemies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. The boarmay represent theravaging Assyrian and
the wild beastotherheathen.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The boar out of the wood doth waste it,…. As Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who carried the ten tribes captive; the title of this psalm in the Septuagint version is, a psalm for the Assyrian. Vitringa, on Isa 24:2 interprets this of Antiochus Epiphanes, to whose times he thinks the psalm refers; but the Jews r of the fourth beast in Da 7:7, which designs the Roman empire: the wild boar is alluded to, which lives in woods and forests s, and wastes, fields, and vineyards:
and the wild beast of the field doth devour it; as Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who carried the two tribes captive, and who for a while lived among and lived as the beasts of the field; both these, in their turns, wasted and devoured the people of Israel; see Jer 50:17. Jarchi interprets this of Esau or Edom, that is, Rome; and says the whole of the paragraph respects the Roman captivity; that is, their present one; but rather the words describe the persecutors of the Christian church in general, comparable to wild boars and wild beasts for their fierceness and cruelty; and perhaps, in particular, Rome Pagan may be pointed at by the one, and Rome Papal by the other; though the latter is signified by two beasts, one that rose out of the sea, and the other out of the earth; which have made dreadful havoc of the church of Christ, his vine, and have shed the blood of the saints in great abundance; see Re 12:3, unless we should rather by the one understand the pope, and by the other the Turk, as the Jews interpret them of Esau and of Ishmael.
r Gloss. in T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 118. 2. s Homer. Odyss. xix. v. 439.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(13) Boar.This is the sole mention of the wild boar in Scripture. But it must not therefore be inferred that it was rare in Palestine. (See Tristrams Nat. Hist. Bib., p. 54.) The writer gives a sad picture of the ravage a herd of them will make in a single night. Comp.
In vengeance of neglected sacrifice,
On Oencus fields she sent a monstrous boar,
That levelld harvests and whole forests tore.
HOMER: Iliad (Popes Trans.).
Wild beast.It seems natural, at first, to take this beast as the emblem of some particular power or oppressor, as the crocodile is of Egypt, the lion of Assyria, &c. But the general termliterally, that moving in the field (see Ps. 1:11)makes against such an identification.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. The boar out of the wood doth waste it Wild hogs are numerous in the East, and their destructiveness a terror to the husbandman and vine-dresser. They go in herds, led by old boars, and move with great speed and fierceness. No ordinary fence will resist them, and they soon devastate a garden, or turn up a plot or field of turf to get the roots. They are very ferocious, never hesitating to attack a man or beast if obstructed. They still inhabit northern Palestine. The wild “boar” in the text may fitly point to Tiglath-pileser, the Assyrian king, who had already “wasted” Israel, and carried away numerous captives. 2Ki 15:29; 1Ch 5:26. See note on the title of the psalm. The moral application of the figure is easily seen.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 80:13 The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
Ver. 13. The boar out of the wood ] All swine (but wild ones especially) are vitibus inimici, saith Theodoret, destructions to vines. And Melancthon thinks that therefore God forbad the Jews to eat swine’s flesh, Eo quod sues omnia sursum deorsum vertant vastentque, because they turn up all, rooting things up by the roots, as the word here signifieth, Exvineavit, (Sept.). Austin understands it of Vespasian, others of Antiochus, or Antichrist.
And the wild beast
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the wood = forest. The Hebrew word for forest here (miyya’ar), has the letter Ayin suspended (see note on Jdg 18:30). This is the second of four such suspended letters (the other two being Job 38:13, Job 38:15). Read with this letter, the word means “forest”; without it, and with an Aleph instead, it is miyy’ar, “river”. The ancient Jewish interpreters took this suspended letter as denoting that, when innocent, Israel would be assailed only by a power weak as a river animal; but, when guilty, it would be destroyed by a power as strong as a land animal. Until the Roman power arose (whose military ensign was the “boar”), it was understood as “river” (meaning Egypt); but afterward the Septuagint, Chaldee, and Vulg, read “forest”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The boar: This wild boar, chazir, is the parent stock of our domestic hog. He is much smaller, but stronger, and more undaunted, colour, an iron grey inclining to black; snout, longer than that of the common breed: ears comparatively short; tusks, very formidable; and habits, fierce and savage. He is particularly destructive to corn-fields and vineyards. 2Ki 18:1 – 2Ki 19:37, 2Ki 24:1 – 2Ki 25:30, 2Ch 32:1-33, 2Ch 36:1-23, Jer 4:7, Jer 39:1-3, Jer 51:34, Jer 52:7, Jer 52:12-14
Reciprocal: 2Ch 25:18 – a wild beast Psa 44:9 – General Psa 79:1 – the heathen Psa 79:7 – For they Psa 89:41 – All Son 2:15 – the foxes Jer 14:19 – utterly Eze 19:12 – she was Hos 13:8 – wild beast Nah 2:2 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
80:13 The {i} boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
(i) That is, they who hate our religion, as well as they who hate our persons.