Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

64. Praise and Prayer

¹ In Hebrew texts 64:1 is numbered 63:19b, and 64:2-12 is numbered 64:1-11.Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
   that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
   and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
   and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
   you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard,
   no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
   who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
⁵ You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
   who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
   you were angry.
   How then can we be saved?
⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean,
   and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
   and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
⁷ No one calls on your name
   or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
   and have given us over to Septuagint, Syriac and Targum; Hebrew have made us melt because of our sins.

    ⁸ Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
   We are the clay, you are the potter;
   we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD;
   do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
   for we are all your people.
¹⁰ Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
   even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
   has been burned with fire,
   and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
¹² After all this, LORD, will you hold yourself back?
   Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

3. Terrible things which we did not look for. He says that the Israelites saw what they did not at all expect; for, although God had forewarned them, and had given them experience of his power in many ways, yet that alarming spectacle of which he speaks goes far beyond our senses and the capacity of the human mind.