Psalms 80:8-11 A Call to Rememberance

“Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.”

As we hit the middle portion of the prayer, the Psalmist now calls to remembrance all that Jehovah God of armies had done for His people. It was He who had brought them out of Egypt, He who drove the heathen out, He who established them, He who caused them to grow.
In all this remembrance we see a recognition of God’s involvement in all that happened. It is easy and happens often that people look at what they do and leave God out of it or give Him some credit but not all.

You can read the history of Israel as a one of man’s doing: Moses the man leading them out of the wilderness. Joshua the man conquering the Promised Land. Or you can see it through the eyes of these men: God leading them out of the wilderness. God conquering the Promised Land. While we see the active involvement of God’s people, those who seek to be right with God will understand that no matter how much they ‘did’, everything ultimately comes from God. The breath in the lungs, the power to act, and the preservation of those actions are all dependent on the will of God.

As it is written, He upholds all things by the power of His word, and again, He has all power, and yet again, He brings down and He raises up.

In this section of Psalms 80, we see the Psalmist displaying humility by giving all the credit for what had been in the past to the Most High. It’s Psalms 115:1 in action: Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory!
In this part of the prayer we see the one praying confessing the mercy and grace of God for all the blessings that preceded and by so doing, they open the way for God to act, because when we empty ourselves, God is drawn to such emptiness, for He alone is worthy of the glory, honor and majesty.

May we remember that all that we do is only because of the grace of God. May we never forget to give Him the glory, praise, and honor. All to the glory of God.

Notes:

• Israel is likened here to a vine. Similar examples can be found throughout many of the prophets and in the New Testament as well. It’s from text such as this that we would be able to draw a firm understanding of the who the vine in the Jesus’ parable in Matthew 21:33-44 is.
• The reference of the sea and river relate back to a promise made to the Israelites in Ex 23:31, fulfilled in Solomon’s day 1Ki 4:21. This puts the date of the writing of this Psalms after Solomon’s kingdom.
• This call to remembrance has certain similarities to Moses’ intercessory prayer in Exo 32:11-13. When we get to the following verses in Psalms 80, we see that in this prayer what God had done is brought up, just as Moses does, then the question or moreover plea is made for mercy for His name sake.