Psalm 79 is the 79th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 78. In Latin, it is known as "Deus venerunt gentes in hereditatem tuam". It is one of the 12 Psalms of Asaph. The New American Bible (Revised Edition) calls it "a prayer for Jerusalem". The psalm forms a regular part of Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant liturgies. It has been set to music, including works by William Byrd in Latin, Heinrich Schütz in German, and Artemy Vedel in Ukrainian.

Text

Hebrew

The following table shows the Hebrew text of the Psalm with vowels alongside an English translation based upon the JPS 1917 translation (now in the public domain).

King James Version

Context

The psalm has been described as a communal lament complaining that the nations have defiled the Temple in Jerusalem and murdered the holy people, leaving their corpses unburied (verses 1–4). The occasion is perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 587 BC. Others suggest a different era; Rudinger, Wilhelm de Wette, and others suggest that the reference in the psalm is to the later persecutions under Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the era of the Maccabean Revolt where Jerusalem was attacked and looted twice.

Mention in 1 Maccabees

The book 1 Maccabees directly quotes the Psalm in chapter 7, comparing the death of the Hasideans to the faithful ones slain near Jerusalem with none to bury them. It suggests a curious possibility for the author of the Psalm: if the Greek text is read shorn of context, it seems to imply that High Priest Alcimus wrote the Psalm. This is surprising in context, however, as 1 Maccabees considers Alcimus an evil villain who was responsible for the deaths of the Hasideans in the first place. Was it suggesting Alcimus was conflicted and that he mourned for those who died? Additionally, 1 Maccabees was probably written in Hebrew originally, so the Greek version that survived was a translation. There is no scholarly consensus on what the author meant: whether this was unclear phrasing or a translation hiccup, and it merely was the narrator noting the events were "as was written [in the Psalm]"; if Alcimus was quoting a Psalm already in existence; or if the author of 1 Maccabees truly meant that Alcimus was indeed the author of Psalm 79. Most translations generally err on the side of assuming the narrator was who was quoting the Psalm and making the comparison.

Uses

Judaism

Book of Common Prayer

In the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, this psalm is appointed to be read on the morning of the sixteenth day of the month.

Musical settings

William Byrd set Psalm 79 in Latin, Deus, venerunt gentes, T 25, as a motet for five voices. Heinrich Schütz set the psalm in a metred version in German, "Ach Herr, es ist der Heiden Herr", SWV 176, as part of the Becker Psalter, first published in 1628. Artemy Vedel composed a choral concerto based on the psalm, Bozhe, priidosha iazytsy v dostoianie Tvoe.