He Who tends us

Then we shall not turn back from you;

give us life, and we will call upon your name!

Psalm 80:18

This is part of a psalm written to call to worship a people broken and bitter in their suffering. It is prayer for restoration with the repeated passionate refrain: “Restore us, O God, let your face shine, that we may be saved!” (Psalm 80:3, 7, 19). It was written as a result of Gentile oppression, mentioning the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin specifically. It appears that all of Israel is identifying with the pain and hardship these tribes had endured.

Psalm 80 opens with the imagery of God being the Shepherd of Israel, Who leads Joseph (the father of Ephraim and Manasseh) like a flock. He is enthroned upon the cherubim (a reference to the ark of the covenant in the temple at Jerusalem) and is called upon to save the three broken and hurting tribes quickly (Psalm 80:2).

The second stanza makes it clear that whatever these three tribes had suffered, God had brought punishment to them out of His righteous anger. It is an acknowledgement of their wrong and a confession that God was right to bring His correction (Psalm 80:4-6).

The bulk of the song before the last refrain recounts God’s deliverance of Israel throughout their history. It begins with the Exodus (Psalm 80:8). And the nation is described by the metaphor of the vineyard planted in the promised land that thrived (Psalm 80:9-11). The vine was then uprooted and savaged by a wild pig (code for Gentiles) (Psalm 80:12-13). The psalmist then makes a passionate appeal for God to look down from heaven and see His tattered vine and then, by His healing hand to tend and restore His vineyard (Psalm 80:14-17). It is only then that His people will be able to re-experience the life that only God could give them as they passionately return to His worship.

A quick gospel perspective comes to me. Jesus is the True Vine and I am grafted in Him as a branch to bear fruit for the glory of God the Father (see John 15:1-11). It is the Father that brings the growth by pruning and tending this vine as I am nourished in my attachment to relationship with Jesus. And when hardships come, I too must trust and call on the Father, through the Son, Who tends His vine in love.