Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, on the kingdoms that refuse to call on Your name,
PSALM 79 This is a complaint and lamentation of the Church when severely afflicted; in which, while the faithful bewail their miserable and, in one sense, undeserved calamities, and accuse their enemies of cruelty, they acknowledge that, in another sense, they have been justly chastised, and humbly betake themselves to the divine mercy.
Commenting on Psalm 79:1-13
"Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee." If thou must smite look further afield; spare thy children and strike thy foes. There are lands where thou art in no measure acknowledged; be pleased to visit these first with thy judgments, and let thine erring Israel have a respite.
The petitions here put up to God are very suitable to the present distresses of the church, and they have pleas to enforce them, interwoven with them, taken mostly from God's honour. I. They pray that God would so turn away his anger from them as to turn it upon those that persecuted and abused them (Psa 79:6): "Pour out thy wrath, the full vials...
Commenting on Psalm 79:6-13