Your vine has been cut down and burned; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
PSALM 80 This is a sorrowful prayer, in which the faithful beseech God that he would be graciously pleased to succor his afflicted Church. To excite him the more readily to grant them relief in their distressing circumstances, they compare these circumstances with the condition of the Church in her beginnings, when the Divine favor was conspicuously manifested towards her. To the chief musician upon Sosannim Eduth.
Commenting on Psalm 80:1-19
It is burned with fire. In broken utterances the sorrowful singer utters his distress. The vineyard was like a forest which has been set on fire; the choice vines were charred and dead. It is cut down. The cruel axe had hacked after its murderous fashion, the branches were lopped, the trunk was wounded, desolation reigned supreme. They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
The psalmist is here presenting his suit for the Israel of God, and pressing it home at the throne of grace, pleading with God for mercy and grace for them. The church is here represented as a vine (Psa 80:8, Psa 80:14) and a vineyard, Psa 80:15. The root of this vine is Christ, Rom 11:18. The branches are believers, Joh 15:5.
Commenting on Psalm 80:8-19