(4) This verse occurs Psalm 44:13. Also possibly a Maccabaean psalm. (See Introduction to that psalm.)

The scenes still witnessed by travellers at the Jews' wailing-place offer a striking illustration of the foregoing verses, showing, as they do, how deep-seated is the love of an ancient place in the Oriental mind. (See a striking description in Porter's Giant Cities of Bashan.)

Verse 4. - We are become a reproach to our neighbours (comp. Psalm 44:13; Lamentations 2:15; Lamentations 5:1. The "neighbours" intended are the nations in the vicinity of the Holy Land - the Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, etc. Their attitude towards Israel under the circumstances may be gathered from what is related of the Edomites in Psalm 137:7. A scorn and derision to them that are round about us. It was not so much the "reproaches" of their enemies that vexed and grieved Israel, as the jeers and scoffs which they heard on every side (comp. Lamentations 1:7, 20; Lamentations 2:15; Lamentations 3:62, 63).

79:1-5 God is complained to: whither should children go but to a Father able and willing to help them? See what a change sin made in the holy city, when the heathen were suffered to pour in upon them. God's own people defiled it by their sins, therefore he suffered their enemies to defile it by their insolence. They desired that God would be reconciled. Those who desire God's favour as better than life, cannot but dread his wrath as worse than death. In every affliction we should first beseech the Lord to cleanse away the guilt of our sins; then he will visit us with his tender mercies.We are become a reproach to our neighbours,.... That is, those that remained; so the Jews were to the Edomites, especially at the time of the Babylonish captivity, Psalm 137:7,

a scorn and derision to them that are round about us; as the Christians in all ages have been to the men of the world, and especially will be insulted and triumphed over when the witnesses are slain, Revelation 11:10.