Psalm 80 — Cause Your Face to Shine Upon Us

Today’s Passage: Psalm 80

Three times in this psalm the same cry goes up: restore us, O God, and cause Your face to shine upon us. Asaph sings of a vine that God once carried out of Egypt and planted with His own hand, and now he watches that vine burn. When the New Testament gives the name of the vine to the Lord Jesus Himself, the question of who that true vine is has been answered for good.

As you read, hold this: Restore us, O God.

Psalm 80:1-3 (BSB)

For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, who leads Joseph like a flock; You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth ² before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh. Rally Your mighty power and come to save us. ³ Restore us, O God, and cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved.

He is addressed as the Shepherd of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, and He is begged to shine forth and come to save. By the time we reach the end of these three verses, the prayer has already spoken its heart. That first plea to be restored (שׁוּב) shuv, pronounced SHOOV. Strong's H7725, to turn, return, turn back. To turn back. To return.

It returns three times over, and every time it is bound to the shining of God’s face. What they are asking for is not simply an easier season. They are asking for His presence to be turned toward them once more. is the whole of the psalm in a single breath.

Psalm 80:4-7 (BSB)

⁴ O LORD God of Hosts, how long will Your anger smolder against the prayers of Your people? ⁵ You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears. ⁶ You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us. ⁷ Restore us, O God of Hosts, and cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved.

They have been fed with the bread of tears and given tears to drink by the full measure. Now they name Him God of Hosts as they cry out to be restored. The title they use for Him has grown larger, but the thing they ask of Him has not changed at all.

Psalm 80:8-13 (BSB)

⁸ You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it. ⁹ You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. ¹⁰ The mountains were covered by its shade, and the mighty cedars with its branches. ¹¹ It sent out its branches to the Sea, and its shoots toward the River. ¹² Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit? ¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it.

Here the prayer turns to a picture. God took a vine out of Egypt, uprooted it and carried it and planted it in cleared ground, and that deliverance was a real and living thing. But now the walls around it lie broken, every passerby helps himself to its fruit, and a wild boar tramples it down. The psalm can only ask why.

Psalm 80:14-19 (BSB)

¹⁴ Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine— ¹⁵ the root Your right hand has planted, the son You have raised up for Yourself. ¹⁶ Your vine has been cut down and burned; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance. ¹⁷ Let Your hand be upon the man at Your right hand, on the son of man You have raised up for Yourself. ¹⁸ Then we will not turn away from You; revive us, and we will call on Your name. ¹⁹ Restore us, O LORD God of Hosts; cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved.

Now the singer begs God to look down from heaven and tend to this vine, the root His right hand has planted, the son He has raised up for Himself, the man at His right hand, the son of man. But the vine has been cut down and burned. And so the refrain rises a third and final time, restore us, O LORD God of Hosts, and even now it waits without an answer.

Restore us, O God.