Psalm Chapter 80

Psalm 80: The Vine That Waits for Light

There is a metaphor in this psalm so vivid it could be a painting: God as a gardener who once brought a vine out of Egypt, cleared the ground, planted it with his own hands, and watched it flourish until its shadow covered the hills and its branches reached the sea. And then — the most bewildering turn — he broke down the hedges himself, so that every passerby could pluck its fruit and the wild boar could ravage it at will. Why? The psalm does not say. It only asks God to look down, to behold, to visit this vine he once loved. What gives the psalm its extraordinary power is its refrain, repeated three times like a bell tolling through the darkness: "Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." Not "give us better circumstances" or "defeat our enemies," but simply — let us see your face. The psalmist understands something that most of us learn only slowly: that the deepest need of the human soul is not rescue from trouble but the presence of God within it. A vine can survive any winter if the light returns.

00:00 The Shepherd of Israel
01:00 The Vine from Egypt
02:00 Turn Us Again