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Psalm 80 has an additional superscription in the Greek: ‘for the Assyrian’ links this psalm with Psalm 76, which has a similar title. Here the focus is more on exile than explicitly on Zion. Psalm 80 reveals other northern associations, with its specific references to the ‘Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock’ in verse 1 and the references to Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim in verse 2. The southern and northern elements suggest a complex period of early reception. Its threefold refrain (verses 3, 7, 19) and the division of the psalm into four parts (1–3, 4–7, 8–13, 14–19) give further evidence of this process: the refrain itself (‘let thy face shine’) would suggest a plea for restoration to the presence of God in the Temple, showing its ultimate southern provenance.

It seems clear that the editors intended Psalms 79 and 80 to be read alongside each other. The shepherding imagery at the end of 79 is taken up at the start of 80. The cry ‘how long?’ begins the second part of each psalm (79:5 and 80:4) and the question ‘why?’ (79:10 and 80:12) also lies at the heart of each. The request for God to ‘return’ (in each case, using the root of the verb sh-w-b) is used in 79:12 and 80:4, 8 and 15 (Eng. 3, 7 and 14). The last reference almost seems to ask God to repent—of his anger.

Verses 14–15, with their imagery of the destroyed vineyard, have been used in 2 Baruch 36–40 and also in one of the *Qumran scrolls (1QH^a, line xvi) to describe those communities’ sense of a broken past.¹²¹ The Jewish view of a continued and extended exile is thus applied to this psalm from an early period. *Targum extends the threefold refrain ‘Restore us, O God…’ to ‘God, return us from our exile.’ The nineteenth-century psalms commentator Samson Raphael *Hirsch argues that the psalm refers to three exiles—Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman—and he sees them each alluded to in verses 2–4, 5–8 and 9–20 (Eng. vv. 1–4, 4–7 and 8–19). This is in part taken from *Rashi, who argues that the three parts of the psalm suggest Babylonian, Greek and Roman subjugation, with the ‘Roman exile’ as the ongoing present experience.¹²² A contentious verse within this hope for restoration is verse 15 (Heb. v.16), which is difficult to translate. Targum expands the verse to read it with a Messianic emphasis: ‘…[have regard for this vine], and the shoot that your right hand has planted, and the anointed king who you strengthened for yourself.’ This would suggest the final section is to be read as a prayer for the coming of the Messiah to end the exile: the use of this psalm on the second day of the Passover week offers some evidence of this. This view is strengthened when noting two other possible ‘Messianic’ references in verse 17 (Heb. v. 18) to, first, ‘the man of our right hand’ (also found in psalms which refer to the king, such as 18:35 and 20:6) and, second, to ‘the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself’. So in Jewish tradition Psalm 80, like 79, is a psalm about exile which is given a messianic orientation.

Despite the more empathetic reception of Psalm 79, Christians have tended to interpret Psalm 80 from a more specifically Christian perspective, focussing again on one or two verses rather than the psalm as a whole. The shepherding and vineyard imagery (verses 1 and 8–13) are metaphors most open to allegory, using New Testament texts such as John 10:7–18 (on Jesus as the Good Shepherd) and 15:1–7 (on Jesus as the True Vine). *Augustine, for example, takes up the idea of the church being the new vineyard planted by Christ, and notes this fits with the title of the psalm in Greek, which he translates into Latin as ‘for the things that shall be changed’.¹²³ Like Targum, *Jerome reads verse 17 (‘… the one at your right hand, the one you made strong for yourself’) as a reference to the Messiah; but here it is Jesus Christ.¹²⁴ A similar view is expressed by *Eusebius, who interprets ‘Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel’ as Christ, King of the Jews, leading Joseph, his Church.¹²⁵ So in the refrain in verse 7 the address to ‘God of Hosts’ implies Christ, in his resurrected power, and verses 8–11, on the vine, are about the eternal history of the church, emerging from darkness into light, spreading from the eastern to western sea (verse 11). Hence the references to the ‘man of our right hand’ and to the ‘son of man’, following Jerome, are to Christ, sitting at the right hand of God.¹²⁶ *Cassiodorus adds a comment on the three refrains: the triple repetition denotes the mystery of the Trinity, or the Mystery of the Birth, Passion and Advent; according to *Bede, this ‘sums up all Christian prayer’.¹²⁷ *Thomasius, citing *Aquinas, combines this with another motif of Christian interest, namely the reference to God enthroned ‘upon the cherubim’ in verse 1, and reflects on how Christ, sitting on the cherubim, protects the vineyard which is the church.¹²⁸ A similar emphasis is found in Isaac *Watts’ version of this psalm; its melody, taken from the *Genevan Psalter, was the same as an Easter *plainchant hymn, ‘Victimae pascali laudes’):

…Lord, when This vine in Canaan grew,

Thou wast its strength and glory too;

Attacked in vain by all its foes,

Till the fair Branch of Promise rose:

Fair Branch, ordained of old to shoot

From David’s stock, from Jacob’s root;

Himself a noble vine, and we

The lesser branches of the tree.

‘Tis thy own Son; and he shall stand

Girt with thy strength at thy right hand;

Thy first-born Son, adorned and blest

With power and grace above the rest.

A contemporary liturgical application of this reading is in the use of this psalm in ‘Christingle’ services (part of an Advent liturgy used in many churches, and designed for children, using oranges and candles to symbolise light overcoming the darkness in the world). Verse 1 is quoted within the prayers for children in danger, followed by the refrain ‘O God, bring us home;/show us the light of your face/and we shall be safe’. This is followed by verse 17, with the same refrain, and verse 18, with the refrain again.¹²⁹

John *Milton also composed an imitation of the psalm in his collection of Psalms 80–88 (1648), but for literary rather than liturgical purposes. It is paraphrased into one long stanza, and its theme is the relentless pursuit of justice, through reminding God of what he has done for his people in the past. Milton offers nothing specifically Christian until the penultimate verse of the psalm (the last in the following selected citation), which is probably the result of his use of Jerome’s Latin version:¹³⁰

…A vine from Egypt thou has brought,

Thy free love made it thine,

And drovest out nations proud and haut

To plant this lovely Vine.

Thou didst prepare for it a place

And root it deep and fast

That it began to grow apace

And fill’d the land at last…

But now it is consum’d with fire And cut with Axes down, They perish at thy dreadful ire, At thy rebuke and frown.

Upon the man of thy right hand

Let thy good hand be laid,

Upon the son of man, whom thou

Strong for thyself has made…

Jewish composers who set this psalm to music evoked a longing for the end of exile. The best known is Salamone *Rossi’s version of verses 4, 8 and 20 (English 3, 8 and 19) in Hebrew, entitled ‘Elohim Hashivenu’ from the repeated refrain (‘Restore us, O Lord’). This is an extraordinary piece, in three parts, based on the three refrains, with each part intensifying its plea for restoration by continuous use of bass and soprano parts, ending (as the highest hope) with the highest note throughout, top E.¹³¹ A more recent example is A. Hovhanes’ Roeh Yisrael: ‘Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock’.¹³²

Another composition suggesting Jewish influence is Felix *Mendelssohn’s ‘Qui regis Israel’, which was composed in 1833 for the church in Dusseldorf as part of the liturgy of *Vespers: it is the third of a four-part choral setting called ‘Adspice domine’ (from Ps. 119:132, with which the setting starts), sung by a male choir with cello and double bass. Its Trinitarian ‘Gloria’ gives it a Christian interpretation, but Mendelssohn typically followed the Jewish mood of the psalm, with its yearning for restoration.

Within art, a most symbolic illuminated initial Q to this psalm (‘Qui regis Israhel intende) is found in the *St Albans Psalter.¹³³ In the upper medallion Christ is flanked by two turtle-doves, a reminder of the ancient Jewish offering for sins of omission and commission; Christ is pouring tears of repentance (see verse 5) into a small vessel held by a tonsured monk in the lower part of the medallion; the monk has a sparrow on his head, a symbol of penitence. The trees on each side of the monk symbolise both the vineyard (verses 8–11) and perhaps also a reminder of the expulsion from Eden. The beasts and the dragon attacking the monk depict the ‘boar from the forest’ in verse 13.

Two contemporary illustrations show how it is possible for different Jewish and Christian readings to inform each other in interpreting this psalm. Moshe *Berger’s image is of a central figure set in red flames, crying, in Hebrew calligraphy, to the heavens which are depicted as azure strands of Hebrew letters; this is the king (suggesting here some messianic connotations) berating God to take care of his creation, his city and his people.¹³⁴ The Northumbrian artist Michael *Jessing, meanwhile, brings an environmental reading into the psalm. Jessing centres on the motif of the vine, both as a gift of creation which has been taken away and as a symbol of longing of humanity to find again the creative and spiritual dimension of life, and return to God. The vine covers the page and the figures reach out to connect to it (Figure 3).¹³⁵

FIGURE 3 Michael Jessing, Ps. 80:8–9. The Vine with Human Figures.

Source: http://www.psalms-mixastudio.com/psalms-69-84.php.

Thus whether in commentary, poetry, liturgy or art, Psalm 80 serves each faith tradition as a psalm of suffering to be received in similar but nevertheless distinctive ways.