Psalm 80: Turn Us Again
Three times in this psalm the refrain returns: "Turn us again, O God." It comes once quietly, once louder, and once with the full title — "O Lord God of hosts" — as if the psalmist is feeling about in the dark for the right name of the God who can do this. And the image at the center is heartbreaking: a vine, brought tenderly out of Egypt, planted by God's own hand, grown until its boughs touched the sea — and now the hedges are torn down, and any passing boar can waste it. Asaph is asking for what we rarely have the courage to ask: not merely comfort, but conversion. Turn us. Do the thing we cannot do for ourselves. Shine your face on the broken vineyard and see what it was meant to be. The prayer is almost too honest — a gardener begging the owner of the garden to come back and notice what has happened while he was away.
00:00 Shepherd of Israel, Shine Forth
01:00 The Vine Brought Out of Egypt
02:00 Return, We Beseech Thee