Psalms 74:21

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁸Remember how the enemy has mocked You, O LORD, how a foolish people has spurned Your name. ¹⁹Do not deliver the soul of Your dove to beasts; do not forget the lives of Your afflicted forever. ²⁰Consider Your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land. ²¹Do not let the oppressed retreat in shame; may the poor and needy praise Your name.²²Rise up, O God, defend Your cause! Remember how the fool mocks You all day long. ²³Do not disregard the clamor of Your adversaries, the uproar of Your enemies that ascends continually.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

O let not: Psalms 9:18, Psalms 12:5, Psalms 102:19-21, Psalms 109:22, Isaiah 45:17

poor: Psalms 102:21, Ezra 3:11, Jeremiah 33:11

Reciprocal: Psalms 67:3 - General

Gill's Notes on the Bible

O let not the oppressed return ashamed,.... From the throne of grace, not having an answer of their prayer, but still continuing under the oppressions of their enemies:

let the poor and needy praise thy name; let them have occasion for it, by the destruction of their enemies, and their deliverance from them, as they will have ere long; see Revelation 19:1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O let not the oppressed return ashamed - Ashamed by being disappointed, as if they had trusted in that which had no claims to confidence. Compare the notes at Job 6:20. The word rendered “oppressed,” means “trodden down, crushed, broken, afflicted.” It refers to the people as attacked by foreign armies, or as crushed by those who had gained power over them. The word “return” refers to their coining back from God - from the throne of mercy. Let them not come back from thee with no assurance of thy favor; with no evidence that their prayers have been heard; let them not come back, subject to the reproach that they had made their appeal to thee in vain.

Let the poor and needy praise thy name - The people who are oppressed and helpless. Let them have occasion to praise thee because their prayer has been heard, and because thou dost save them.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 74:21. Let not the oppressed return ashamed — Do not permit thy people to be so diminished, that when, according to thy promise, they are restored to their own land, they may appear to be but a handful of men.