① 1* 2* 3O God, you have rejected us and have broken our defenses; you have been angry, but now turn back to us.
4You have shaken the land and torn it open; mend its cracks for it totters.
5You have made your people suffer; you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
6You set the banner behind us and your people fled from bow and arrow.
7Help us and listen to us, that your beloved may be rescued.
8God has spoken in his sanctuary: “In triumph I will divide up Shechem and parcel out the Valley of Succoth.
9Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet, Judah my scepter.
10Moab is my washbasin; upon Edom I cast my sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
11Who will take me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
12Have you not rejected us, O God? You no longer go with our armies.
13Give us aid against the foe, for human help is not worth a straw.
14With God we will gain victory; he will crush the enemy for us.
- Perhaps it is difficult for us to understand this psalm. The people have been humiliated and are complaining to God that it is his fault. Then, in the Temple, a priest or a prophet proclaims a comforting message from God: he is going to war and his arms will be the tribes of Israel: Gilead, Ephraim, Judah... and he will trample the neighboring countries... Edom, Moab...
