So will we not go back from thee. Revive us, and we will call upon thy name.
Psalm 80 is the cry of a nation in ruin, pleading three times over that God would restore them and let His face shine. Verse 18 is the turning point. The people promise they will not turn back — and in the same breath they ask God for the life that makes such a promise possible.
The verse opens with "then." It points back to the request just made: that God's hand would rest on the man of His right hand. Commentators call that request the high point of the whole psalm.
Here they make their highest appeal: "But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!" This is surely a reference to Christ. He is the resource of God, available for the need of man and for the upholding of the glory of God.
The promise not to turn back comes only after the psalm names the Man of God's right hand. And it comes joined to a plea for inward life.
Power is in His hands for them. It is in His hands only — the hands of the One who has made atonement in the Manhood He has taken. In Him, too, is security for the future, which nothing else could give. Saved by such a wonderful salvation, they may now say without self-confidence, "Then we shall not turn back from you." And, knowing they need the Spirit's work, they add, "Give us life, and we will call upon your name."
The ESV reads "give us life." Older translations have "quicken us." Behind both stands one Hebrew word, and the same request returns again and again in the psalms.
chayah. In the Old Testament this word has the force of "to revive, or give new life" in a moral sense. So we read, "you will revive me again." In Psalm 119 the psalmist asks nine times to be revived — according to God's word, or His righteousness, or His judgements, and so on. The term clearly involves the principle of divine sovereignty. God makes alive according to His will.
The psalm prays for the rescue of a whole nation. Yet here the prayer turns personal and inward.
One very marked feature of this Psalm is the clear and full way it recognises the need of personal new birth. National salvation is the general burden of their desire. But they feel that the way to it is their own conversion of heart to the Lord. Nor do they underrate the measure of their spiritual need. Their words are the cry of people who have no strength… "Restore us" and "Give us life, and we will call upon your name" express this feeling in a striking way.
Notice what the psalm does not ask for. It never asks God to put the vine back the way it was. It asks for the Man. That is where the confidence of "we shall not turn back" comes from.
It looks to God returning and visiting the vine. But it does not look for God to restore the old state of things — that is not God's way. It looks for the setting up of the branch God had made so strong for Himself… "Let your hand," says the faith of Israel, "be on the man of your right hand." Here they see their strength and safety — what keeps them right. "Then we shall not turn back from you." This will be true in full for Israel in the last day, and true in practice for us. His presence is what keeps us.
Life comes first, and the calling follows.
Dullness and death come from turning away from God and going our own way. So when they are turned back, they need to be given life — the reviving, life-giving power that calls the heart back to God. Then, with deeper seriousness and new confidence, the heart calls upon Him. In Israel it is really life from the dead. It is more than a prayer that cries out in trouble. It is the heart calling on God with confidence, now turned back to Him.
Verse 18 leads straight into the psalm's third and final refrain. The three appeals build on one another.
Once Christ brings them into blessing, the people will not go back from the Lord. So for the third time they repeat the refrain, "Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!" Their first plea is that God is the Shepherd of Israel. Their second plea is that God cannot be indifferent to their sufferings. The last plea is Christ, the Man of God's right hand.
- Given a Man. The verse begins with "then." Everything hangs on the request just before it: God's hand resting on the man of His right hand.
- Given life. "Give us life" renders a word meaning to revive, or give new life, in a moral sense. God makes alive according to His will, and the work is His Spirit's, not ours.
- Given the promise. Power and security rest in Christ. So the people can say "we shall not turn back" without self-confidence. His presence keeps them right.
- Given a voice. Calling on His name comes after God gives the life. The nation prays as people with no strength. They need a change of heart before national rescue means anything.
- Given His face. The verse hands over to the psalm's third and last refrain: restore us, let Your face shine, that we may be saved. It is the last of three pleas, and the one that rests on Christ.
Restore us, O Jehovah, God of hosts; cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
Psalm 80 traces the ruin of a nation: a vine God carried out of Egypt, planted, then broken down and burned. It ends with a plea, not a plan — the same plea that closed verses 3 and 7 — so what has changed by verse 19?
The line comes three times, but never in identical form. Each repetition addresses God by a fuller name, and one writer traces the reason for the change.
This is no effort to restore themselves. It is dependence on God to do it. In verse 3, when he asked God to make His face shine, the psalmist addressed Him as "O God." In verse 7 he asked the same thing and said, "O God of hosts." Now in verse 19 it is "O LORD God of hosts," which adds the thought of God's covenant relationship with Israel — "LORD God."
The rising titles are not decoration. They mark a prayer gaining ground.
The differences in name and title used in these verses clearly indicate the growing intensity of the plea for the shining forth of Jehovah's face as the Shepherd of Israel.
The ESV reads "Restore us"; older translations read "Turn us again." Either way, they do not say they will turn. They ask God to turn them.
They ask, in the person of the psalmist, to be turned. God alone could make effective this desire of theirs. The work in them, like the work for them, must be His. So the cry brings the two together.
Suffering alone does not produce this cry. It took the lowest point to press the words out.
Mere discipline in itself does not turn to God. It may break the will, humble where God is working, and so do a preparatory work; but it does not turn to God. So God brings them to this point. In the ruined state of Ephraim and Judah, when they are as low as they can go — because nothing less would do — they say, "Turn me," "Turn us again."
The third refrain follows verse 17, where the psalm asks God's hand to rest on the Man of His right hand. That is what gives the final repetition its weight.
Their first plea is that God is the Shepherd of Israel. Their second plea is that God cannot be indifferent to their suffering. Their last plea is Christ, the Man of God's right hand.
Now that the psalm has named Him, the cry comes again in a different tone.
Once more the cry, but with increased confidence to Him who has made the Son of man strong for Himself.
The psalm asks God to make His face shine. One writer points to where that light is now found.
Three times the psalm asks God to make His face shine. Thank God, we know today that He has done this in giving His beloved Son: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). We see that shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
For Israel, that light is still ahead, and it will come with a hard discovery.
When the Son of Man comes again, it will be to recover Israel and to free them from the power of their enemies. But they will then discover that their deliverer is the same One they crucified and killed when He first came to them in lowly grace as Jesus of Nazareth.
The psalm asks first for restoration and only then for salvation. That order carries over to anyone whose life has gone wrong.
But with this God's face would shine on them, and they would be saved. How good that we can look to God when our own face is turned the wrong way! He can turn us, and make His face shine on us, so bringing blessing and present deliverance to His people. Notice too that the psalm looks to God returning and visiting the vine. But it does not look for the old state of things to be restored, for that is not God's way. It looks for the setting up of the branch God had made so strong for Himself.
Beyond the ruin, the outcome itself belongs to God and not to resolve.
"Then we will not turn back from You" (v. 18). This is no longer self-confidence, but confidence based on God's faithfulness.
- Turned, not turning. The verb is a request, not a resolution — God must do the work in them as well as the work for them.
- Turned by more than trouble. Discipline can break the will and prepare the ground, but it does not by itself turn anyone to God.
- Turned by a plea that grows. "God," then "God of hosts," then "LORD God of hosts" — three cries, the last one resting on covenant relationship.
- Turned toward a Man. The final refrain follows the Man of God's right hand; He is the last and strongest plea the psalm can make.
- Turned into the light. The shining face is God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ — and where that light falls, salvation follows.