(3) Lift up thy feet.--Better, Lift thy steps. A poetical expression. God is invoked to hasten to view the desolation of the Temple. A somewhat similar expression will be found in Genesis 29:1 (margin).

Perpetual desolations.--The word rendered "desolations" occurs also in Psalm 73:18, where it is rendered "destruction." Here, perhaps, we should render ruins which must be ever ruins, or complete ruins, or possibly, taking the first meaning of netsach, ruins of splendour. Isaiah 11:4 does not offer a parallel, since the Hebrew is different, and plainly refers to the long time the places have been in ruins.

Even all . . .--Better, the enemy hath devastated all in the holy place. 1 Maccabees 1:38-40; 1 Maccabees 3:45 ("Now Jerusalem lay void as a wilderness") give the best explanation of the verse, descriptive, as it is, of the condition of the whole of Zion.

Verse 3. - Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; or, the perpetual ruins. God is asked to visit and protect, or else to visit and inspect, the desolate ruins with which the Babylonians have covered Mount Zion. Even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. The Babylonians had plundered the temple of all its treasures, breaking the precious Phoenician bronze work into pieces, and carrying off everything of value that was portable (2 Kings 25:13-17). They had also "burnt the house of the Lord "(ver. 9), and "broken down the walls of Jerusalem" (ver. 10) and the walls of the temple to a large extent (see below, ver. 7). It is quite certain that neither Shishak nor the Syrians under Antiochus Epiphanes created any such devastation.

74:1-11 This psalm appears to describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans. The deplorable case of the people of God, at the time, is spread before the Lord, and left with him. They plead the great things God had done for them. If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was encouragement to hope that he would not cast them off, much more reason have we to believe, that God will not cast off any whom Christ has redeemed with his own blood. Infidels and persecutors may silence faithful ministers, and shut up places of worship, and say they will destroy the people of God and their religion together. For a long time they may prosper in these attempts, and God's oppressed servants may see no prospect of deliverance; but there is a remnant of believers, the seed of a future harvest, and the despised church has survived those who once triumphed over her. When the power of enemies is most threatening, it is comfortable to flee to the power of God by earnest prayer.Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations,.... That is, arise, hasten, move swiftly, and in the greatness of strength, and come and see the desolations made by the enemy, which look as if they would remain for ever; meaning either the desolations made in the city and temple of Jerusalem, either by Nebuchadnezzar, or by Titus; or the havocs and devastations made in the church of God by the tyranny and persecutions of antichrist; which have continued so long, that an end of them has been almost despaired of. So Jacob is said to "lift up his feet"; which we render went on his way, Genesis 29:1. Some take these words in a different sense, as a prayer for the destruction of the church's enemies; so the Targum,

"lift up thy feet or goings, to make desolate the nations for ever;''

and Kimchi makes but one sentence of this and the following clause, and reads it thus,

"lift up thy feet, to make desolate for ever every enemy that does wickedly in the sanctuary:''

but the accent "athnach", which divides propositions, and is upon the word forbids such a reading. The former sense is best, and most agreeable to the context;

even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary; by profaning and destroying the temple, as did Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, and Titus; or by antichrist sitting in the temple and church of God, setting up idolatrous worship in it, and blaspheming the tabernacle of God, and those that dwell therein, 2 Thessalonians 2:4.