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Psalm 79:4
We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
2They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth.
3They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.
4We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
5How long, LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, on the kingdoms that don’t call on your name,
Notice
Neighbors scoff at a people whose dead lie unburied, adding public contempt to the bloodshed and loss already named around Jerusalem.
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What changes in your reading when the neighbors’ scorn follows the account of unburied bodies?
Write on thisWhat would you want to tell God about suffering you have seen treated with contempt?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Nehemiah 2:17Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let’s build up the wall of …Both passages describe disgrace connected with Jerusalem’s devastation; Nehemiah urges rebuilding its wall.
Psalm 44:13You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.Both describe reproach and scoffing among neighbors, though Psalm 44 addresses God as the one who has made them a reproach.
Psalm 80:6You make us a source of contention to our neighbors. Our enemies laugh among themselves.Both portray a community exposed to its neighbors’ hostility, with laughter and scorn adding to its distress.
Zechariah 8:13It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don’t …Both describe public disgrace among surrounding peoples; Zechariah adds God’s promise to save Judah and Israel and make them a blessing.
Lamentations 1:7Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old; when her people fell into the …Both describe mockery amid Jerusalem’s devastation, with Lamentations naming adversaries who laugh at her desolations.
Ezekiel 5:15So it will be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and in …Both name reproach among surrounding peoples; Ezekiel describes that reproach as part of God’s judgment.
Psalm 30:1A Psalm. A Song for the Dedication of the Temple. By David. I will extol you, LORD, for you have raised me up, and have not made my foes to rejoice over me.Psalm 79 laments surrounding scorn; Psalm 30 thanks God that foes have not been allowed to rejoice over the speaker.
Psalm 39:8Deliver me from all my transgressions. Don’t make me the reproach of the foolish.Both name the pain of being a reproach; Psalm 39 asks God to prevent that disgrace before the foolish.
Lamentations 5:1Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.Both bring a people’s reproach before God, with Lamentations asking him to look and see it.
Daniel 9:16Lord, according to all your righteousness, please let your anger and your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our …Both describe Jerusalem’s people becoming a reproach to those around them; Daniel also confesses sin and asks God to turn away his anger.
Ezekiel 36:15“I won’t let you hear the shame of the nations any more. You won’t bear the reproach of the peoples any more, and you won’t cause your nation to stumble any …Both concern reproach from surrounding peoples; Ezekiel promises an end to the shame that Psalm 79 laments.
Isaiah 43:28Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”Both describe God’s people subjected to public contempt; Isaiah declares that Israel will become an insult.
Where this verse fits
Grief. injustice and anger.
One step
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Encouragement
The neighbors’ contempt is spoken before God. In this lament, his people bring him their disgrace while the dead remain unburied and the mockery continues.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).