The time described in this psalm is the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians. We may wonder why it is linked to Asaph who lived in the time of David, a long time before that captivity occurred. The likely answer is that the word Asaph covers his descendants who also served in the temple after he had died. So this psalm was written by one or more of them.
Asaph is puzzled by divine providence in which he sees God not changing the state of defeat and destruction experienced by the people of Israel. God had chosen them for his people, he had redeemed them from slavery, he had placed his abode among them, but now it had all collapsed, and all seemed in ruins. He even suggests in verse 3 that God no longer walks among his people and has allowed a powerful enemy to destroy the sanctuary (vv. 1-3).
In verses 4-8, Asaph describes the destruction that the enemy had brought. They had determined as well to remove all the meeting places throughout the country, a comment that points to the existence of meetings that would develop into synagogues. Clearly, the enemy regarded God as powerless, unable to stop them, and they were sure that they could remove all trace of God from the land.
The situation was made worse for Asaph because there seemed to be no response from God. No signs of his presence were available now that the temple had gone; even the usual response of sending prophets to preach to the people about their sins had not occurred. God, it seemed, had chosen to be silent and inactive regarding the situation (vv. 9-11).
Asaph knew a lot about God’s power. He mentions how he had delivered his people from Egypt (the sea and Leviathan), and how he had controlled the natural creation on specific occasions as well as arranging the regular daily and annual cycles. The issue now was not that God lacked power, but that he had so far not used it to help his people at the present time (vv. 12-17).
Therefore, he intercedes for God’s cause and asks the Lord to come to the aid of his gentle and needy people surviving in the land. They are like doves and like the poor without resources (vv. 18-19). He could do this by regarding the covenant arrangement he had made with Israel, and when he did, he would remove the places of wickedness and liberate his people, and this restoration would result in his people praising him again (vv. 20-21).
Therefore he implores the Lord to rise, an illustration that indicates he is inactive so far in their predicament. He urges the Lord not to ignore what his opponents are saying and doing as they attempt to remove all pointers to God from the land (vv. 21-23).
Unlike other psalms, Asaph here does not say if God answered his prayer, but that would not happen immediately because the captivity would last for seventy years. But Asaph still provides us with an example of how to pray in days when God’s power is not evident in the degree of blessing that it used to be. His prayer acknowledges the seriousness of the situation (divine judgement on Israel), the silence of God, and the weakness of his surviving people in the land. We need to do the same about our contemporary situation. Yet we can look back to Asaph’s time and experience and see that God answered such prayers eventually. As Asaph requested, God did remember what was happening.
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