Pour Out Your Anger

Psalm 79 is a lament. Asaph, who in the previous psalm told the whole story of the people from Egypt to David, stands here before a different picture: nations come into the inheritance of the Lord, a holy temple defiled, Jerusalem left in heaps of stones. This is testimony from the days of the First Temple, defiled and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in 586 BCE. The psalm is read every year on Tisha B'Av alongside the Scroll of Lamentations, and from it come the words every Jewish home says on Seder night, when the door is opened for Elijah the prophet: Pour out your anger.

The central verse, chosen as the name of the song, is:

"Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name"

This is not a request for private revenge. Asaph wishes no harm on his neighbor; he turns to God and points to a wider gap: there are powers that do not know Him at all and recognize no limit — and they are the ones who walked into the holy place and destroyed it. A Jew who says this verse on Seder night, with the door standing open, is not asking for blood, but that the world know there is justice, and that ruin does not go unanswered.