The
Apple of His Eye ... commentary of Psalm 74
The Apple of His Eye
… A commentary of Psalm
74
Verse Seven
Psalm 74:7:
“They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they
have defiled by casting down the dwelling
place of thy name to the ground.”
“…into thy sanctuary,”
We begin our commentary
on verse seven here [Psalm 74] by going to
the book of Job, chapter thirty-eight, verse thirty,
we read:
“The waters are hid as
with a stone, and the face of the deep is
frozen.
Canst thou bind the
sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of
Orion?
Canst thou bring forth
Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide
Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the
ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion
thereof in the earth?” [Job
38:30-33]
Beyond,
and higher than the clouds, [the first
heaven] and beyond our solar system [the sun,
the moon and the planets], are the star
constellations [the second heaven].
1.
The constellation of Orion is
located on the celestial equator.
[The celestial equator is
the great
circle of the imaginary celestial
sphere on the same
plane as the equator of Earth.]
Orion is visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky.
2.
The Pleiades are a group of more
than 800 stars located about 410 light-years from
Earth in the constellation Taurus.
3.
The Mazzaroth [the Hebrew word for
constellation] is the name given to the pattern of
stars found on the celestial equator, or ecliptic.
4.
Arcturus is the brightest star in
the constellation of Boötes, the fourth-brightest in
the night sky, and the brightest in the northern
celestial hemisphere.
To the north, and
beyond, and higher than these star
constellations, and beyond the expanse of the
universe, we leave the domain of time to pass into
eternity, and thus, we come to the third
heaven.
2 Corinthians 12:2: “I
knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out
of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an
one caught up to the third heaven.”
We must now cross
the waters of the frozen deep.
Job 38:30: “The
waters are hid as with a stone, and the face
of the deep is frozen.”
These waters form a
sea of glass with the appearance much
like as unto crystal.
Revelation 4:6: “And
before the throne there was a sea of glass
like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne,
and round about the throne, were four beasts
full of eyes before and behind.”
Above the crystal sea is
a THRONE.
Psalm 48:2: “Beautiful
for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is
mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the
city of the great King.”
The true sanctuary
is in the third heaven.
Psalm 96:6: “Honour
and majesty are before him: strength and
beauty are in his sanctuary.”
Psalm 102:19:
For he hath looked down from the
height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD
behold the earth;
Psalm 77:13: “Thy
way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so
great a God as our God?”
Psalm 150:1: “Praise
ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him
in the firmament of his power.”
The sanctuary is
the most holy place.
The holy place is
next to the most holy place where the
altar was located on the east side of
tabernacle [temple].
“And thou shalt take
the ram of the consecration, and seethe his flesh in
the holy place.” [Exodus 29:31]
The real tabernacle and the real sanctuary are located in the third heaven.
We come now to the
pattern. All the earthly sanctuaries were
to be made after the pattern of the true sanctuary
in HEAVEN.
The LORD showed Moses a
pattern of the real tabernacle,
wherein was the sanctuary of the wilderness:
“According to all that
I shew thee, after the pattern of the
tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments
thereof, even so shall ye make it.”
[Exodus 25:9] [Exodus 25:40] [Numbers 8:4]
“They have cast fire
into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting
down the dwelling place of thy name to the
ground.”
“They have cast fire…”
The prophet sees
something before it happens because the
Spirit of God is in him [the prophet].
The psalmist is seeing here the events that will
occur four hundred and thirty years into the future
from his time … in the year B.C. 1040.
Remember, God concurrently sees
the beginning and the end of all time and everywhere
in between. Again, HE puts the future
things into the prophet.
Now, fast forward to the year B.C.
610 … in the Second Book of the Chronicles, chapter
thirty-six, in verse eleven, and we will read the
very sad narrative of the destruction of the
first temple [The temple of Solomon] by fire:
“Zedekiah was one and twenty
years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven
years in Jerusalem.
And he did that which was evil in
the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled
not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking
from the mouth of the LORD.
And he also rebelled against king
Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but
he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from
turning unto the LORD God of Israel.
Moreover all the chief of the priests,
and the people, transgressed very much after all the
abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house
of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
And the LORD God of their fathers sent
to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and
sending; because he had compassion on his people,
and on his dwelling place:
But they mocked the messengers of God,
and despised his words, and misused his prophets,
until the wrath of the LORD arose against his
people, till there was no remedy.
Therefore he brought upon them the king
of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the
sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no
compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him
that stooped for age: he gave them all into
his hand.
And all the vessels of the house of God,
great and small, and the treasures of the house of
the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his
princes; all these he brought to Babylon.
And they burnt the house of God, and
brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the
palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the
goodly vessels thereof.
And them that had escaped from the sword
carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants
to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom
of Persia:
To fulfil the word of the LORD by the
mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her
sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she
kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.” [2
Chronicles 36:11-21]
“They have cast fire…”
Again, in A.D. 70, the
Second Temple was destroyed by fire by the Roman
legions of Titus.
Matthew 24:1-2: “And
Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and
his disciples came to him for to shew him the
buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said unto
them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto
you, There shall not be left here one stone upon
another, that shall not be thrown down.”
The siege of the city
began on 14 April A.D. 70, three days before the
beginning of Passover that year. The siege
lasted for about five months. It ended in
August A.D. 70 on Tisha B'Av. [Tisha B'Av is the
ninth day of the Hebrew month of “Av” in
Hebrew.]
“They have cast fire…”
And finally, in the Great
Tribulation, also known as Jacob’s trouble,
[Jeremiah 30:7: “Alas! for that day is
great, so that none is like it: it is
even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be
saved out of it.”], the whole land,
including the Third Temple, will be
destroyed by the fire of God.
Zephaniah 1:18: “Neither
their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver
them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole
land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy:
for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them
that dwell in the land.”
Zephaniah 3:8: “Therefore
wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that
I rise up to the prey: for my determination is
to gather the nations, that I may assemble the
kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation,
even all my fierce anger: for all the earth
shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.”
After the fire of God’s
jealousy has performed this devouring
operation a new era [the regeneration] will
commence. The millennial Kingdom,
wherein God will dwell with man, will be
established upon a mountain.
Exodus 15:17: “Thou
shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain
of thine inheritance, in the place, O LORD,
which thou hast made for thee to dwell in,
in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands
have established.”
Jesus Christ will
plant HIS people upon this mountain: For
light on this, see Psalm seventy-eight, verse
fifty-four, and then, verse: sixty-nine:
“And he brought them
to the border of his sanctuary, even to this
mountain, which his right hand had
purchased.”
“And he built his
sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth
which he hath established for ever.”
[Psalm 78:54, 69]
Side Note: The new
sanctuary [this fourth temple] will be
replicated according to the pattern of the true
sanctuary, which is now in the third
heaven. The new sanctuary is
described by the prophet in detail in the book
of Ezekiel, chapter forty through chapter
forty-eight.
This temple will
differ in that it has a different
builder. This temple will be built by God, unlike
all the prior temples that were built by
man … for God.
“He built his sanctuary”
Buttressing this truth
is this found in the Second Book of Moses
called Exodus, in chapter twenty-five:
“And let them make me
a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.”
[Exodus 25:8]