Ps. 79.7 (nations of beasts)

For they devoured Jacob
and devastated / his living place.  

Beasts to men. Perhaps the most troubling, at a visceral level at least, of the images in the opening section of the psalm is that of the beasts that devour the dead bodies on the unburied soldiers. There, we noted how, in sacrificial meals at the Temple, man sacrifices an animal in the presence of God—thereby participating within a sacred meal. Here, by contrast, animals devour men in the (at least partial) absence of God. It is a type of profane, or atheistic, meal. It is a meal ‘pointing nowhere’, enveloped in nothing. The careless disregard of the beasts is instructive in this as they feed on any and every body-part without distinction. Furthermore, there is a host to this meal (the animals being the guests). The ‘nations’ deliberately left the bodies unburied; they prepared this meal ‘in the sight of all’. It is, within this context, that we should see these lines as the ‘beasts’ are now ‘the nations’ who have ‘devoured Jacob’. Without dinting the horror, the psalmist has accomplished in this image at least two levels of meaning in a very effective manner. On the one hand, he has moved the nations into the positions of ‘beasts’; they have, in their destruction of Jacob, become not just a ‘member of the animal realm’, but Nebuchadnezzar-like, lost their humanity. On another level, nations are often described as ‘devouring’ other nations. That image persists here, yet is deepened by the fact that these nations, as we saw in our last reflection, are those who, in their brutal destruction of God’s servants, reveal themselves to be those who neither ‘know’ nor ‘call upon’ the divine name. by combining these two levels of meaning a unified picture emerges of these nations as powerful and bestial in nature, partaking of the same indifference as the beasts of vs. 2, and, indeed seeing in these beasts the will of the nations. As we said before, the nations were the intentional ‘hosts’ of the meal. In this verse, they become both host and guest, sitting down to a meal they prepared. As the psalmist envisions the battle fields (and the city) strewn with the dead servants of God, beats and birds feeding upon their flesh, he sees the manifestation of the nations; in this, the ‘will of the nations’, is nothing less than the will of a beast. (Importantly, in later apocalyptic imagery, the nations are often portrayed as beasts.)  

Living Place. It is not entirely clear what this refers to, whether it is to the homes of the people or to the Temple. The only other buildings that have been destroyed are the Temple and Jerusalem (vs. 1). Further, it is not plural, although it seems to refer to the corporate body of the people as singular as well: Jacob. However, the ‘dwelling place’ of the Temple is not the dwelling place of humans but of God. All that said, the ‘holy ones’ and ‘servants’ who were killed may have been temple priests or servants; the levitical priests ‘portion’ is not in land but in God. Ultimately, I think this refers to the Temple/Jerusalem of verse 1. The reason is that this verse, I think, operates as a type of summary of the acts of the nations. 7a summarizes the ‘meal’ of verses 2-3. 7b summarizes the destruction of the Temple/Jerusalem of verse 1. It therefore ‘bookends’ the complaint and prepares for the change of perspective in the following verse, therefore also mirroring the transition of verse 3 to verse 4.  He figured that it would add about one million dollars in real estate assets to his estate.