“We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.”
The people's shame is public: "We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us." The military defeat has led to public humiliation; the surviving community is subjected to derision and mockery from surrounding peoples. In honor-shame cultures, this social shaming constitutes a harm as serious as the physical destruction itself.
Church Fathers on Psalms 79:4
1. Over the title of this Psalm, being so short and so simple, I think we need not tarry. But the prophecy which here we read sent before, we know to be evidently fulfilled. For when these things were being sung in the times of King David, nothing of such sort, by the hostility of the Gentiles, as yet had befallen the city Jerusalem, nor the Temple of God, which as yet was not even built. For that after the death of David his son Salomon made a temple to God, who is ignorant?…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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