“How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?”
The plea for divine intervention begins: "How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?" The invocation of God's temporal anger suggests that the psalmist understands the catastrophe as divine punishment for covenantal infidelity, yet asks how long this punishment must continue. The reference to God's jealous wrath confirms the covenantal framework: God's anger stems from violated relationship.
Church Fathers on Psalms 79:5
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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