Chapter 74 opens with the word Maskil. Ibn Ezra notes that the word Maskil marks the beginning of a poetic song - this was how they would open musical compositions: Maskil le-David, Maskil le-Asaf, Maskil le-Heiman. The Radak explains that this psalm focuses on the exile: why have You forsaken us and cast us far away forever? The Malbim shifts the direction: the psalm refers to the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, though this is inherently bound up with the exile - why has the exile dragged on for so long while we remain unredeemed?
מַשְׂכִּיל לְאָסָף לָמָה אֱלֹהִים זָנַחְתָּ לָנֶצַח יֶעְשַׁן אַפְּךָ בְּצֹאן מַרְעִיתֶךָ׃ - A Maskil of Asaf: Why, O God, have You cast us off forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
The Radak explains "does Your anger smoke" as an allegory: when a person becomes enraged, his body heats up and smoke figuratively issues from his nostrils. Anthropomorphically, the psalmist addresses Heaven: why be so angry with the sheep of Your pasture? The Malbim notes a precise distinction between two possibilities: If the abandonment is permanent, meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, never intends to return to us, regarding this Asaf asks, "Why, O God, have You cast us off forever?" But if you say that the abandonment is merely temporary, lasting only until the anger subsides and He rests from His wrath, regarding this he asks, "Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?" - why should there be this anger itself?
The author of Tehillot Maharit raises a difficulty, as do other commentators: zanachta ("You have cast off") is in the past tense, whereas ye'eshan ("does [will] smoke") is in the future tense. It should have said either zanachta... ashan apcha (both in the past) or tiznach... ye'eshan apcha (both in the future). Therefore, he explains that this psalm is a continuation of the preceding chapter, which dealt with the question of why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. Asaf comes and says: Master of the Universe, the faith of the Jewish people weakened because You concealed Your face from them and abandoned them. That very weakness in faith is what brings wrath and the attribute of strict justice upon them. Thus, the abandonment in the past is what causes Your anger to smoke against the sheep of Your pasture going forward - and regarding this entire dynamic, he asks: Why?
Rav Mazuz, renowned for his mastery of gematria, notes that the words ye'eshan apcha be-tzon ("Your anger smokes against the sheep") have the numerical value of 674 (תרע"ד) - an allusion to World War I, which broke out in the Hebrew year 5674 (תרע"ד), evoking the verse "He looks upon the earth and it trembles" (va-tir'ad). Furthermore, later in the psalm, the words Elohim yecharref tzar ("O God, the adversary reviles") also equal 674 (תרע"ד). And if one seeks yet another allusion - the psalm itself is chapter 74 (ע"ד).
זְכֹר עֲדָתְךָ קָנִיתָ קֶּדֶם גָּאַלְתָּ שֵׁבֶט נַחֲלָתֶךָ הַר־צִיּוֹן זֶה שָׁכַנְתָּ בּוֹ׃ - Remember Your congregation which You acquired of old, which You redeemed as the tribe of Your inheritance, Mount Zion wherein You dwelt.
Rashi explains kanita kedem ("acquired of old") as referring to before the creation of the world, as it is written, "Lord, You have been our dwelling place... before the mountains were born" - You were a dwelling place and refuge for us even before the world was created. The Holy One, blessed be He, Israel, and the Torah are one; the Torah preceded the world, and "In the beginning God created" means for the sake of Israel, who are called reishit (the beginning). It emerges that we preceded the creation of the world. Regarding the phrase "Mount Zion, zeh [wherein] You dwelt," Rashi notes that this is an elliptical construction, similar to "[He] against Whom we sinned" (zu chatanu lo), meaning: Mount Zion, which You dwelt in, where the connective word is implied.
Radak explains differently: "You acquired of old" - You acquired them from Egypt. And just as You acquired them of old and took them out of Egypt, so too acquire them and take them out of this exile. And why is this called an acquisition? Because they had been sold as slaves to Egypt, and when the Holy One, blessed be He, takes Israel, it is "the people You acquired" - like one who purchases them from their masters and takes them out of their hand.
Seemingly, it should have said "the tribes of Your inheritance." Radak explains that it mentions all the tribes together as one, as a single, complete tribe, because Israel in Egypt was distinct and set apart from the rest of the Egyptians. This is what we mean when we say, "This teaches that they were marked (*metzuyanim*) there" - not that they received a score of one hundred on every test, but *metzuyanim* from the word *tziyun*, a marker or sign, as in "and sets up a marker by it": they were distinguished there, and it was readily apparent that they were the Children of Israel. And what is "Your inheritance"? Once You acquired them from the house of bondage, they were already called Your inheritance, as it says, "Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out with Your great power." And You redeemed them until You brought them to this Mount Zion wherein You dwelt, as stated in the Song of the Sea: "the people You acquired... You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, the place for Your dwelling which You made, Hashem" - the Temple Mount and the Beit HaMikdash, the place Hashem chose for His dwelling. And what is the meaning of the word "this" (*zeh*)? The renowned mountain; and it is very possible that he recited this psalm while standing in Zion, which is why he said "this Mount Zion" - the one upon which I am standing right now.
The Malbim explains that here Asaph makes three requests, and each of them is linked to "Remember." First - "Your congregation, which You acquired of old": Remember that long ago, in the days of the Patriarchs and the tribes, You acquired this congregation to be Yours, and You promised and swore to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov to be a God to them and to their descendants - and if You swore, how could You forsake them forever? Second - "which You redeemed as the tribe of Your inheritance": When strangers came and seized Your possession - namely, the Egyptians who enslaved Israel - You redeemed them. The Malbim emphasizes that the term redemption (*ge'ulah*) applies specifically to someone who has a prior right and claim in the matter; a buyer or a thief is not called a redeemer (*go'el*), rather the redeemer is the rightful owner - like a person who redeems a home he sold, "for a full year he may redeem it" in a walled city, and like Boaz who said, "there is a redeemer," seeking the one entitled to redeem. The Holy One, blessed be He, redeemed Israel by virtue of the rights He holds over them, having already acquired them in the days of the Patriarchs; and since they are His eternal inheritance, it is fitting that He redeem them a second time from this exile. And third - "this Mount Zion wherein You dwelt": Why not shine Your countenance upon Your desolate Sanctuary and restore the Shechinah there?
הָרִימָה פְעָמֶיךָ לְמַשֻּׁאוֹת נֶצַח כׇּל־הֵרַע אוֹיֵב בַּקֹּדֶשׁ׃ - Lift up Your steps to the perpetual ruins; every evil the enemy has done in the Sanctuary.
Rashi cites that Menachem connected "Your steps" (*pe'amecha*) with "and his spirit was troubled" (*vatipa'em rucho*), an expression of dread - a person stands agitated (*nif'am*), meaning startled and terrified. Thus "lift up Your steps": intensify the terrors that will strike the enemy unto "perpetual ruins" (*lemashu'ot netzach*), where *mashu'ot* denotes devastation and ruin, as in "the gate is battered into ruin (*she'iyah*)" and "it will be desolated (*tisa'eh*) into a wasteland" - that they should suffer an eternal catastrophe for all the evil they inflicted upon Israel in the Beit HaMikdash.
Radak offers two interpretations. The first: *pe'amecha* is from the expression "the one who beats the anvil" (*holem pa'am*) in Yeshayahu, where *holem* means striking, as in "she struck (*halmah*) Sisera," and *pa'am* is the anvil - thus denoting blows: raise Your blows against the enemies and bring an eternal ruin upon them. The second: *pe'amecha* means feet, as in "How beautiful are your footsteps (*fe'amayich*) in shoes, O daughter of nobles" - steps and walking. This is in the spirit of: "Arise, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered" - like telling someone: Come on, move your feet, meaning, start taking action already.
Radak further explains that "every evil the enemy has done in the Sanctuary" (*kol hera oyev bakodesh*) is an inverted phrasing, as if it were written "every enemy has done evil in the Sanctuary" - every enemy who struck the Beit HaMikdash. We find similar constructions in "Forgive all iniquity (*kol tisa avon*) and accept good," which means "forgive every iniquity (*kol avon tisa*)"; and "indeed, consume their adversaries (*af tzareihem tochelem*)," as if written "indeed, the fire of their adversaries will consume them (*af eish tzareihem tochelem*)" - the phrasing is inverted. Thus, the meaning of the verse is: Bring an eternal ruin upon every enemy who did evil in the Sanctuary.
שָׁאֲגוּ צֹרְרֶיךָ בְּקֶרֶב מוֹעֲדֶךָ שָׂמוּ אוֹתֹתָם אֹתוֹת׃ - Your adversaries roared in the midst of Your meeting place; they set up their own signs as signs.
The Malbim connects the two verses together and offers a penetrating insight: "Lift up Your feet" is the outcry of the oppressors. Having entered the Temple of Hashem, they roared upward, "Lift up Your feet from here!" - as if to say, gather your feet and depart, seeking to banish the Shechinah from Her Sanctuary, and go away "to eternal ruins," so that this place will remain desolate forever, and instead of the Shechinah dwelling within it, there will be everlasting desolation. "The enemy has wrought all evil in the sanctuary" - everything within the sanctuary he harmed and corrupted: the vessels, defiling the Temple and destroying it. "In the midst of Your meeting place" refers to the Temple, from the phrase "and I will meet with you there." And what is "they set up their signs as signs"? Since they destroyed the House of Hashem and performed acts of spite without being struck down immediately, they turned this into a sign and a proof that Hashem is powerless to save - like the act of Titus, who slashed the Parochet and blood emerged, and he imagined that he had slain "himself," as if striking at the Holy One, blessed be He. In this way, they seek to show that they have overcome the Master of the Universe: they destroyed His House and He does nothing, proving that they have prevailed over Him.
Rashi explains "Your meeting place" - the Beit HaMikdash, as in "and I will meet with you there." And "they set up their signs" he explains according to Chazal: when the enemies prevailed, they treated their signs and divinations as true omens, "he shook arrows, he consulted teraphim." It is related that when the enemies arrived, they wanted to know whether they would succeed in their conquest, so they shot arrows in all four directions of the sky and all of them flew toward Jerusalem; from this they saw, as it were, that the arrow directed them to march against Jerusalem. Divinations here does not mean magic tricks, but performing practices that produce an omen or sign whether to do a certain thing or not. This is forbidden by the Torah - yet they used them to prove that they should conquer Jerusalem and destroy the Temple.
The Radak reads "Your meeting places" with a yod, in the plural, referring to the two Batei Mikdash, which are called "Your meeting places" because Israel gathers there for the pilgrimage festivals; similarly, "they burned all the meeting places of God in the land" - the places where they would convene on the festivals. "They roared" - as in "they made a noise in the House of Hashem as on a day of festival"; the roaring expresses victory and great rejoicing; they entered the Beit HaMikdash and roared shouts of triumph. And "they set up their signs as signs" - Nevuchadnezzar determined the timing of the destruction according to the omens he performed, as the verse in Yechezkel states, "he consulted teraphim, he examined the liver." Teraphim are forms of idols, and "examined the liver" - the Metzudot explains there that when the liver is removed from an animal it possesses a clarity, and the custom of diviners was to gaze into it. In our day, whatever people claim to see in coffee grounds and the like is mere folly, but in their times there were people with real occult knowledge who could discern things through signs. This is what he did: he checked whether to march toward Jerusalem or to the land of the Ammonites, and his omens indicated to go to Jerusalem and destroy it.
Rav Mazuz finds an allusion here: the initials of all the words of the verse, "Sha'agu tzorericha be-kerev mo'adecha samu ototam otot," have the numerical value of 5734 (תשל"ד) - the Yom Kippur War. And Yom Kippur is indeed "in the midst of your festivals," between Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, in the midst of the mo'adim. The plain meaning of the verse is that when Israel has holidays and festivals, that is when the oppressors hatch schemes against us. It is well known that one of the favorite times for Europeans to stage riots and pogroms was Pesach; and the Nazis, may their names be blotted out, would plan aktions and executions on Chanukah and Purim. Specifically in the midst of our sacred festivals, they sought to roar and distress us.
יִוָּדַע כְּמֵבִיא לְמָעְלָה בִּסְבׇךְ־עֵץ קַרְדֻּמּוֹת׃ - It was known like one lifting axes upward into a thicket of trees.
Although it is written with a kamatz, the Minchat Shai, the Michlol Yofi, the Sefer HaShorashim of Ibn Janach, the Sefer HaShorashim of Radak, and Rav Mazuz - all state that it should be read "bisvoch eitz kardumot." For Yemenites and Ashkenazim this poses no question, since in their pronunciation every kamatz is sounded like a cholam; but according to the Sephardic pronunciation where the kamatz is open, here it is read as a kamatz chatuf - a kamatz followed by a sheva, which is always pronounced as an "o" sound, like "oniyah" rather than "aniyah," and like "chochmah." And although there are those who have argued according to modern grammar that this is not necessary, we rely on what our early authorities have written.
Rashi explains: When the enemy struck at the gates of the entrance to the Temple, he felt as though he were striking at the Temple on High rather than the earthly Temple. And how did he know this? Because he saw that the wood entangled the axes and swallowed them up.
And so it is brought in the Gemara in Sanhedrin (folio 96b), which was studied in the lessons on Ein Yaakov: Rava said, Nevuchadnezzar sent Nebuzaradan three hundred mules laden with iron axes that could cut through iron - powerful iron axes - to breach the gates of Jerusalem (and the number three hundred is typically used as an exaggeration). Yet one gate of Jerusalem swallowed all of them - all of them were broken against a single gate of Jerusalem, as it is stated, "Now its carvings all together they strike down with hatchet and hammers": against one entrance all the hatchets and hammers struck together, yet accomplished nothing.
Ba'ei lemehadar - he sought to return to Babylonia, realizing that this was unnatural and that it was apparently not the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that they conquer Jerusalem. He said: Mistasfina dela la'avdu bi ki heichi de'avdu beSanheriv - I fear that they will do to me just as was done to Sennacherib, whose entire army was slain when an angel of Hashem went out at night and struck down the entire Assyrian camp. A Heavenly voice (bat kol) went forth and proclaimed: Shevar bar shevar, Nevuzaradan shevar, demata zimna demikdesha chariv veheichela mikla - Leaper, son of a leaper, Nebuzaradan, jump forward and enter, for the time has arrived for the Temple to be destroyed and the Sanctuary burned! Pash lei chad narga - one axe remained out of the three hundred, with which he had not yet exhausted his strength. Ata machyei bekufa ve'iftach - he came and struck the gate with the blunt side of the axe, not the sharp edge, and with a single blow it opened. From this he saw a sign that the gates were being opened for him, as it were - "Open the gates, that a nation may enter" (a wicked nation) - and he understood that the way had been cleared for him.
And this is what David HaMelech said in his prayer before the Holy One, blessed be He: "It is known like one lifting axes upward against a thicket of trees" - let that thicket of axes with which Nebuzaradan smashed the gates of Jerusalem be made known before You, as though he lifted it and struck on High, at the Throne of Glory.
Radak explains in a different way: When the Beit HaMikdash was built, whoever brought axes into the thicket of trees - meaning anyone who came and assisted in the construction, hewing and cutting timber with his axe for the building of the House - was considered as though he brought it on High in heaven before the Throne of Glory, a source of satisfaction before Hashem as if he had offered a sacrifice, as if he were building the Heavenly Beit HaMikdash. They were so joyous and proud in building the House. That was then; but now - "And now its carvings together they smash with hatchet and axes" - the enemy comes, pounding and destroying that very place whose builder was considered to be building an abode for the Shechinah on High.
The Malbim explains that there is a sign here to know whether this was favored on High. What is destroyed in the Temple below reaches on High, for the destruction here causes sorrow and anguish, as it were, before Him, blessed be He. And how would this be known? If the wood entangles the axes, and the axes are swallowed up by the wood and unable to do their work, it is a sign that the destruction of the House is ill-favored on High, that Hashem does not desire it - the proof being that the wood swallows all the axes and the House is not destroyed. Yet we see that at a certain point the miracle ceased: with the last axe he struck, and the gate opened. This implies that at a specific moment in time Hashem said, "Now I desire it," and then the gates opened. Over this Asaf laments: How was it that initially "it is known like one lifting upward" and it was not pleasing before Him, yet suddenly with a single strike the gates open - "and now its carvings together" - how did everything change, and as it were He now desires to destroy His own House?
A famous idea in Nefesh HaChaim (Sha'ar 1, Chapter 4) touches upon this verse. Rav Chaim of Volozhin writes: It is reasonable to understand that this is also part of what our Sages of blessed memory intended in Avot, "Know what is above you (da mah lema'alah mimcha)" - meaning, even though you do not see with your own eyes the awesome effects brought about by your actions, know with certainty that all that occurs above in the highest of higher worlds is entirely from you (mimcha), and in accordance with your actions and where they incline, everything goes out and comes in. "What is above - is from you": everything that happens on High is generated by the power of your deeds here on earth. A person builds his upper chambers in heaven; let him not say, "What did I really do?" for even the smallest action one performs has ramifications reaching all the way to the Throne of Glory. And the author adds: Truly, the wise man who understands this in its truth will have his heart tremble within him in dread and shaking when he considers his flawed deeds, seeing how far-reaching they are to spoil and destroy through even a minor sin.
And this is no exaggeration: a person causes far greater destruction in the upper worlds than Nebuchadnezzar and Titus caused down here. For Nebuchadnezzar and Titus caused no damage whatsoever on High through their actions, as they have no portion or root in the higher realms that would allow their deeds to touch there at all. A gentile has no access to the spiritual reality; in the words of the Ben Ish Chai, a gentile possesses only an animalistic soul (nefesh behamit) and nothing more. This concept is elaborated upon in the teachings of reincarnation (gilgulim) regarding the distinction between the soul of a gentile and the soul of a Jew, which possesses a ruach and a neshamah - higher spiritual dimensions that a gentile lacks. If a gentile commits the most severe sins, he blemishes nothing on High; and through the greatest deeds, he rectifies nothing there.
The Jewish people, by contrast, are an actual part of God from Above, and their soul is hewn from beneath the Throne of Glory. In Sha'arei Kedushah, it is explained wonderfully how the soul of a Jew is connected to all the worlds - like a ten-story building where the soul has stairs and entrance to every floor, from the highest, Adam Kadmon, down to the lowest world, the world of Asiyah. Therefore, man is the only being capable of rectifying all the worlds, for he is connected to them all: angels exist only above, gentiles exist only below, but a Jew is linked to all the realms - drawing down bounty from them all, influencing them all through his actions, and when he sins, Heaven forbid, he blemishes them all.
If so, how were Nebuchadnezzar and Titus able to do what they did? Rather, through our sins, they were defiled and the strength of the Heavenly Might was weakened, as it were, and the Sanctuary of Hashem - the Sanctuary on High - was desecrated. We first destroyed the Beit HaMikdash on High through our flawed deeds during the First and Second Temple eras, and therefore Nebuchadnezzar in the First Temple and Titus in the Second Temple had the power to destroy the Temple below, which corresponds to the Temple on High. Now we can properly understand what Chazal meant when they said: Kimcha techina techant - "You have ground already-ground flour." The Beit HaMikdash had become like a house of cards that collapses with a mere touch, because its soul had already departed through our evil deeds, leaving behind only an empty shell; thus, they were able to bring it down. Thus, our sins destroyed the Heavenly dwelling, the holy upper worlds, while they destroyed only the earthly dwelling below.
Therefore, David requests and prays that those wicked ones should not be absolved of their iniquity: judge them as if they had destroyed on High in the highest heavens - where the scale of accountability is entirely different - even though their deeds did not truly touch there at all, as mentioned above. Thus far the words of the author of Nefesh HaChaim.
A similar thought is found in Midrash Tanchuma on Parashat Pekudei: "He is known as one who lifts up on high" - David said: Master of the Universe, reckon it against them as if they were chopping down cedars and making ladders to ascend to Heaven to wage war against You, except that they cannot wage war against You, so they leave You and come against us. In other words: hold it against them as though they had made ladders to ascend and fight against You, for since they cannot fight against You, they come to fight against us; and in essence, their war is against Hashem and against His anointed - and first and foremost against Hashem.
וְעַתָּה פִּתּוּחֶיהָ יָּחַד בְּכַשִּׁיל וְכֵילַפּוֹת יַהֲלֹמוּן׃ - And now, all its carvings together they smash with hatchet and axes.
Rashi explains: Even though he saw that the matter was grievous before the Holy One, Blessed be He - for he struck again and again, yet it did not open until the final ax - he was not deterred by this. Rather, "its carvings together" - some interpret this as an expression of doorways (petachim), all of its entrances, while others interpret it as an expression of carvings (pituachim), all of its beauty - "they smash with hatchet and axes." Kashil and keilafot are destructive carpenter's tools, and he came against it with axes. Targum Yonatan translates be-kashilya, showing that a kashil is a type of ax. And keilafot is an Arabic word, as Dunash explained, being one of the carpenter's tools, and with them the enemies would strike.
Ibn Ezra connects these words to the Holy Tongue: Some say that kashil derives from kishalon (stumbling or downfall) - the tool that brings about the downfall of the enemy and fells the structure or wall. And keilafot - if you interchange the kaf with a kuf, it derives from kelipot (peeling), a tool with which one chips or peels away, like someone chipping away stone or ceramic with the blow of an ax. Do not wonder at the interchange of kaf and kuf, for we find kova (helmet) spelled at times with a kaf and at times with a kuf - such as "buckler and shield and helmet [koba]" - which teaches that letters interchange.
Radak explains: "And now, its carvings together" - all the engravings and artistic designs wrought in gold, they would smash them all together with ax and hammers, destroying all the beauty of the craftsmanship. The Malbim adds according to his approach: If earlier there was a sign that it was not Hashem's will that they enter, as the doors would not open, now, "its carvings together" - this sign was no longer performed. They strike with hatchet, axes, and destructive tools at the golden engravings upon the walls, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not perform signs to show that He does not desire the destruction - on the contrary, He showed them signs indicating that He willed its destruction.