The psalm before us describes the reality of the Destruction in all its horrors, and not without reason was it established as part of Tikkun Chatzot. Right at its opening, Chazal note a profound difficulty: the psalm opens with the language of song, yet its content is a description of terrible catastrophe.
מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף אֱלֹהִים בָּאוּ גוֹיִם בְּנַחֲלָתֶךָ טִמְּאוּ אֶת־הֵיכַל קׇדְשֶׁךָ שָׂמוּ אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלִַם לְעִיִּים׃ - A psalm of Asaph: O God, nations have entered Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy Sanctuary; they have turned Jerusalem into ruins.
Chazal ask: What is this "A psalm of Asaph"? It should have said a lamentation! You describe here that nations entered Your inheritance, defiled Your holy Sanctuary, gave the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the heavens and the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth - an agonizingly harsh reality, and over this you sing a psalm? Do you have any reason to sing?
Chazal answer: Why a psalm? Because He poured out His wrath upon wood and stones and did not bring annihilation upon His children. As it were, the Holy One, Blessed is He, shattered wood and stones, destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, made the entire land brimstone and salt burning, but ultimately the Jewish people remained in existence.
Rav Shimshon Pincus notes that it is a mistake to understand "He poured out His wrath upon wood and stones" as it might superficially appear to us: a person raging, boiling, furious, stick in hand, and instead of hitting the person he pounds on the table or smashes a valuable vessel, thereby venting his anger and calming down. Such a conception toward the Holy One, Blessed is He, is crude and even childish. Did He merely vent His anger on wood and stone? Certainly that is not the meaning.
He provides a wonderful parable, as was his way of illustrating deep concepts: A master artist sat atop a mountain working on his life's masterpiece. It was a work upon which he had labored for months, each day adding several brushstrokes, an extraordinary creation in its scope, depth, and uniqueness. Toward its completion, he invited several close associates to witness the final brushstrokes. When he finished, and everyone stood awestruck, he too stood mesmerized, gazing at the painting, swept with emotion. In his profound admiration, he began stepping backward to take it in from a broader perspective. Suddenly, one of the onlookers realized he was stepping backward right toward the edge of the cliff, about to fall off the mountain. He shouted, "Watch out, you are about to fall!" But the painter was not listening; he was utterly absorbed. Instantly, the onlooker drew a knife and slashed the canvas. The painter screamed, "What did you do?!" and stopped in his tracks. The man said to him, "Look behind you. One more second and you would have died."
This is the meaning of "He spent His wrath upon wood and stones." The way to bring the Jewish people to teshuvah was through shock, and the way to shock them was to destroy their life's masterpiece, the Beit HaMikdash, the joy of our lives. For the Jewish people did not believe that the Beit HaMikdash could ever be destroyed. As related in the Prophets, they would say, "The Temple of Hashem, the Temple of Hashem, are these" - Hashem will never destroy His Temple; there is no chance that Hashem will destroy His Sanctuary. It was this conviction that allowed them to persist in their ways and ignore the prophecies of the prophets who warned them of destruction and Hashem's wrath. When the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, the shock and dread were so overwhelming that it brought them to "There we sat and wept when we remembered Zion." Thus, this was not a venting of frustration on wood and stone, but rather a means of awakening them without striking them mortally and annihilating the Jewish people.
The author of the Panim Yafot asks: There was an abundance of gold and silver in the Beit HaMikdash, as it is written that silver was considered as nothing, so why did Chazal say, "He poured out His wrath upon wood and stones"? Rather, it is written: "The hand of the witnesses shall be upon him first to put him to death" - those who testify against a person are the first to strike him, they stone him, "and the hand of all the people afterward." When the Jewish people sin, who are the witnesses? Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today." And where is the testimony of heaven and earth? "And He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain" - here, there is no rain; the witness is speaking to you. The earth does not yield its produce, the trees cease to grow. Hashem appointed me as a witness that you must observe His mitzvot. If so, the witnesses are heaven and earth, the trees and the stones, and "For a stone shall cry out from the wall, and a beam from the timber shall answer it." They testify against us: Look at how the Holy One, Blessed is He, poured out His wrath upon us; this is testimony that you have corrupted your ways.
Radak explains that this psalm addresses the destruction of Jerusalem, as is explicit within it, and it is framed as a cry: "A psalm of Asaph: O God" - he cries out to the Master of the World. You, Who are God, how did You restrain Yourself when nations entered Your inheritance, when they destroyed Your holy Sanctuary, when they turned Jerusalem into heaps of ruins? And what is meant by "iyrim" (עיים)? Heaps. The destroyed city turns into heaps of stones, like "as a heap of the field" (Michah 1:6), which the Targum renders as "le-ygar chakla", related to "Yegar Sahaduta" which corresponds to "Gal-ed" - a heap (gal). Anyone who wishes to understand this better can look at Gaza after any military operation and see what it means to "turn it into heaps", heaps of rubble. And it does not matter that in the end they raise two fingers and declare victory - we wish them many more "victories" of this kind.
Malbim explains: "Nations have entered Your inheritance" - "Your inheritance" refers to all the sanctified places, for the concept of inheritance always denotes sanctity. Thus, they came to all the holy places that are the inheritance of Hashem, defiled the Sanctuary, and turned Jerusalem into heaps of ruins, into piles of rubble.
In Midrash Tehillim: Asaph said, You wrote in the Torah, "the stranger who comes near shall die" (Bamidbar 1:51), yet You allowed the nations to enter? As it were, he had a grievance: God, how did You allow them to enter, when You said, "the stranger who comes near shall die"? The Holy One, blessed be He, replied to him: They entered with permission, and I commanded that they enter. You ask if I gave permission? I called them, as it says, "Behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north" (Yirmeyahu 1:15). And the Gemara relates that a heavenly voice (bat kol) proclaimed: Let the wicked servant come and destroy the House of Hashem. In other words, nothing here occurred by chance: Did the nations merely arrive and destroy on their own? Were there not detailed and explicit prophecies beforehand, were there not warnings? Everything was already written in advance. Furthermore, it is brought that the doors of the Heichal opened by themselves prior to the destruction, until Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai rebuked it and said: Until when will you terrify yourself? This opening signaled, as it were, that the nations should come and enter it.
נָתְנוּ אֶת־נִבְלַת עֲבָדֶיךָ מַאֲכָל לְעוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם בְּשַׂר חֲסִידֶיךָ לְחַיְתוֹ־אָרֶץ׃ - They have given the corpses of Your servants as food for the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth.
Ibn Ezra connects this verse to the preceding one: It was stated, "they turned Jerusalem into heaps of ruins", and we might have thought that those ruins also served as the burial place for the people, as is typical when a place is destroyed over its inhabitants and the heaps of rubble become their graves. To this, the verse says: Not so. Your servants would have wished to be buried beneath the ruins, but their corpses were given as food to the birds of the heavens. Their fate was far worse.
Radak cites a question in the name of his father: How can you suddenly speak of "Your servants" and "Your pious ones"? Were there really servants and pious ones of Hashem there? After all, it is explicitly stated in Yirmeyahu (5:1): "Roam through the streets of Jerusalem, look now and know, and search in its broad plazas, if you can find a man" - a "man", meaning a personality of spiritual stature - "if there is one who does justice, who seeks faithfulness, that I may forgive her." Had there been even one such man, Hashem said He would forgive her.
He explains that in truth, there were righteous individuals and servants of Hashem there. Daniel, Chananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah were exiled from Jerusalem, and they were pious servants of Hashem. There were certainly pious ones of Hashem in that generation. And what Yirmeyahu said? They were hidden inside their homes and could not be seen in the streets and plazas because of the wickedness that walked in the streets. Therefore it specifically says, "Roam through the streets" and "search in its broad plazas." As for the pious ones who were in Jerusalem, some were spared from death and went into exile, and some were not spared, all according to Hashem's judgment. From this we also learn a practical guidance: pious individuals remain indoors. A God-fearing person should leave his home as little as possible, for every excursion outside can be a source of spiritual danger. Today as well it is difficult to walk in the streets, unfortunately mainly because of immodest dress, as the verse says, "They hunted our steps, so that we could not walk in our streets" (Eichah 4:18). And regarding those pious ones who remained indoors, it is said that some had their corpses given as food to the birds of the heavens, and the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth.
Radak further cites in the name of Chazal, who also addressed this difficulty, explaining that once they died, they attained the status of "Your servants", for death brought atonement. Rashi brings a scriptural source for this principle: "And your brother become degraded before your eyes" (Devarim 25:3) - once he has received lashes (laka), he is considered your brother. Once he is punished, he is no longer viewed as a wicked person, but as your brother. So too here: once they were struck down, they are regarded as "Your servants" and "Your pious ones."
The Malbim asks what the difference is between "the carcass of Your servants" and "the flesh of Your pious ones", for ostensibly they are one and the same. He explains: a carcass (*neveilah*) refers to a corpse that is whole, intact as it is, whereas "flesh" (*bassar*) is used when it has been severed into pieces. The servants were cast as intact carcasses as food for the fowl of the heavens, while the flesh of the pious ones was carved up and divided, cast to the beasts of the earth.
And what is meant by "beasts of the earth" (*chayto eretz*)? The Radak explains that this means the wild animals of the land (*chayat ha'aretz*), and the letter *vav* is extra, as in "and beasts of the earth after their kind" (Bereishis 1:24), and like "Bilaam son of Beor" (*beno Be'or*), which means the son of Beor. The Malbim, however, makes a distinction: "beasts of the field" are those found near settled areas, whereas *chayto eretz* are those that roam across the land at large. That is, they fed and sustained the roaming beasts of the land with the flesh severed from the corpses of the pious.
שָׁפְכוּ דָמָם כַּמַּיִם סְבִיבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם וְאֵין קוֹבֵר׃ - They shed their blood like water around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.
The Ibn Ezra explains: the attitude of those who spilled the blood was that no one would demand an accounting for it, like water which is ownerless and free to use. Just as a person pours out water and no one questions him as to why he did so, so too did they feel when slaughtering the servants of Hashem and His pious ones - that it was like pouring out water. Their blood was treated as ownerless, and they spilled it just as water is spilled. This entire grim reality evokes the period of the Holocaust: the carcasses of Your servants as food for the fowl of the heavens, the flesh of Your pious ones for the beasts of the earth, their blood shed like water and no one to bury them. A harsh and horrific reality - may affliction not rise up a second time.
And the Malbim explains: "They shed their blood like water" - do not think it was only a small amount; rather, it was shed like vast waters. And do not think this took place out in the field or in the desert, but rather "around Jerusalem", in inhabited places where people ought to have been available to bury them. Yet despite this, because of the sheer desolation, with no one left - some having died, some having fled, and others taken captive - there was no one left to bury those who needed burial.
הָיִינוּ חֶרְפָּה לִשְׁכֵנֵינוּ לַעַג וָקֶלֶס לִסְבִיבוֹתֵינוּ׃ - We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, a scoffing and a scorn to those around us.
"We have become a disgrace to our neighbors" - they disgraced us in exile. "A scoffing and a scorn" (*la'ag vakeseles*) - *keles* means to ridicule something and turn it into a laughingstock. The Malbim notes precisely: "our neighbors" refers to the nations dwelling among us, and to them we became a disgrace; "those around us" refers to those dwelling surrounding our borders, and to them we became an object of mockery and scorn. This will be explained further below.
עַד־מָה יְהֹוָה תֶּאֱנַף לָנֶצַח תִּבְעַר כְּמוֹ־אֵשׁ קִנְאָתֶךָ׃ - How long, Hashem? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
"How long" (*ad mah*) - to what extent, until when. *Te'enaf* ("You will be angry") is an expression of wrath. "Your jealousy" (*kin'atecha*) denotes Your fury, zealous to exact retribution. Until when will Your jealousy burn like fire against Your people Israel?
The Radak addresses a difficulty: this psalm was composed concerning the exile of the First Temple, which lasted only seventy years, whereas we have already been in exile for two thousand years. How then could the psalmist say, "How long, Hashem? Will You be angry forever?" The answer is that nevertheless, it felt to them as long as eternity. Similarly, we see that the prophet Zechariah says: "How long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You have been indignant these seventy years?" Over seventy years he cries, "How long will You not have mercy?" - so what are we supposed to ask after thirty times as long, after more than two thousand years?
One can still resolve this and find merit in our defense: in a seventy-year exile, there were ninety-year-olds who had been mature, twenty-year-old adults when the Beit HaMikdash still stood. They still remembered what had been lost, and therefore they felt this exile was an eternity. We, by contrast, were born into a reality without a Beit HaMikdash for two thousand years, and this reality no longer shakes us into awareness. But for one who still has elders in his generation saying, "I saw the Beit HaMikdash," it truly feels like eternity.
A tour guide once recounted an unforgettable experience. A group of Ethiopian immigrants was brought to Israel, and he gave them a tour of Jerusalem. One of them spoke Hebrew, and the guide explained everything: where they were standing and the history of each site. At a certain point, he noticed the translator conveying his words and the group looking utterly shocked. He could not understand what they had heard. He asked the translator, "What are they asking?" He replied, "They are asking if the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed." The guide told them, "Yes, the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, two thousand years ago." They exclaimed: "That cannot be! Was the Beit HaMikdash truly destroyed?" And they began to weep. In Ethiopia, they had been raised with the belief that when they came to the Land, they would arrive at the Beit HaMikdash - that the Beit HaMikdash still stood. Hearing that it was destroyed was a profound shock to them. To us, it does not feel like such a shock because we were born into it, and when you grow up in a reality, that is all you know. It is like the servant who is born of a maidservant: one who is already born into servitude has no expectation of being freed, but one who knew freedom and was then forced into slavery will always yearn to be free. We have become accustomed to this reality, taking it for granted, whereas for them, seventy years felt like eternity.
The Malbim notes precisely: the root anaf denotes when wrath causes total destruction, which differs from charon, ka'as, and other expressions of anger. Therefore, the psalmist pleads: Master of the Universe, it is time for the anger to cease. How can You be angry (te'enaf) forever, when You have already spent Your blazing fury upon us? Humanly speaking, after a person vents his anger, smashing, destroying, and exacting his vengeance, calm and rest eventually follow. Heaven forbid to ascribe such processes to the Holy One, Blessed be He; rather, we express that there should be room for the wrath to subside after it has already wrought harsh devastation and destruction. And if You have already spent Your fury upon us, then, Master of the Universe, why "shall Your jealousy burn like fire"?
שְׁפֹךְ חֲמָתְךָ אֶל־הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יְדָעוּךָ וְעַל מַמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר בְּשִׁמְךָ לֹא קָרָאוּ׃ - Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon Your name.
Here the Malbim interprets the verse differently from most commentators, and this distinction is worth noting. Most commentators understand that the phrase "how long" (ad mah) carries over into the next clause, an opening phrase that applies to the subsequent phrase as well. This is like the phrase in Aleinu, "Who has not made our portion like theirs, nor our lot like that of all their multitude" - surely our lot is not like their multitude; rather, the word "not" carries over, as if it said, "and has not made our lot like all their multitude." So too here: "How long, Hashem? Will You be angry forever? [How long] will Your jealousy burn like fire?"
But the Malbim explains differently: "How long, Hashem, will You be angry forever?" - period. And then: "Will Your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon Your name." Meaning: Master of the Universe, if Your jealousy is to burn like fire, let it be directed at the nations! It is against them that Your jealousy rightfully burns, for they do not know You; and they are kingdoms that, even if they had known You, did not call upon Your name.
The Malbim explains that chamatecha ("Your wrath") refers to internal anger, unlike te'enaf, which signifies anger that brings annihilation, and unlike charon af ("blazing anger"), which is external: the nostrils flare red and burning, for charon denotes heat, as the nostrils become flushed and inflamed in times of anger.
The Malbim points to a similar verse in Yirmeyahu (10:25): "Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon the families that do not call on Your Name, for they have devoured Yaakov, devoured him and consumed him, and laid waste his habitation." And even though our verse reads "el hagoyim" (toward the nations) whereas there it reads "al hagoyim" (upon the nations), the Radak already noted that "el" and "al" are interchangeable, as in "he did not eat toward the mountains" (Yechezkel 18:6), which means upon the mountains, and "he struck the Philistine toward his forehead" (I Shmuel 17:49), which means upon his forehead.
There the Malbim explains that there is a distinction here: "The nations that do not know You" refers to the great collective of Ammon, who did not know You at all; and "the families" are specific clans among them, smaller groups who indeed know that God exists, but they do not call upon Your Name, calling instead upon the name of the Baal. Thus, there are those who do not know You at all, and there are those who know You yet do not pray to You and do not call upon Your Name.
The Radak explains the connection to the preceding verse: Your jealousy burns against us - how long, Master of the Universe? Then the next verse comes and says: On the contrary, if it is fitting that Your jealousy burn, it should burn against the nations that do not know You, for we do know You, whereas they do not know You. Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call on Your Name - whereas we, after all, have called upon Your Name.
כִּי אָכַל אֶת־יַעֲקֹב וְאֶת־נָוֵהוּ הֵשַׁמּוּ׃ - For they have devoured Yaakov, and laid waste his dwelling place.
What is the connection between "Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You" and "For they have devoured Yaakov, and laid waste his dwelling place"? The Sfas Emes explains: When the Beis HaMikdash stood, they too knew how to call upon the Name of Hashem. Where do we see this? In Shlomo's prayer at the dedication of the Beis HaMikdash: "And also concerning the foreigner who comes from a distant land" and prays toward the House of Hashem - Hashem, please grant his request, whether he is worthy or unworthy. In contrast, regarding Yisrael, Shlomo asks that our prayer be accepted only if we are worthy, and if not, that it not be accepted. Why? Because if the gentile's prayer is not answered, he will say: I went to all sorts of idols and came back empty-handed; I also went to the Beis HaMikdash and came away with nothing. Therefore, grant the foreigner's plea even if he is unworthy, so that he does not fall into heresy. But a Jew knows that if he does not receive an answer, it is a sign that he is not yet deserving and worthy.
From here, says the Sfas Emes, we see that when the Beis HaMikdash stood, gentiles also came to offer sacrifices and would send their offerings, as recorded in the Gemara and Mishnayos regarding a non-Jew who sends his sacrifice to be offered in the Beis HaMikdash. If so, why do they "not call on Your Name"? Because "they have devoured Yaakov, and laid waste his dwelling place." As long as the Beis HaMikdash stood, even the gentile would come to pray there; now that they have laid waste the Beis HaMikdash, the gentile no longer has a place to call upon Your Name.
"They have devoured Yaakov" speaks in general terms, while "and laid waste his dwelling place" is the more specific detail - the general and the particular. And since they devoured Yaakov, who indeed knew You, and desolated his dwelling place, where Yaakov prayed to You and called upon Your Name, it is therefore fitting that You pour out Your wrath upon them and not upon us. For even though we sinned, and the entire punishment came upon us by Hashem's decree and will, the nations should have shown us more mercy and not consumed us completely, as the prophet Zechariah says: "I was angry but a little, and they helped for evil."
Here the Radak resolves a difficulty: Why complain that "they have devoured Yaakov, and laid waste his dwelling place," when, as we explained, they did not come on their own, but rather Hashem said, "I called for them"? If so, what is the claim against them? The Radak explains: I did not send them to bring complete annihilation. "I was angry but a little, and they helped for evil" - they intensified the decree, just as Pharaoh went to extremes: Did the Holy One, blessed be He, tell him to work them day and night? Did He tell him to impose men's labor on women and women's labor on men? Did He tell him to drown their sons in the river? Rather, Pharaoh exceeded the decree, and therefore he deserved punishment.
And as the Malbim explains, this is hinted at within the very words: "For they have devoured Yaakov, and laid waste his dwelling place." After all, Hashem destroyed the Temple, and what was the purpose? To expend His wrath upon wood and stone. If so, once "they laid waste his dwelling place," why did they "devour Yaakov"? This was an addition the nations made of their own accord: Why did they harm human lives after they had already desolated His dwelling? After the destruction of the Temple, Yaakov was not supposed to be harmed; lives were not supposed to be taken. It turns out that the nations did far more than what was decreed upon us, and for this, Master of the Universe, it is right that You punish them.
Some raised a difficulty with this: Was not the Beis HaMikdash destroyed because of our sins? What do you want from them - did the nations not simply carry out what Hashem commanded? The answer is: True, for the mere destruction of the Beis HaMikdash they would not have been punished, since that occurred because of our iniquities and by Heavenly decree for our sins. However, since the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash atoned for the Jewish people - and as we have seen, after the destruction they are already called "Your servants" and "Your pious ones," for once a person is punished, he is restored as your brother - why then did they continue devouring Yaakov after laying waste his dwelling place? After the destruction, the Jewish people were already considered righteous, having already paid the price. For that, the nations deserve to be punished, and therefore: Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call on Your Name.
The psalm is called a mizmor (a song) rather than a kinah (a lamentation) because the Holy One, blessed be He, poured out His wrath upon wood and stone rather than destroying His children - not as a venting of anger upon inanimate objects, but as a shock meant to save the Jewish people, like a painter who slashed his life's masterpiece to save its owner from falling. The wood and stone are the witnesses testifying that we corrupted our ways, and the destruction was no coincidence, but an explicit call from Hashem. The psalm describes the horrors of the destruction: corpses left without burial, blood spilled like water, disgrace and mockery from neighbors; yet it also recalls that even in that generation there were pious individuals, secluded in their homes, and that those struck down by death were called "Your servants" and "Your pious ones." And from the heart of the cry, "How long, Hashem? Will You be angry forever?" - seventy years that felt like an eternity to those who still remembered the Temple - Asaf asks that this wrath be directed toward the nations who did not know Hashem and who exceeded what had been decreed, continuing to devour Jacob even after his dwelling was laid waste.
וַאֲנַחְנוּ עַמְּךָ וְצֹאן מַרְעִיתֶךָ נוֹדֶה לְּךָ לְעוֹלָם לְדוֹר וָדֹר נְסַפֵּר תְּהִלָּתֶךָ׃ - And we, Your people and the sheep of Your pasture, will give thanks to You forever; from generation to generation we will recount Your praise.