The Wailing Place

‎The seventy-fourth psalm is especially personal to the Jews. It is their lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and especially of the great Temple. Its wail echoes even to-day through the city of Jerusalem, where the poor Jews gather at the “place of wailing.” This is by the side of a huge ancient wall, a surviving fragment of the mighty buildings of Solomon. Here, amid weeping and outcries, this psalm is still upraised to Heaven.

‎It begins, “O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

‎“Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.”

‎It deplores, with only too much reason, the savagery which the unhappy Hebrews have everywhere encountered. “Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”

‎The outcry closes in a prayer for the restoration of the “chosen” race into the Almighty’s favor.