Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—
Parallel translations
- WEB Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine,
- KJV Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;
- NKJV Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts; Look down from heaven and see, And visit this vine
- NASB ¶God of armies, do turn back; Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
- NLT Come back, we beg you, O God of Heaven’s Armies. Look down from heaven and see our plight. Take care of this grapevine
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The psalmist begs the God of Armies to return, look down from heaven, and tend to His vine. It is a direct plea for God's renewed attention and care.
Overview
Here the lament turns to earnest petition, calling on God to turn, see, and visit the suffering nation. To ask God to look down is to plead for His active intervention, not mere observation. The appeal rests on God's prior ownership of the vine, confident that the Planter will not abandon His own planting.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Isa 63:15Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.
- Ps 90:13Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
- Dan 9:16–19O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.
- Isa 63:17Why, O LORD, do You make us stray from Your ways and harden our hearts from fearing You? Return, for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage.
- Mal 3:7Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts. “But you ask, ‘How can we return?’
- Acts 15:16‘After this I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
- Ps 7:7Let the assembled peoples gather around You; take Your seat over them on high.
- Joel 2:14Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him—grain and drink offerings for the LORD your God.
- Ps 33:13The LORD looks down from heaven; He sees all the sons of men.
- Lam 3:50until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 80:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.