O LORD God of Hosts, how long will Your anger smolder against the prayers of Your people?
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh God of Armies, How long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?
- KJV O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
- NKJV O Lord God of hosts, How long will You be angry Against the prayer of Your people?
- NASB ¶Lord God of armies, How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?
- NLT O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, how long will you be angry with our prayers?
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 asks how long God will remain angry even with His people's prayers. It honestly voices the anguish of seeming unanswered prayer under God's discipline.
Overview
Addressing the LORD of Armies, the psalmist feels that even Israel's prayers are met with God's smoldering anger. The lament reflects the reality of divine discipline upon a covenant people who have strayed. Such honest crying out is itself an act of faith, trusting that the God who chastens will not stay angry forever (Ps. 30:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 85:5Will You be angry with us forever? Will You draw out Your anger to all generations?
- Deut 29:20The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
- Ps 74:1A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?
- Ps 59:5O LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, rouse Yourself to punish all the nations; show no mercy to the wicked traitors. Selah
- Isa 58:2–3For day after day they seek Me and delight to know My ways, like a nation that does what is right and does not forsake the justice of their God. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.”
- Ps 79:5How long, O LORD? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
- Matt 15:22–28And a Canaanite woman from that region came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon.”
- Lam 3:44You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through.
- Isa 58:6–9Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?
- Luke 18:1–8Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray at all times and not lose heart:
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 80:4 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.