Bible Strands
Psalms 79:5
How long, O LORD? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Yahweh directly, pleading for an end to divine anger after Israel has become a reproach and scorn to neighboring nations.
The words — The Hebrew phrase עַד מָה ('ad mah) literally means "until when?" or "how long?", combined with תֶּאֱנַף (te'enanef) for "will you be angry?" and לָנֶצַח (la-netzach) for "forever."
The thread — The plea for a limit on divine anger runs through Psalms 89:46 and Psalms 85:5, while Psalms 74:1 similarly questions God's prolonged rejection and smoldering anger against His people.
Why it lands — The text demands a concrete endpoint for God's disciplinary patience, requiring the reader to weigh divine justice against the immediate reality of communal suffering.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?
Cross-references
- Psalms 89:46 How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath keep burning like fire?
- Psalms 74:1 A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?
- Psalms 85:5 Will You be angry with us forever? Will You draw out Your anger to all generations?
- Deuteronomy 29:20 The 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
- Zephaniah 3:8 Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD, “until the day I rise to testify. For My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them My indignation—all My burning anger. For all the earth will be consumed by the fire of My jealousy.
- Psalms 13:1 For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
- Psalms 74:9 There are no signs for us to see. There is no longer any prophet. And none of us knows how long this will last.
- Psalms 80:4 O LORD God of Hosts, how long will Your anger smolder against the prayers of Your people?
- Ezekiel 36:5 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Surely in My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who took My land as their own possession with wholehearted joy and utter contempt, so that its pastureland became plunder.
- Deuteronomy 32:16 They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.