Bible Strands
Psalms 80:14
Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Yahweh directly, pleading for intervention as the covenant vine faces destruction by wild animals (Psalm 80:13). The speaker represents Israel or its leadership, appealing to God amid national crisis.
The words — The Hebrew imperative שׁוּב (shuv, "return") and the verb הַבֵּט (haBet, "pay attention") anchor the plea, modified by נָא (na, "please") to frame the request. The phrase מִשָּׁמַיִם (mishamayim, "from heaven") specifies the divine vantage point from which God is asked to see and visit the vine.
The thread — The appeal to return and look down echoes in Psalm 90:13, which repeats the imperative to return, and in Isaiah 63:15, which similarly commands God to look down from heaven. These passages share the motif of divine observation from above but differ in their specific rhetorical framing.
Why it lands — The text demands immediate divine attention to a cultivated but ravaged people, framing their survival as dependent on God's deliberate gaze. The reader is asked to recognize that covenant restoration begins with God's conscious intervention, not human effort.
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
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;
Cross-references
- Isaiah 63:15 Look 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.
- Psalms 90:13 Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
- Isaiah 63:17 Why, 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.
- Daniel 9:16 O 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.
- Malachi 3:7 Yet 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?’
- Psalms 7:7 Let the assembled peoples gather around You; take Your seat over them on high.
- Psalms 33:13 The LORD looks down from heaven; He sees all the sons of men.
- Lamentations 3:50 until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees.
- Joel 2:14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him—grain and drink offerings for the LORD your God.
- 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,