"All who pass by (עָבַר) do pluck," wails the Psalmist, because "you have broken down our wall." In Psalm 80, God's action is the apparent problem. He has "fed them with bread of tears," "given them bowls of tears to drink," "made us derision."The problem about all of this, for the Psalmist, is its incongruence with the salvation God had already achieved.
גֶּ֭פֶן מִמִּצְרַ֣יִם תַּסִּ֑יעַ תְּגָרֵ֥שׁ גּ֝וֹיִ֗ם וַתִּטָּעֶֽהָ׃פִּנִּ֥יתָ לְפָנֶ֑יהָ וַתַּשְׁרֵ֥שׁ שָׁ֝רָשֶׁ֗יהָ וַתְּמַלֵּא־אָֽרֶץ׃כָּסּ֣וּ הָרִ֣ים צִלָּ֑הּ וַ֝עֲנָפֶ֗יהָ אַֽרְזֵי־אֵֽל׃תְּשַׁלַּ֣ח קְצִירֶ֣הָ עַד־יָ֑ם וְאֶל־נָ֝הָ֗ר יֽוֹנְקוֹתֶֽיהָ׃
God is the farmer who has tilled and prepared ground, who has removed rocks and weeds, who has planted Israel. God is the one who made it fill the land, who allowed the mountainous wasteland to be "covered" (כסה) by its shadow. And it is God who has stretched out Israel's shoots from the River to the Sea. What farmer would do that only to uproot and destroy? What farmer would invest in a crop only to see the harvest stolen by thieves?
For all these reasons, however, the transition to v. 12 is arresting. While the entire Psalm has focused on the agency of God in both planting and uprooting Israel, the wall of v. 12 (גָּדֵר) does not have God as its builder. God's intent was to stretch out Israel from river to shore, to grow them up into a nation in whom the nations could find shelter. It was God's plan that in Israel the nations would find the "cover" the original pair found for their nakedness in the garden and that the blessed find for their sins (Ps. 32:1).
The plan was always that Israel's grapes would be harvested by the foreigner (וְ֝אָר֗וּהָ כָּל־עֹ֥בְרֵי—cp. Lev. 19:10), that the nations would find shelter in a bountiful and generous Israel.
Such plans cannot help but be hindered by the construction of a wall.
But the wisdom of Israel's God consists in this: that the hard hand of divine discipline is merely the gracious pull further up and further in to Israel's deliverance.
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