The Starving Saints of Leiden

In the autumn of 1574, the Dutch city of Leiden had endured four months of Spanish siege. The people were starving. They boiled leather and stripped bark from trees. Plague crept through the streets. Every morning, the citizens climbed the walls of their city and scanned the flat horizon for any sign of deliverance — and saw nothing.

The psalmist knew this kind of desperate watching. "Restore us, O God," the people of Israel cried, "let Your face shine, that we may be saved." Three times that refrain echoes through Psalm 80, each repetition more urgent than the last — the prayer of a people who have been fed "the bread of tears" and made a mockery to their neighbors.

The people of Leiden wept and prayed. Their pastor, Jean Polyander, led them in daily worship, pleading with the Almighty to remember His covenant people. William of Orange, miles away, ordered the sea dikes broken — an act of radical, costly faith, flooding the farmland to carry rescue ships to the city walls.

On October 3rd, the Spanish fled. The first boats arrived carrying herring and white bread. The starving city ate and wept and gave thanks.

Psalm 80 reminds us that the cry "How long?" is not a sign of weak faith but of honest faith. God does not despise the prayers soaked in tears. He is the Shepherd of Israel who hears, who turns, who restores — sometimes through means as unlikely as a flooded field.