Psalms 79:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

We are become a reproach, &c. We, who were the terror of our neighbours, and whom they stood in awe of, and were afraid to offend, are now neither feared nor pitied, but are become the objects of their scoffs and reproaches. For they study to abuse us and load us with contempt, upbraiding us with our sins and sufferings, and giving the lie to our relation to God, and expectations from him. If God's professing people degenerate from what themselves and their fathers were, they must expect to be told of it; and it is well if a just reproach will help to bring them to a true repentance. But it has been the lot of the gospel Israel to be unjustly made a reproach and derision. The apostles and evangelists themselves, who were the wisest and best men that ever lived, and the greatest friends and benefactors of the human race, were counted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things.