Psalms 79:1
O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
The verse foretells and describes foreign nations entering God's inheritance, defiling His holy temple, and laying Jerusalem in heaps or ruins, which is the destruction of Jerusalem and its sanctuary. It predicts the future desolation of God's temple or sanctuary, when the heathen enter the Lord's holy places, profane His holy temple, and leave the city in ruins. Its fulfillment is the Babylonian captivity and destruction, specifically the final Babylonian conquest and desolation of Jerusalem during Zedekiah's reign.
Psalm 79 is a post-Davidic psalm applicable to the time when Jerusalem was brought low and its people scattered. It expresses the captives' sorrow and desolation during the Babylonian captivity, their longing, and their prayers for deliverance. The verse is a witness to the destruction of the sanctuary described in 2 Chronicles 36:17-20 and Isaiah 64:10-11. It refers to the destruction of God's sanctuary in Canaan when God's people were driven from the land, and the land or Canaan itself was the place of the sanctuary, not the sanctuary itself.