Psalms 76

Psalms 761. To the Chief Musician. With (or on) stringed instruments. A Psalm by Asaph. A song (of praise). The resemblance of this title to that of the preceding psalm, their juxtaposition in the Psalter, and their internal similarity, all favour the opinion that they had respect originally to the same historical occasion, with this difference, that the first is rather an anticipation of the great deliverance as certain but still future, and the other a commemoration of the same as actually past or really experienced. In this, as in the other case, the event is ascribed to a wonderful divine interposition, and described as one affecting the whole world or the nations generally, which was emphatically true of the great stroke, by which the power of Assyria was broken.

2. (Psalms 76:1). Known in Judah (is) God; in Israel great (is) his name. Known as God, and as the God of Israel, his chosen people, which, after the great schism in the time of Rehoboam, continued to exist in the kingdom of Judah. It was only in the ancient church that his name was fully known, his perfection clearly manifested.

3. (Psalms 76:2). And in Salem was his tabernacle, and his home in Zion. This is explanatory of the first verse(Psalms 76:1). He was best known there because it was his chosen earthly residence. Salem is evidently used poetically for Jerusalem. The former name means peaceful and secure, and some suppose it to be one of the elements of which the other name is composed, so as to signify a peaceful or secure possession. The same interpreters identify the Salem of Gen 14:18 with Jerusalem. The word translated tabernacle properly means a booth or shed composed of leaves and branches, in allusion to the moveable and temporary form of the first sanctuary.

4. (Psalms 76:3). Thither he shattered the bolts of the bow— buckler and sword and battle. Selah. Some translate the first word there, but there is no clear instance of the Hebrew adverb being so used, and the best interpreters suppose the sense to be that he destroyed them on their way there, while in motion towards the Holy City. The word translated shattered is an intensive species of the common verb which means to break. Both forms occur together in Psalms 29:5.

See also Psalms 3:7. The ambiguous word bolts is used to represent a Hebrew one, which properly means thunderbolts or flashes of lightning, but is here applied to the flight of arrows, with or without allusion to the practice of igniting them (Ephesians 6:16). To the shield and sword, as the most important pieces of offensive and defensive armour, he adds, by a bold and striking figure, war itself, perhaps as a residuary aggregate of all other arms and weapons.

5. (Psalms 76:4). Bright (art) thou, glorious, more than the mountains of prey. The object of address is God, who had been previously spoken of, in the third person. The first word in Hebrew is a participle, meaning illumi-nated, made to shine, and therefore bearing some affinity to our word illustrious. The other epithet means grand, glorious, sublime. See above, on Psalms 8:1. The common version (excellent) seems to restrict the praise to moral qualities. As mountains are standing symbols of states and kingdoms, mountains of prey, i. e. mountains occupied by robbers, may denote oppressive powers, such as that of Assyria, to which the prophets apply similar descriptions. See Nahum 2:11-12; Nahum 3:1. To all such hostile powers God is here represented as superior.

6. (Psalms 76:5). Spoiled are the stout of heart; they have slept their sleep; and all the men of might have not found their hands. The meaning of the first clause seems to be, that the spoilers are themselves spoiled, by a signal providential retribution. Some, however, explain the first word to mean snatched away, caused to disappear, or vanish. They have slept their own sleep, i.e. they, like others, in their turn, sleep the sleep of death. See above, on Psalms 13:3, and compare Nahum 3:18, 2 Kings 19:35.

Stout of heart suggests the two distinct ideas, courageous and hard-hearted. The same expression is used, in an unfavourable sense, by Isaiah (Isaiah 46:12). All have not found does not imply that some have found, but on the contrary, that none have found, or in other words that the negative proposition is true of all without exception. Found their hands is understood by some to mean regained their strength. But the direct sense of the word is, that they have not found the use of their hands, or been able to employ them with advantage.

7. (Psalms 76:6). At thy rebuke, 0 God of Jacob, put to sleep (is) both chariot and horse. The particle at the beginning is both temporal and causal, post hoc et propter hoc. After and because of thy rebuke. This noun denotes not merely a verbal but a real or practical expression of the divine displeasure. See above, on Psalms 9:5; Psalms 68:30.

God of Jacob, see above, on Psalms 76:9. Put to sleep is here used to translate a passive participle, denoting not a mere state or condition, but the violence by which it is produced. The sleep meant is of course the sleep of death. The application of this figure to the chariot as well as to the horse, is less paradoxical in Hebrew, where the noun used is sometimes a collective meaning cavalry. See my note on Isaiah 21:7. At the same time there is beauty in the figure, as suggesting that the noisy rattle of the wheels is hushed in death-like silence.

8. (Psalms 76:7). Thou (art) to be feared, (even) thou, and who shall stand before thee, when once thou art angry? The Hebrew passive participle often has the force of the future passive or gerundive in Latin. See above, on Psalms 18:3. The repetition of the pronoun wades it highly emphatic and even exclusive, thou and no other, thou and only thou. Who shall stand? includes the kindred question, who may or can stand?

To stand before God means, in this connection, to stand one’s ground in opposition to him, or in independence of him. See above, on Psalms 1:5. The common version of the last words, which is retained above, conveys correctly the idea, but without the peculiar form of the original, which is highly idiomatic, and not susceptible of literal translation. The last word strictly means thy anger and the one before it from then or from that time. The nearest approach to it in English would be since thy anger, a construction which is actually given in the latest German versions.

9. (Psalms 76:8). From, heaven thou halt caused judgment to be heard; the earth feared and rested, or, the earth was afraid and was still. From his throne in heaven God had pronounced judgment on his wicked enemies, the sound of which had struck the dwellers upon earth with awe and calmed their tumult. The last Hebrew verb is especially applied to repose after the noise and agitation of war. See Joshua 14:15, Judges 5:31, Isaiah 14:7.

10. (Psalms 76:9). In God’s arising for the judgment, to save all the humble of the earth. This completes the sentence begun in the preceding verse, by assigning the date, and at the same time the cause, of the effect there recorded. The earth was awe-struck and reduced to silence when God arose to judgment, i.e. to act as judge or sovereign arbiter. In the last clause, as in many other places, the judgments of God upon his enemies are represented as occasions of deliverance to his people, here described by one of their characteristic qualities, not merely as the meek in temper, but as the lowly in spirit, the humble in the strong religious sense. See above, on Psalms 9:12; Psalms 10:12; Psalms 10:17; Psalms 22:26; Psalms 25:9; Psalms 34:2; Psalms 37:11; Psalms 69:32. The last word in the verse has here a kind of double sense, since the promise made directly to the humble of the land, i. e. the spiritual Israel, was really intended to include all the humble of the earth, i.e. all the truly pious, whether Jews or Gentiles.

11. (Psalms 76:10). For the wrath of man shall praise thee (or acknowledge thee); the remainder of wraths thou shalt gird (about thee). The very passions which excite men to rebel against God shall be used as instruments and means of coercion. See above, on Psalms 32:9. And so complete shall be this process, that even the remnant of such passionate excitement, which might be expected to escape attention, will be nevertheless an instrument or weapon in the hands of God. This last idea is expressed by the figure of a girdle, here considered as a sword-belt.

So too in other cases the verb to gird is absolutely used in the sense of girding on a sword, or the still more general one of arming one’s self. See above, on Psalms 45:3, and compare Judges 18:11, 1 Kings 20:11, 2 Kings 3:21. Others, with less probability, suppose the figure to denote the act of attaching to one’s self, as in Ps. cix. 19, Isaiah 11:5, Jeremiah 13:11, and apply it to the future conversion of all remaining enemies. The plural in the last clause (wraths or angers) seems to be an emphatic designation of abundance or success. See above, on Psalms 18:50.

12. (Psalms 76:11). Vow and pay unto Jehovah your God, all (ye that are) round about him; let them bring tribute to the Dread (One). The first clause may be understood to mean, pay now what you have vowed before, i.e. before the great deliverance and during the impending danger. The addition of your God shews that the object of address is Israel. Compare Deuteronomy 23:21. According to the masoretic interpunction, all that are round about him belongs to the first clause, and denotes the host of Israel, in the midst of whom Jehovah’s tent was pitched (Numbers 2:2).

The English Bible, following the ancient versions, throws these words into the last clause, as the subject of the verb that follows, let all that are round about him bring presents, or they shall bring presents. This last word in Hebrew denotes tribute from the conquered or dependent to the conqueror or sovereign. See above, on Psalms 68:29, and compare Isaiah 18:7. This was literally verified in the case of Hezekiah’s rescue from the power of Sennacherib. See 2 Chronicles 32:23. God is here called Fear or Terror, as an object to be reverenced or dreaded.

Compare the similar expressions in Isaiah 8:12-13.

13. (Psalms 76:12). He cuts off the spirit of princes; he is feared (or to be feared) by the kings of earth. The first verb is specially applied to the pruning or cutting of vines. See Jeremiah 6:9; Jeremiah 25:30; Jeremiah 49:9, and compare Revelation 14:18-19. Its future form includes a potential sense. He can do it when he will, and he will do it when he sees occasion.

Spirit or breath is here put for the life or vital principle, to cut which is to kill. He who possesses this alarming power is or ought to be an object of religious fear, not only to ordinary men, or to certain great men in particular, but to all the kings of the earth. Compare Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:5. These expressions shew that the historical occasion of the psalm was not an event of merely local interest, but a great historical and national catastrophe, such as the blow inflicted on the power of Assyria by the sudden destruction of Sennacherib’s host.