Psalms 76: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm celebrates God as the one known in Judah, whose dwelling is in Salem and Zion, and who broke the weapons of war there. It describes an army destroyed at his rebuke, with strong men and horses lying still, and asks who can stand before him when he is angry. It ends by calling people to make and keep their vows and to bring gifts to the God whom kings fear.

Claim by Claim

1. 76:1
   • God is known in Judah.
   • God's name is great in Israel.
2. 76:2
   • God's shelter is in Salem.
   • God's dwelling place is in Zion.
3. 76:3
   • In that place God broke the arrows of the bow.
   • In that place God broke the shield.
   • In that place God broke the sword.
   • In that place God broke the battle.
   • Selah.
4. 76:4
   • God is radiant and glorious.
   • God is more majestic than the mountains of prey.
5. 76:5
   • The stouthearted have been plundered.
   • The stouthearted have slept their sleep.
   • None of the men of might could find their hands.
6. 76:6
   • The rebuke belongs to the God of Jacob.
   • At God's rebuke both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.
7. 76:7
   • God is the one to be feared.
   • No one can stand before God once he is angry.
8. 76:8
   • God caused judgment to be heard from heaven.
   • The earth was afraid.
   • The earth was still.
9. 76:9
   • God arose to judgment.
   • God arose to save all the meek of the earth.
   • Selah.
10. 76:10
    • The wrath of man will praise God.
    • What God does with the remainder of wrath is stated ambiguously: he either restrains it or girds himself with it.
11. 76:11
    • The hearers are commanded to make vows to the LORD their God.
    • The hearers are commanded to fulfill their vows to the LORD their God.
    • All who are around God are to bring him presents.
    • God ought to be feared.
12. 76:12
    • God will cut off the spirit of princes.
    • God is terrifying to the kings of the earth.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

76:1

Judah and Israel: the two halves of the nation after it split into a southern kingdom (Judah, with Jerusalem) and a northern one (Israel). In poetry like this the two names are often paired simply to mean the whole people.

76:2

Salem is an old, shortened name for Jerusalem. Zion was originally the fortified hill inside the city, and the name came to stand for Jerusalem as a whole. The Hebrew word behind 'tent' is the one used for the portable shrine Israel carried in the wilderness; used of the Temple it pictures God as a resident with a dwelling in the city, not a visitor.

76:3

'There' means in Zion, just named. The Hebrew for the arrows is literally 'the flames of the bow', arrows wrapped in burning material, a standard siege weapon. Selah is a term found scattered through the Psalms, probably a direction to the musicians or a marker for a pause; its exact meaning was already lost in antiquity, and translators leave it untranslated.

76:4

'Mountains full of prey' translates a difficult Hebrew phrase. It may picture the crags where predators drag their kills, or be a figure for foreign powers loaded with plunder. Some ancient copies read 'the everlasting mountains' instead. The ambiguity is in the text itself.

76:5

'Stripped of everything' is the language of a battlefield after the looting: the dead have been plundered by the victors. 'Slept their last sleep' is a common Hebrew way of saying they died. The final line renders an idiom, 'they did not find their hands': they could not make their hands work.

76:6

Jacob was the ancestor whose descendants became the twelve tribes; 'God of Jacob' is a standing phrase for the God of Israel. Horses and chariots were the most expensive and feared part of an ancient army, roughly what tanks are now.

76:7

"Who may stand in thy sight" uses courtroom language. A person on trial stood before the judge, and to be left standing meant your case had survived, while to fall was to be condemned.

76:8

The picture is a courtroom: a verdict announced from heaven, with the earth as the hushed party waiting to hear it.

76:9

In the same courtroom picture, a judge 'stands up' to deliver the sentence. 'Humble' here carries the sense of the poor and powerless, people with no one to defend them, rather than modest in temperament.

76:10

The second half of this verse is one of the most disputed lines in the Psalms. The Hebrew can be read as God restraining or belting up the leftover anger, or as God clothing himself with the survivors of his anger. Translations divide, and no reading is certain.

76:11

A vow was a formal promise to give God something specific, usually made when asking for help; paying it meant delivering afterwards, and leaving it unpaid was treated as a serious debt. The 'gifts' are tribute, the payment that surrounding peoples brought to an overlord to acknowledge his authority.

76:12

'Cut off the spirit' translates a phrase meaning to cut short the breath, and so to break the nerve or end the life of. Where the King James Version says God is 'terrible,' it means awe-inspiring, someone who inspires fear, not 'dreadful' in the modern sense of bad.