Psalms 76

Psa 76:4-6 The “mountains of prey,” for which the lxx has ὀρέων αἰωνίων (טרם?) , is an emblematical appellation for the haughty possessors of power who also plunder every one that comes near them, or the proud and despoiling worldly powers. Far aloft beyond these towers the glory of God. He is נאור, illustris , prop. illumined; said of God: light-encircled, fortified in light, in the sense of Dan 2:22; 1Ti 6:16.

He is the אדּיר, to whom the Lebanon of the hostile army of the nations must succumb (Isa 10:34) According to Solinus ( ed. Mommsen , p. 124) the Moors call Atlas Addirim . This succumbing is described in Psa 76:6. The strong of heart or stout-hearted, the lion-hearted, have been despoiled, disarmed, exuti ; אשׁתּוללוּ is an Aramaizing praet. Hithpo . (like אתחבּר, 2Ch 20:35, cf.

Dan 4:16; Isa 63:3) with a passive signification. From Psa 76:6 we see that the beginning of the catastrophe is described, and therefore נמוּ (perhaps on that account accented on the ult .) is meant inchoatively: they have fallen into their sleep, viz. , the eternal sleep (Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57), as Nahum says (Nah 3:18): thy shepherds sleep, O king of Assyria, thy valiant ones rest .

In Psa 76:6 we see them lying in the last throes of death, and making a last effort to spring up again. But they cannot find their hands, which they have lifted up threateningly against Jerusalem: these are lamed, motionless, rigid and dead; cf. the phrases in Jos 8:20; 2Sa 7:27, and the Talmudic phrase, “he did not find his hands and feet in the school-house,” i.

e. , he was entirely disconcerted and stupefied. This field of corpses is the effect of the omnipotent energy of the word of the God of Jacob; cf. וגער בּו, Isa 17:13. Before His threatening both war-chariot and horse (ו - ו) are sunk into motionlessness and unconsciousness - an allusion to Ex. 15, as in Isa 43:17 : who bringeth out chariot and horse, army and heroes - together they faint away, they shall never rise; they have flickered out, like a wick they are extinguished.

Psa 76:7-9 Nahum also (Psa 1:6) draws the same inference from the defeat of Sennacherib as the psalmist does in Psa 76:8. מאז אפּך (cf. Rth 2:7; Jer 44:18), from the decisive turning-point onwards, from the אז in Psa 2:5, when Thine anger breaks forth. God sent forth His judiciary word from heaven into the midst of the din of war of the hostile world: immediately (cf.

on the sequence of the tenses Psa 48:6, and on Hab 3:10) it was silenced, the earth was seized with fear, and its tumult was obliged to cease, when, namely, God arose on behalf of His disquieted, suffering people, when He spoke as we read in Isa 33:10, and fulfilled the prayer offered in extreme need in Isa 33:2.

Psa 76:7-9 Nahum also (Psa 1:6) draws the same inference from the defeat of Sennacherib as the psalmist does in Psa 76:8. מאז אפּך (cf. Rth 2:7; Jer 44:18), from the decisive turning-point onwards, from the אז in Psa 2:5, when Thine anger breaks forth. God sent forth His judiciary word from heaven into the midst of the din of war of the hostile world: immediately (cf.

on the sequence of the tenses Psa 48:6, and on Hab 3:10) it was silenced, the earth was seized with fear, and its tumult was obliged to cease, when, namely, God arose on behalf of His disquieted, suffering people, when He spoke as we read in Isa 33:10, and fulfilled the prayer offered in extreme need in Isa 33:2.

Psa 76:7-9 Nahum also (Psa 1:6) draws the same inference from the defeat of Sennacherib as the psalmist does in Psa 76:8. מאז אפּך (cf. Rth 2:7; Jer 44:18), from the decisive turning-point onwards, from the אז in Psa 2:5, when Thine anger breaks forth. God sent forth His judiciary word from heaven into the midst of the din of war of the hostile world: immediately (cf.

on the sequence of the tenses Psa 48:6, and on Hab 3:10) it was silenced, the earth was seized with fear, and its tumult was obliged to cease, when, namely, God arose on behalf of His disquieted, suffering people, when He spoke as we read in Isa 33:10, and fulfilled the prayer offered in extreme need in Isa 33:2.

Psa 76:10-12 The fact that has just been experienced is substantiated in Psa 76:10 from a universal truth, which has therein become outwardly manifest. The rage of men shall praise Thee, i. e. , must ultimately redound to Thy glory, inasmuch as to Thee, namely (Psa 76:1 as to syntax like Psa 73:3), there always remains a שׁארית, i. e. , a still unexhausted remainder, and that not merely of חמה, but of חמת, with which Thou canst gird, i.

e. , arm, Thyself against such human rage, in order to quench it. שׁארית חמת is the infinite store of wrath still available to God after human rage has done its utmost. Or perhaps still better, and more fully answering to the notion of שׁארית: it is the store of the infinite fulness of wrath which still remains on the side of God after human rage (חמה) has spent itself, when God calmly, and laughing (Psa 2:4), allows the Titans to do as they please, and which is now being poured out.

In connection with the interpretation: with the remainder of the fury (of hostile men) wilt Thou gird Thyself, i. e. , it serves Thee only as an ornament (Hupfeld), the alternation of חמה and חמת is left unexplained, and תּחגּר is alienated from its martial sense (Isa 59:17; Isa 51:9, Wisd. 5:21 [20]), which is required by the context. Ewald, like the lxx, reads תּחגּך, ἑορτάσει σοι, in connection with which, apart from the high-sounding expression, שׁארית חמת (ἐγκατάλειμμα ἐνθυμίου) must denote the remainder of malignity that is suddenly converted into its opposite; and one does not see why what Psa 76:11 says concerning rage is here limited to its remainder.

Such an inexhaustiveness in the divine wrath-power has been shown in what has just recently been experienced. Thus, then, are those who belong to the people of God to vow and pay, i. e. , (inasmuch as the preponderance falls upon the second imperative) to pay their vows; and all who are round about Him, i. e. , all the peoples dwelling round about Him and His people (כּל־סביביו, the subject to what follows, in accordance with which it is also accented), are to bring offerings (Psa 68:30) to God, who is מורא, i.

e. , the sum of all that is awe-inspiring. Thus is He called in Isa 8:13; the summons accords with Isaiah’s prediction, according to which, in consequence of Jahve’s deed of judgment upon Assyria, Aethiopia presents himself to Him as an offering (Isa 18:1-7), and with the fulfilment in 2Ch 32:23. Just so does v. 13 a resemble the language of Isaiah; cf. Isa 25:1-12; Isa 33:1; Isa 18:5 : God treats the snorting of the princes, i.

e. , despots, as the vine-dresser does the wild shoots or branches of the vine-stock: He lops it, He cuts it off, so that it is altogether ineffectual. It is the figure that is sketched by Joe 3:13, then filled in by Isaiah, and embodied as a vision in Rev 14:17-20, which is here indicated. God puts an end to the defiant, arrogant bearing of the tyrants of the earth, and becomes at last the feared of all the kings of the earth - all kingdoms finally becomes God’s and His Christ's.

Psa 76:10-12 The fact that has just been experienced is substantiated in Psa 76:10 from a universal truth, which has therein become outwardly manifest. The rage of men shall praise Thee, i. e. , must ultimately redound to Thy glory, inasmuch as to Thee, namely (Psa 76:1 as to syntax like Psa 73:3), there always remains a שׁארית, i. e. , a still unexhausted remainder, and that not merely of חמה, but of חמת, with which Thou canst gird, i.

e. , arm, Thyself against such human rage, in order to quench it. שׁארית חמת is the infinite store of wrath still available to God after human rage has done its utmost. Or perhaps still better, and more fully answering to the notion of שׁארית: it is the store of the infinite fulness of wrath which still remains on the side of God after human rage (חמה) has spent itself, when God calmly, and laughing (Psa 2:4), allows the Titans to do as they please, and which is now being poured out.

In connection with the interpretation: with the remainder of the fury (of hostile men) wilt Thou gird Thyself, i. e. , it serves Thee only as an ornament (Hupfeld), the alternation of חמה and חמת is left unexplained, and תּחגּר is alienated from its martial sense (Isa 59:17; Isa 51:9, Wisd. 5:21 [20]), which is required by the context. Ewald, like the lxx, reads תּחגּך, ἑορτάσει σοι, in connection with which, apart from the high-sounding expression, שׁארית חמת (ἐγκατάλειμμα ἐνθυμίου) must denote the remainder of malignity that is suddenly converted into its opposite; and one does not see why what Psa 76:11 says concerning rage is here limited to its remainder.

Such an inexhaustiveness in the divine wrath-power has been shown in what has just recently been experienced. Thus, then, are those who belong to the people of God to vow and pay, i. e. , (inasmuch as the preponderance falls upon the second imperative) to pay their vows; and all who are round about Him, i. e. , all the peoples dwelling round about Him and His people (כּל־סביביו, the subject to what follows, in accordance with which it is also accented), are to bring offerings (Psa 68:30) to God, who is מורא, i.

e. , the sum of all that is awe-inspiring. Thus is He called in Isa 8:13; the summons accords with Isaiah’s prediction, according to which, in consequence of Jahve’s deed of judgment upon Assyria, Aethiopia presents himself to Him as an offering (Isa 18:1-7), and with the fulfilment in 2Ch 32:23. Just so does v. 13 a resemble the language of Isaiah; cf. Isa 25:1-12; Isa 33:1; Isa 18:5 : God treats the snorting of the princes, i.

e. , despots, as the vine-dresser does the wild shoots or branches of the vine-stock: He lops it, He cuts it off, so that it is altogether ineffectual. It is the figure that is sketched by Joe 3:13, then filled in by Isaiah, and embodied as a vision in Rev 14:17-20, which is here indicated. God puts an end to the defiant, arrogant bearing of the tyrants of the earth, and becomes at last the feared of all the kings of the earth - all kingdoms finally becomes God’s and His Christ's.

Psa 76:10-12 The fact that has just been experienced is substantiated in Psa 76:10 from a universal truth, which has therein become outwardly manifest. The rage of men shall praise Thee, i. e. , must ultimately redound to Thy glory, inasmuch as to Thee, namely (Psa 76:1 as to syntax like Psa 73:3), there always remains a שׁארית, i. e. , a still unexhausted remainder, and that not merely of חמה, but of חמת, with which Thou canst gird, i.

e. , arm, Thyself against such human rage, in order to quench it. שׁארית חמת is the infinite store of wrath still available to God after human rage has done its utmost. Or perhaps still better, and more fully answering to the notion of שׁארית: it is the store of the infinite fulness of wrath which still remains on the side of God after human rage (חמה) has spent itself, when God calmly, and laughing (Psa 2:4), allows the Titans to do as they please, and which is now being poured out.

In connection with the interpretation: with the remainder of the fury (of hostile men) wilt Thou gird Thyself, i. e. , it serves Thee only as an ornament (Hupfeld), the alternation of חמה and חמת is left unexplained, and תּחגּר is alienated from its martial sense (Isa 59:17; Isa 51:9, Wisd. 5:21 [20]), which is required by the context. Ewald, like the lxx, reads תּחגּך, ἑορτάσει σοι, in connection with which, apart from the high-sounding expression, שׁארית חמת (ἐγκατάλειμμα ἐνθυμίου) must denote the remainder of malignity that is suddenly converted into its opposite; and one does not see why what Psa 76:11 says concerning rage is here limited to its remainder.

Such an inexhaustiveness in the divine wrath-power has been shown in what has just recently been experienced. Thus, then, are those who belong to the people of God to vow and pay, i. e. , (inasmuch as the preponderance falls upon the second imperative) to pay their vows; and all who are round about Him, i. e. , all the peoples dwelling round about Him and His people (כּל־סביביו, the subject to what follows, in accordance with which it is also accented), are to bring offerings (Psa 68:30) to God, who is מורא, i.

e. , the sum of all that is awe-inspiring. Thus is He called in Isa 8:13; the summons accords with Isaiah’s prediction, according to which, in consequence of Jahve’s deed of judgment upon Assyria, Aethiopia presents himself to Him as an offering (Isa 18:1-7), and with the fulfilment in 2Ch 32:23. Just so does v. 13 a resemble the language of Isaiah; cf. Isa 25:1-12; Isa 33:1; Isa 18:5 : God treats the snorting of the princes, i.

e. , despots, as the vine-dresser does the wild shoots or branches of the vine-stock: He lops it, He cuts it off, so that it is altogether ineffectual. It is the figure that is sketched by Joe 3:13, then filled in by Isaiah, and embodied as a vision in Rev 14:17-20, which is here indicated. God puts an end to the defiant, arrogant bearing of the tyrants of the earth, and becomes at last the feared of all the kings of the earth - all kingdoms finally becomes God’s and His Christ's.

“The earth feared and became still,” says Psa 76:9; the earth trembled and shook , says Psa 77:19 : this common thought is the string on which these two Psalms are strung. In a general way it may be said of Psalms 77, that the poet flees from the sorrowful present away into the memory of the years of olden times, and consoles himself more especially with the deliverance out of Egypt, so rich in wonders.

As to the rest, however, it remains obscure what kind of national affliction it is which drives him to find his refuge from the God who is now hidden in the God who was formerly manifest. At any rate it is not a purely personal affliction, but, as is shown by the consolation sought in the earlier revelations of power and mercy in connection with the national history, an affliction shared in company with the whole of his people.

In the midst of this hymnic retrospect the Psalm suddenly breaks off, so that Olshausen is of opinion that it is mutilated, and Tholuck that the author never completed it. But as Psalms 77 and Ps 81 show, it is the Asaphic manner thus to close with an historical picture without the line of thought recurring to its commencement. Where our Psalm leaves off, Hab.

3 goes on, taking it up from that point like a continuation. For the prophet begins with the prayer to revive that deed of redemption of the Mosaic days of old, and in the midst of wrath to remember mercy; and in expression and figures which are borrowed from our Psalm, he then beholds a fresh deed of redemption by which that of old is eclipsed. Thus much, at least, is therefore very clear, that Psalms 77 is older than Habakkuk.

Hitzig certainly calls the psalmist the reader and imitator of Hab. 3; ; and Philippson considers even the mutual relationship to be accidental and confined to a general similarity of certain expressions. We, however, believe that we have proved in our Commentary on Habakkuk (1843), S. 118-125, that the mutual relationship is one that is deeply grounded in the prophetic type of Habakkuk, and that the Psalm is heard to re-echo in Habakkuk, not Habakkuk in the language of the psalmist; just as in general the Asaphic Psalms are full of boldly sketched outlines to be filled in by later prophetic writers.

We also now further put this question: how was it possible for the gloomy complaint of Psalms 77, which is turned back to the history of the past, to mould itself after Hab. 3, that joyous looking forward into a bright and blessed future? Is not the prospect in Hab. 3 rather the result of that retrospect in Psalms 77, the confidence in being heard which is kindled by this Psalm, the realizing as present, in the certainty of being heard, of a new deed of God in which the deliverances in the days of Moses are antitypically revived?

More than this, viz. , that the Psalm is older than Habakkuk, who entered upon public life in the reign of Josiah, or even as early as in the reign of Manasseh, cannot be maintained. For it cannot be inferred from Psa 77:16 and Psa 77:3, compared with Gen 37:35, that one chief matter of pain to the psalmist was the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes which took place in his time.

Nothing more, perhaps, than the division of the kingdom which had already taken place seems to be indicated in these passages. The bringing of the tribes of Joseph prominently forward is, however, peculiar to the Asaphic circle of songs. The task of the precentor is assigned by the inscription to Jeduthun ( Chethîb : Jeduthun), for ל (Psa 39:1) alternates with על (Psa 62:1); and the idea that ידותון denotes the whole of the Jeduthunites (“overseer over...

”) might be possible, but is without example. The strophe schema of the Psalm is 7. 12. 12. 12. 2. The first three strophes or groups of stichs close with Sela .

Psa 77:1-3 The poet is resolved to pray without intermission, and he prays; fore his soul is comfortless and sorely tempted by the vast distance between the former days and the present times. According to the pointing, והאזין appears to be meant to be imperative after the form הקטיל, which occurs instead of הקטל and הקתילה, cf. Psa 94:1; Isa 43:8; Jer 17:18, and the mode of writing הקטיל, Psa 142:5, 2Ki 8:6, and frequently; therefore et audi = ut audias (cf.

2Sa 21:3). But such an isolated form of address is not to be tolerated; והאזין has been regarded as perf. consec . in the sense of ut audiat , although this modification of האזין into האזין in connection with the appearing of the Waw consec . cannot be supported in any other instance (Ew. §234, e), and Kimchi on this account tries to persuade himself to that which is impossible, viz.

, that והאזין in respect of sound stands for ויאזין. The preterites in Psa 77:3 express that which has commenced and which will go on. The poet labours in his present time of affliction to press forward to the Lord, who has withdrawn from him; his hand is diffused, i. e. , stretched out (not: poured out, for the radical meaning of נגר, as the Syriac shows, is protrahere ), in the night-time without wearying and leaving off; it is fixedly and stedfastly (אמוּנה, as it is expressed in Exo 17:12) stretched out towards heaven.

His soul is comfortless, and all comfort up to the present rebounds as it were from it (cf. Gen 37:35; Jer 31:15). If he remembers God, who was once near to him, then he is compelled to groan (cf. Psa 55:18, Psa 55:3; and on the cohortative form of a Lamed He verb, cf. Ges. §75, 6), because He has hidden Himself from him; if he muses, in order to find Him again, then his spirit veils itself, i.

e. , it sinks into night and feebleness (התעטּף as in Psa 107:5; Psa 142:4; Psa 143:4). Each of the two members of Psa 77:4 are protasis and apodosis; concerning this emotional kind of structure of a sentence, vid. , Ewald, §357, b .

Psa 77:1-3 The poet is resolved to pray without intermission, and he prays; fore his soul is comfortless and sorely tempted by the vast distance between the former days and the present times. According to the pointing, והאזין appears to be meant to be imperative after the form הקטיל, which occurs instead of הקטל and הקתילה, cf. Psa 94:1; Isa 43:8; Jer 17:18, and the mode of writing הקטיל, Psa 142:5, 2Ki 8:6, and frequently; therefore et audi = ut audias (cf.

2Sa 21:3). But such an isolated form of address is not to be tolerated; והאזין has been regarded as perf. consec . in the sense of ut audiat , although this modification of האזין into האזין in connection with the appearing of the Waw consec . cannot be supported in any other instance (Ew. §234, e), and Kimchi on this account tries to persuade himself to that which is impossible, viz.

, that והאזין in respect of sound stands for ויאזין. The preterites in Psa 77:3 express that which has commenced and which will go on. The poet labours in his present time of affliction to press forward to the Lord, who has withdrawn from him; his hand is diffused, i. e. , stretched out (not: poured out, for the radical meaning of נגר, as the Syriac shows, is protrahere ), in the night-time without wearying and leaving off; it is fixedly and stedfastly (אמוּנה, as it is expressed in Exo 17:12) stretched out towards heaven.

His soul is comfortless, and all comfort up to the present rebounds as it were from it (cf. Gen 37:35; Jer 31:15). If he remembers God, who was once near to him, then he is compelled to groan (cf. Psa 55:18, Psa 55:3; and on the cohortative form of a Lamed He verb, cf. Ges. §75, 6), because He has hidden Himself from him; if he muses, in order to find Him again, then his spirit veils itself, i.

e. , it sinks into night and feebleness (התעטּף as in Psa 107:5; Psa 142:4; Psa 143:4). Each of the two members of Psa 77:4 are protasis and apodosis; concerning this emotional kind of structure of a sentence, vid. , Ewald, §357, b .

Psa 77:4-9 He calls his eyelids the “guards of my eyes. ” He who holds these so that they remain open when they want to shut together for sleep, is God; for his looking up to Him keeps the poet awake in spite of all overstraining of his powers. Hupfeld and others render thus: “Thou hast held, i. e. , caused to last, the night-watches of mine eyes,” - which is affected in thought and expression.

The preterites state what has been hitherto and has not yet come to a close. He still endures, as formerly, such thumps and blows within him, as though he lay upon an anvil (פּעם), and his voice fails him. Then silent soliloquy takes the place of audible prayer; he throws himself back in thought to the days of old (Psa 143:5), the years of past periods (Isa 51:9), which were so rich in the proofs of the power and loving-kindness of the God who was then manifest, but is now hidden.

He remembers the happier past of his people and his own, inasmuch as he now in the night purposely calls back to himself in his mind the time when joyful thankfulness impelled him to the song of praise accompanied by the music of the harp (בּלּילה belongs according to the accents to the verb, not to נגינתי, although that construction certainly is strongly commended by parallel passages like Psa 16:7; Psa 42:9; Psa 92:3, cf. Job 35:10), in place of which, crying and sighing and gloomy silence have now entered.

He gives himself up to musing “with his heart,” i. e. , in the retirement of his inmost nature, inasmuch as he allows his thoughts incessantly to hover to and fro between the present and the former days, and in consequence of this ( fut. consec . as in Psa 42:6) his spirit betakes itself to scrupulizing (what the lxx reproduces with σκάλλειν, Aquila with σκαλεύειν) - his conflict of temptation grows fiercer.

Now follow the two doubting questions of the tempted one: he asks in different applications, Psa 77:8-10 (cf. Psa 85:6), whether it is then all at an end with God’s loving-kindness and promise, at the same time saying to himself, that this nevertheless is at variance with the unchangeableness of His nature (Mal 3:6) and the inviolability of His covenant. אפס (only occurring as a 3.

praet .) alternates with גּמר (Psa 12:2). חנּות is an infinitive construct formed after the manner of the Lamed He verbs, which, however, does also occur as infinitive absolute (שׁמּות, Eze 36:3, cf. on Psa 17:3); Gesenius and Olshausen (who doubts this infinitive form, §245, f) explain it, as do Aben-Ezra and Kimchi, as the plural of a substantive חנּה, but in the passage cited from Ezekiel (vid.

, Hitzig) such a substantival plural is syntactically impossible. קפץ רחמים is to draw together or contract and draw back one’s compassion, so that it does not manifest itself outwardly, just as he who will not give shuts (יקפּץ) his hand (Deu 15:7; cf. supra , Psa 17:10).