Psalms 76 KJV
God's Victory Over the Nations
About This Psalm
God is known in Judah - He is glorious and mighty. After a great deliverance, celebrating God's terrifying power.
1n Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel.
2 In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion.
3 There brake he the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. Selah.
4 Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey.
5 The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep: and none of the men of might have found their hands.
6 At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.
7 Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?
8 Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still,
9 When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah.
10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
11 Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God: let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared.
12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth.
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Did You Know?
The sole use of 'Salem' (v. 2) deliberately evokes Melchizedekโs pre-Israelite priesthood and the cryptic 'king of peace' title, framing Zionโs God as heir to an older, non-Davidic sacral kingship.
Verses 5โ6โs sudden 'dead sleep' of the stouthearted is widely read as an intertextual nod to the overnight annihilation of Sennacheribโs army (Isa 37:36), yet the psalm refuses any explicit historical marker, allowing the event to function typologically for all future imperial threats.
The striking claim that human wrath itself 'shall praise thee' (v. 10) reverses standard ancient Near Eastern theology, in which a deityโs wrath alone is glorified; here even the residual fury of defeated kings is portrayed as involuntary doxology.
By juxtaposing 'mountains of prey' (v. 4) with the divine name 'terrible' (v. 7, 12), the psalm subverts predatory imagery: the very highlands once associated with marauding nations become the lair from which Yahweh plunders the plunderers.
The final summons to bring 'presents' or tribute (v. 11) mirrors Assyrian imperial rhetoric of vassal gift-giving, yet inverts the power dynamic so that the defeated kings now render homage to the true suzerain enthroned in Zion.