I. (76:1–3) God Has Made His Abode in Zion. The first stanza describes God in the third person; he is the one who is “known” in Judah, because “his abode has been established in Salem” (another name for Zion/Jerusalem; Gen. 14:18).519 The maker of heaven and earth, to whom all humankind belongs, has chosen one people and has chosen one particular spot to be “his dwelling place.” The OT is clear that this does not confine God in any way (1 Kings 8:27–30; Isa. 66:1–2); rather, it is the means by which his people have access to his presence through the sanctuary.

In some event God “broke the flashing arrows” (Ps. 76:3). Perhaps the psalm arises from a particular occasion, which it commemorates. The deliverance from Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35) is an obvious candidate, but the words are general enough for other occasions, and there is no reason to tie this psalm to that event over any other (and we may suppose it to be available to apply to analogous deliverances, similarly to 46:9).

II. (76:4–10) None Can Stand before You When You Rise to Judge. The second stanza changes from describing God to addressing him directly as “you.” The deliverance of verse 3 shows that God is “glorious” (or “blazingly brilliant”) and “majestic” and mighty (cf. Ex. 15:11; 1 Sam. 4:8; Pss. 8:1, 9; 93:4; Isa. 10:34; 33:21), even more than “mountains full of prey”—which would be an example to an Israelite of something wild and forbidding.

The rest of the stanza says more about the deliverance that the psalm celebrates, adding to Psalm 76:3. The terms show that this psalm is particularly geared to celebrate an occasion on which God has protected Zion from Gentile invaders: “The stouthearted [Gentile warriors] were stripped of their spoil . . . rider and horse lay stunned.” Verses 6–9 trace the victory to God’s rebuke, to his judgment, and to his plan “to save all the humble of the earth” (the faithful among his people).

These events show that God “is to be feared” (v. 7), and thus those Gentile powers that would think to oppress his people should take notice, since none of them can “stand before” God. In the occasion the psalm celebrates, “the earth feared” (v. 8); this may refer to the nonhuman creation giving honor to its Maker or to the response of those Gentiles who learned the lesson that God is to be feared (which v. 10 may favor).

Verse 10 says, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise you”; that is, the way in which God thwarts the Gentiles’ wrathful schemes leads people to acknowledge his rule. The expression “The remnant of wrath you will put on like a belt” is obscure; in view of the parallelism with the first line of the verse, it probably means that God takes the last futile efforts of human wrath and wears it like an ornamental belt, extracting every last bit of honor from it. (Another possibility sees the “remnant of wrath” as the survivors of wrath, whom God attaches to his belt, but this makes less of a parallel with the first line.)

III. (76:11–12) Let All the People Praise the Lord. Since God gets praise even out of the schemes of unjust men, it is only right that his favored ones worship and love him. Thus the singers exhort one another to make and perform vows and bring gifts (cf. comment on 56:12–13). The expression “to be feared,” referring to God, is two edged: God’s people fear him in reverential love (76:11), while the Gentile kings fear him because he cuts off the spirit of princes (v. 12). The OT hope has two aspects, both that God will protect his people (in focus here) and that the Gentiles will one day come to fear him in the reverential way.