Text -- Psalms 74:1-17 (NET)

Psalm 74

74:1 A well-written song by Asaph. Why, O God, have you permanently rejected us? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? 74:2 Remember your people whom you acquired in ancient times, whom you rescued so they could be your very own nation, as well as Mount Zion, where you dwell! 74:3 Hurry and look at the permanent ruins, and all the damage the enemy has done to the temple! 74:4 Your enemies roar in the middle of your sanctuary; they set up their battle flags. 74:5 They invade like lumberjacks swinging their axes in a thick forest. 74:6 And now they are tearing down all its engravings with axes and crowbars. 74:7 They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrate your dwelling place by knocking it to the ground. 74:8 They say to themselves, “We will oppress all of them.” They burn down all the places where people worship God in the land. 74:9 We do not see any signs of God’s presence; there are no longer any prophets and we have no one to tell us how long this will last. 74:10 How long, O God, will the adversary hurl insults? Will the enemy blaspheme your name forever? 74:11 Why do you remain inactive? Intervene and destroy him! 74:12 But God has been my king from ancient times, performing acts of deliverance on the earth. 74:13 You destroyed the sea by your strength; you shattered the heads of the sea monster in the water. 74:14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you fed him to the people who live along the coast. 74:15 You broke open the spring and the stream; you dried up perpetually flowing rivers. 74:16 You established the cycle of day and night; you put the moon and sun in place. 74:17 You set up all the boundaries of the earth; you created the cycle of summer and winter.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 74:1

¹ sn Psalm 74. The psalmist, who has just experienced the devastation of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem in 586 b.c., asks God to consider Israel’s sufferings and intervene on behalf of his people. He describes the ruined temple, recalls God’s mighty deeds in the past, begs for mercy, and calls for judgment upon God’s enemies.

² tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. The word is derived from a verb meaning “to be prudent; to be wise.” Various options are: “a contemplative song,” “a song imparting moral wisdom,” or “a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.” The term occurs in the superscriptions of Pss 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142, as well as in Ps 47:7.

³ sn The psalmist does not really believe God has permanently rejected his people or he would not pray as he does in this psalm. But this initial question reflects his emotional response to what he sees and is overstated for the sake of emphasis. The severity of divine judgment gives the appearance that God has permanently abandoned his people.

⁴ tn Heb “smoke.” The picture is that of a fire that continues to smolder.

NET Notes: Psa 74:2

¹ tn Heb “your assembly,” which pictures God’s people as an assembled community.

² tn Heb “redeemed.” The verb “redeem” casts God in the role of a leader who protects members of his extended family in times of need and crisis (see Ps 19:14).

³ tn Heb “the tribe of your inheritance” (see Jer 10:16; 51:19).

NET Notes: Psa 74:3

¹ tn Heb “lift up your steps to,” which may mean “run, hurry.”

² tn Heb “everything [the] enemy has damaged in the holy place.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:4

¹ tn This verb is often used of a lion’s roar, so the psalmist may be comparing the enemy to a raging, devouring lion.

² tn Heb “your meeting place.”

³ tn Heb “they set up their banners [as] banners.” The Hebrew noun אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) here refers to the enemy army’s battle flags and banners (see Num 2:12).

NET Notes: Psa 74:5

¹ tn Heb “it is known like one bringing upwards, in a thicket of wood, axes.” The Babylonian invaders destroyed the woodwork in the temple.

NET Notes: Psa 74:6

¹ tn This is the reading of the Qere (marginal reading). The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and a time.”

² tn The imperfect verbal form vividly describes the act as underway.

³ tn Heb “its engravings together.”

⁴ tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49-50).

⁵ tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. An Akkadian cognate refers to a “pickaxe” (cf. NEB “hatchet and pick”; NIV “axes and hatchets”; NRSV “hatchets and hammers”).

NET Notes: Psa 74:7

¹ tn Heb “to the ground they desecrate the dwelling place of your name.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:8

¹ tn Heb “in their heart.”

² tc Heb “[?] altogether.” The Hebrew form נִינָם (ninam) is problematic. It could be understood as the noun נִין (nin, “offspring”) but the statement “their offspring altogether” would make no sense here. C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs (Psalms [ICC], 2:159) emends יָחַד (yakhad, “altogether”) to יָחִיד (yakhid, “alone”) and translate “let their offspring be solitary” (i.e., exiled). Another option is to understand the form as a Qal imperfect first common plural from יָנָה (yanah, “to oppress”) with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix, “we will oppress them.” However, this verb, when used in the finite form, always appears in the Hiphil. Therefore, it is preferable to emend the form to the Hiphil נוֹנֵם (nonem, “we will oppress them”).

³ tn Heb “they burn down all the meeting places of God in the land.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:9

¹ tn Heb “our signs we do not see.” Because of the reference to a prophet in the next line, it is likely that the “signs” in view here include the evidence of God’s presence as typically revealed through the prophets. These could include miraculous acts performed by the prophets (see, for example, Isa 38:7-8) or object lessons which they acted out (see, for example, Isa 20:3).

² tn Heb “there is not still a prophet.”

³ tn Heb “and [there is] not with us one who knows how long.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:11

¹ tn Heb “Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? From the midst of your chest, destroy!” The psalmist pictures God as having placed his right hand (symbolic of activity and strength) inside his robe against his chest. He prays that God would pull his hand out from under his robe and use it to destroy the enemy.

NET Notes: Psa 74:12

¹ tn The psalmist speaks as Israel’s representative here.

² tn Heb “in the midst of the earth.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:13

¹ tn The derivation and meaning of the Polel verb form פּוֹרַרְתָּ (porarta) are uncertain. The form may be related to an Akkadian cognate meaning “break, shatter,” though the biblical Hebrew cognate of this verb always appears in the Hiphil or Hophal stem. BDB 830 s.v. II פָּרַר suggests a homonym here, meaning “to split; to divide.” A Hitpolel form of a root פָּרַר (parar) appears in Isa 24:19 with the meaning “to shake violently.”

² tn The Hebrew text has the plural form, “sea monsters” (cf. NRSV “dragons”), but it is likely that an original enclitic mem has been misunderstood as a plural ending. The imagery of the mythological sea monster is utilized here. See the note on “Leviathan” in v. 14.

NET Notes: Psa 74:14

¹ sn You crushed the heads of Leviathan. The imagery of vv. 13-14 originates in West Semitic mythology. The description of Leviathan should be compared with the following excerpts from Ugaritic mythological texts: (1) “Was not the dragon [Ugaritic tnn, cognate with Hebrew תַּנִין (tanin), translated “sea monster” in v. 13] vanquished and captured? I did destroy the wriggling [Ugaritic ’qltn, cognate to Hebrew עֲקַלָּתוֹן (’aqallaton), translated “squirming” in Isa 27:1] serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (note the use of the plural “heads” here and in v. 13). (See CTA 3.iii.38-39 in G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 50.) (2) “For all that you smote Leviathan the slippery [Ugaritic brh, cognate to Hebrew בָּרִחַ (bariakh), translated “fast moving” in Isa 27:1] serpent, [and] made an end of the wriggling serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (See CTA 5.i.1-3 in G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 68.) In the myths Leviathan is a sea creature that symbolizes the destructive water of the sea and, in turn, the forces of chaos that threaten the established order. In the OT, the battle with the sea motif is applied to Yahweh’s victories over the forces of chaos at creation and in history (see Pss 74:13-14; 77:16-20; 89:9-10; Isa 51:9-10). Yahweh’s subjugation of the waters of chaos is related to his kingship (see Pss 29:3, 10; 93:3-4). Isa 27:1 applies imagery from Canaanite mythology to Yahweh’s eschatological victory over his enemies. Apocalyptic literature employs the imagery as well. The beasts of Dan 7 emerge from the sea, while Rev 13 speaks of a seven-headed beast coming from the sea. Here in Ps 74:13-14 the primary referent is unclear. The psalmist may be describing God’s creation of the world (note vv. 16-17 and see Ps 89:9-12), when he brought order out of a watery mass, or the exodus (see Isa 51:9-10), when he created Israel by destroying the Egyptians in the waters of the sea.

² tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a preterite in this narrational context.

³ sn You fed him to the people. This pictures the fragments of Leviathan’s dead corpse washing up on shore and being devoured by those who find them. If the exodus is in view, then it may allude to the bodies of the dead Egyptians which washed up on the shore of the Red Sea (see Exod 14:30).

NET Notes: Psa 74:15

¹ sn You broke open the spring and the stream. Perhaps this alludes to the way in which God provided water for the Israelites as they traveled in the wilderness following the exodus (see Ps 78:15-16, 20; 105:41).

² sn Perpetually flowing rivers are rivers that contain water year round, unlike the seasonal streams that flow only during the rainy season. Perhaps the psalmist here alludes to the drying up of the Jordan River when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan under Joshua (see Josh 3-4).

NET Notes: Psa 74:16

¹ tn Heb “To you [is] day, also to you [is] night.”

² tn Heb “[the] light.” Following the reference to “day and night” and in combination with “sun,” it is likely that the Hebrew term מָאוֹר (ma’or, “light”) refers here to the moon.

³ tn Heb “you established [the] light and [the] sun.”

NET Notes: Psa 74:17

¹ tn This would appear to refer to geographical boundaries, such as mountains, rivers, and seacoasts. However, since the day-night cycle has just been mentioned (v. 16) and the next line speaks of the seasons, it is possible that “boundaries” here refers to the divisions of the seasons. See C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms (ICC), 2:156.

² tn Heb “summer and winter, you, you formed them.”