The psalmist pleaded for God to help His people and to subdue their enemy. The Lord's reputation fell with the sanctuary in the eyes of Israel's neighbors. Ancient Near Easterners regarded a god's temple as the reflection of his glory. Now that the temple on Mt. Zion had suffered damage the nations would have concluded that Yahweh was unable to defend His people.
Asaph recalled God's mighty acts in the past to motivate Him to act for His people by defeating her enemy in the present (vv. 12-17). Verses 13 and 14 describe the crossing of the Red Sea during the Exodus.
". . . the language of Psalm 74:12-14, while tailored to reflect the redemptive character of the Exodus event, also alludes to God's victory over chaos at creation."137
The sea monsters refer to Pharaoh's soldiers, and Leviathan was a mythological monster that the writer used to describe Egypt here. The creatures of the wilderness are the Israelites. Verse 15 recalls events in the wilderness wanderings and the crossing of the Jordan. Verses 16 and 17 go back to God's creation of the cosmos.
"The point here is that what Baal had claimed in the realm of myth, God had done in the realm of history--and done for His people, working salvation."138
