Psalm 76:11

Psalm 76 is “A Psalm or Song of Asaph”, a song of Zion that celebrates a decisive victory God won over invading enemies, and it may well have been sung by his people at a festival in Jerusalem. It opens with God known in Judah and dwelling in Zion, tells how he broke the enemy’s weapons and laid their warriors in the sleep of death, and asks who can stand before him once he is angry (Psalm 76:1–9).

The psalm leaves its battle unnamed, and it fits closely the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in 701 BC. His vast army had come against the city and threatened to wipe out Judah. Hezekiah prayed, and in a single night the angel of the LORD struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, so that Sennacherib went home in disgrace. The whole account is told in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37. That night shaped how Israel knew the LORD, as the warrior who keeps his covenant and defends his holy city and his people against overwhelming odds.

“Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee” is one of the boldest lines in the Psalms. The word for wrath, ḥēmâ, means heat, rage, even poison, and it comes from a verb meaning to be hot. “The wrath of man” is the burning hostility of people against God and his people, the kind of fury Sennacherib brought to the walls of Jerusalem. The verb for praise, yādâ, means to praise, give thanks or confess, to acknowledge someone openly. So the psalm declares that the very rage raised against God will end in the open acknowledgement of who he is.

This happens in several ways. When God overcomes human wrath and judges it, his power and his justice are on display for all to see. Pharaoh raged against Israel, and God told him that he had raised him up to show his power in him and to have his name declared throughout all the earth (Exodus 9:16). In the same way the fury of the Assyrians before Jerusalem ended in this song.

God also uses human anger, against its own intent, to carry out his purposes. Joseph told the brothers who had sold him that they had meant evil against him and God had meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). At times God used the destructive acts of wicked nations to discipline his own people or to bring his judgments on other nations, and each time his righteousness and his rule over history came to light. The LORD has made all things for his purpose (Proverbs 16:4), and he works all things together for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28). Every attempt to defy him ends up making his power, wisdom and authority plain, until even the unwilling must acknowledge him.

“The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” The verb here, ḥāgar, means to gird or to bind on, as a man fastens on a belt. The KJV gives its sense as “restrain”, and the picture is of God binding up whatever wrath is left, fastening a limit around it so that it goes exactly as far as he allows and stops there. God sets this boundary himself, deliberately and actively. Some wrath he lets run, and it ends in his praise. What remains he holds back within the limit he has fixed.

This is a deep comfort for God’s people. Human evil rages only within bounds that God has set, and he keeps his people from being swallowed up by it. When the nations rage and look as if they have their way, God is still on his throne, and their fury goes only as far as his will permits and ends up serving the plan he means to carry out.

This verse reaches its fullest fulfilment at the cross. There the malice of the religious leaders, the convenience of Rome’s rulers, the anger of the crowd and the power of sin and death all came together to put the Son of God to death. Peter said at Pentecost, “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). The wrath of man nailed Jesus to the cross, and God, whose plan it was, turned that deed into the salvation of his people and the clearest display of his love, his justice and his mercy. Then he raised Jesus from the dead.

“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Lamb is the clearest proof that God turns the wrath of man into his praise. The wrath that still remains in the world will be judged when Christ returns in victory over all his enemies (Revelation 19).

God’s victory calls for an answer from his people. “Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God” is spoken to Israel, the people in covenant with the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, who know him as their own God, ʼĕlôhîym. He has acted for them in power, and the fitting response is to keep their word to him.

To vow, nâdar, is to make a solemn promise to God to do or to give something. Israel’s vows were often made in times of distress, as an act of devotion, or while looking to God for a particular blessing, and the law treated them as sacred and binding (Numbers 30). To pay, shâlam, is to make good, to complete or perform, so that what was promised is carried through to its end. Making a vow was a free choice, and keeping it was a duty: “When thou shalt vow a vow unto the LORD thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it” (Deuteronomy 23:21–23). The Preacher says the same: “defer not to pay it ... Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5). Psalm 65 sings, “Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed” (Psalm 65:1–2).

Vows of the Old Testament kind, with their offerings and dedications, are less common among believers today, and the principle holds for every promise we make to God. It covers the vows made at baptism, commitments made at the Lord’s Supper, pledges of service in the church, promises to give, and resolutions to pray, read the Bible and live in purity. These are solemn obligations that God expects us to keep, and he looks for the heart’s sincere devotion and gratitude in keeping them. Our faithfulness in them, in our giving, our time in prayer, our service and our conduct in the world, shows how sincere our faith is.

Jesus kept every requirement of God’s will perfectly, where we so often fail in ours, becoming “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He is also the greatest gift ever brought to God, for he “offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14), and we are sanctified “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The word çâbîyb means round about, on every side. “All that be round about him” are the nations and peoples around Israel, above all those who saw or felt God’s mighty acts when Jerusalem was spared, and in the widest sense all mankind. To “bring presents” uses yâbal, to bring, and shay, a gift offered as tribute. Among the nations of that day, bringing tribute to a king or a god was the recognised way to own his authority, as a defeated people honoured the one who had conquered it. The psalm calls even those outside Israel to honour the LORD’s supreme reign in this way, with the reverence and worship he alone deserves.

This looks ahead to the day when all nations worship the one true God. Isaiah saw the mountain of the LORD’s house raised up, and “all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2–4). Zechariah saw the nations going up to worship the King (Zechariah 14:16), and Malachi heard God say that his name would be great among the nations from the rising of the sun to its setting (Malachi 1:11).

In Christ that day has begun. All power in heaven and in earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18), at his name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11), and the nations are bringing him their worship, their obedience and their very selves.

“Him that ought to be feared” translates one Hebrew noun, môwrâʼ, from the verb yârêʼ, to fear. It means fear, and by extension a fearful thing or deed, dread and terror, the one who is to be feared. Used of God, it speaks of a majesty, power and holiness so great that all creation owes him reverence and submission. This fear is reverent awe, a deep respect for God’s holiness, power and justice that leads us to worship and obey him, and Scripture calls it “the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). Earlier in the psalm the people sang, “Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?” (verse 7). The God they had seen break an army is the God to whom vows are paid and gifts are brought.

“He shall cut off the spirit of princes.” The verb bâtsar means to clip off, to restrain, or to make inaccessible, the way a fortified place is cut off from all approach. The word for spirit, rûwach, has the senses wind, breath and spirit. Here it is the inner life of a ruler, his will, courage, resolve and mind, and in the end the breath of life itself. The princes, n’gidim, are leaders and nobles, the men in command. So God can strip rulers of their courage, their insight, their strength and their will to resist, or of life itself. His power reaches past armies and weapons into the very heart of human leadership.

The psalm has already shown this: “The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep” (Psalm 76:4–6). The night the angel of the LORD struck the Assyrian camp is a picture of this verse, for by morning Sennacherib’s army lay dead and he turned for home (2 Kings 19:35–36, Isaiah 37:36–37). God humbled proud rulers in the same way when he overthrew Pharaoh and his army at the sea (Exodus 14) and when he brought Nebuchadnezzar low (Daniel 4).

“He is terrible to the kings of the earth.” The kings of the earth, malkhei-aretz, take in every monarch and every realm. The kings of the nations around Israel were often honoured as gods or near-gods, with absolute power and vast armies, and this verse sets the God of Israel above every one of them. The word for terrible, nora, comes from yârêʼ, the verb that also gives môwrâʼ in verse 11. God is the true King of kings. “He removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21), and every governing authority stands under him (Romans 13:1). God opposes the proud, and “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

This comforts God’s people when oppressive powers look strong, because the Lord is in control and will bring justice. It is also a lasting warning to everyone in power, from ancient kings to modern presidents, parliaments and dictators. Their power is a stewardship from God and they will give him an account of it, so the verse calls them to humility and justice.

These verses give God’s people a settled peace when human anger flares. The fury of men, whether it falls on a nation, a church or one believer facing persecution, is under the rule of a God who turns it to his praise and binds the rest, and he keeps his people from being consumed by it. That is why we can pray for those who act in malice with confidence, knowing that God can restrain them or use even their deeds, against their will, for his glory.

They also show who God is to those he has saved. He is the LORD “your God”, who acts for his people and to whom their promises are rightly kept. He is the God whose name the nations on every side are called to honour, which is why the gospel goes out to every people. And he is the God before whom princes lose heart and kings tremble, so the right posture before him, for the great and the small alike, is the reverent awe that begins wisdom and ends in worship.