Verse 9. - When God arose to judgment (see the preceding verses). God's "rising" is an anthropomorphism, drawn from the tact that men "rise up" when they proceed to take vengeance (comp. Psalm 3:7; Psalm 7:6; Psalm 44:26; Psalm 68:1, etc.). To save all the meek of the earth. God's vengeances on the wicked are, in great measure, for the relief of the righteous. Sennacherib's discomfiture relieved "the meek of the earth," i.e. not only Israel, but many other downtrodden and oppressed nations. The psalmist's sympathies are with all the victims of Assyrian ambition.
76:7-12 God's people are the meek of the earth, the quiet in the land, that suffer wrong, but do none. The righteous God seems to keep silence long, yet, sooner or later, he will make judgment to be heard. We live in an angry, provoking world; we often feel much, and are apt to fear more, from the wrath of man. What will not turn to his praise, shall not be suffered to break out. He can set bounds to the wrath of man, as he does to the raging sea; hitherto it shall come, and no further. Let all submit to God. Our prayers and praises, and especially our hearts, are the presents we should bring to the Lord. His name is glorious, and he is the proper object of our fear. He shall cut off the spirit of princes; he shall slip it off easily, as we slip off a flower from the stalk, or a bunch of grapes from the vine; so the word signifies. He can dispirit the most daring: since there is no contending with God, it is our wisdom, as it is our duty, to submit to him. Let us seek his favour as our portion, and commit all our concerns to him.
When God arose to judgment,.... He may sometimes seem to be asleep, and to defer judgment, but he will arise and hasten it in his own time, and will take vengeance on all his and his people's enemies, as he did upon the army of the Assyrians, and will upon the antichristian powers, and upon all the wicked, and at the same time will save his own people, as follows:
to save all the meek of the earth; the quiet in the land, who are afflicted in this world, despised by the men of it, are lowly and humble, and mean in their own eyes; these the Lord takes notice of and cares for them, he will beautify them with salvation; these, all of them, even everyone of them, shall be saved in him with an everlasting salvation; this verse is by some connected with the preceding; so Kimchi, "the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment", &c. and by others, as R. Moses and Aben Ezra, with the following.
to save all the meek of the earth; the quiet in the land, who are afflicted in this world, despised by the men of it, are lowly and humble, and mean in their own eyes; these the Lord takes notice of and cares for them, he will beautify them with salvation; these, all of them, even everyone of them, shall be saved in him with an everlasting salvation; this verse is by some connected with the preceding; so Kimchi, "the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment", &c. and by others, as R. Moses and Aben Ezra, with the following.
Selah. See Gill on Psalm 3:2.