There are always people who are angry at God's judgments, even at the thought of them. They want to tell God that he is unjust to judge, that he cannot act that way. But that is a futile response. God will do as he will do. If we are wise, we will pursue another line entirely. What should that be? In the final stanza of the psalm (vv. 11, 12), the writer makes two suggestions.
It is a natural practice of the psalmists to reflect on the meaning of some great historical event, projecting it onto an even larger screen. That is what happens here in a string of theological comments woven in with the historical descriptions. These deal with the nature and inevitability of God's judgments generally and may even point, as I suggested earlier, to the great final judgment of the last days.
In spite of the way I have handled this first stanza, using it to ask who God is and where knowledge of the true God may be found, we must not think that the subject matter of this psalm is theoretical. This is not a matter for polite debate with little or no consequences attached. According to this psalm, this true God is a righteous Judge whose wrath is constantly hanging over those who are enemies both of himself and of his people.
The opening stanza of this psalm (vv. 1-3) sounds to most people today like the narrowest possible provincialism: that God is known only in Israel. However, those who believe the Bible will know that, first, that it is true—that is where God was known—and second, that this is merely the same kind of exclusiveness we also demonstrate when we declare that God has revealed himself uniquely in Jesus Christ.
It is not always possible to find a reason for the psalms being placed where they are in the Psalter, but in this case Psalm 76 follows the former psalm nicely. In fact, there are links between Psalms 74, 75 and 76. Psalm 74 looks on the violence and injustice that are in the world and asks the Lord to intervene. In Psalm 75 God speaks to say that in “the appointed time” he will act both to strike down the arrogant and to lift up the meek and afflicted. Psalm 76, the one we are to study now, celebrates a dramatic incident in which God did exactly that, utterly destroying Israel's enemies.
