Most scholars agree that Psalm 76, the psalm we’ve been singing all through the month of September, is intended to describe the miraculous defeat of Sennacherib, whose army had laid siege to Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah (see 2 Chronicles 32 and Isaiah 37). The angel of the Lord decimated the Assyrian forces in the night as they slept. (This is the “mighty army” who went “securely down to sleep” but who now “wake no more.”) Though foreign domination, as prophesied by Habakkuk, would come just a few generations later, here God spared His people. Narrative psalms like this can feel unusual in corporate worship, but the connection with the historical context and the allusions to the “day of the Lord” made this a natural pairing with Pastor Jamie’s series on Zephaniah. Like a mirror image of Zephaniah 1-2, Psalm 76 begins with a specific local deliverance of Judah; it ends with a universal call for all
the nations to pay homage to the Lord. The somber melody is punctuated with a slow-paced “gallop” rhythm in the accompaniment, intended to evoke both a marching army and the horses mentioned in verse 6. The equine theme is carried further by the tune name, RODERICK, a reference to a horse killed in the Battle of Thompson’s Station in 1863. The final verse builds in intensity when the violin adds an obbligato line reminiscent of the medieval Dies Irae melody, an allusion to Zephaniah 1 and a reminder that we shall all fear the Lord upon His day.
—Henry C. Haffner
Key Words: Speech, Call, Name, Worshipers, Dispersed, Humble, Lowly, Refuge
Keystone Verses: For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call
upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one accord. (Zephaniah 3:9)
Zephaniah 3:9-13
9 “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one accord. 10 From beyond the rivers of Cush My worshipers, the daughter of My dispersed ones, shall bring My offering.
11 “On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against Me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in My holy mountain. 12 But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, 13 those who are left in Israel; they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.”