Psalm 76:6

At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Are cast into a deep sleep.—The same Hebrew expression is used of Sisera’s profound slumber (Judges 4:21). Deborah’s Song and Exodus 15 are in the poet’s mind, as they were to the author of Isaiah 43:17, and as they have inspired the well-known lines of Byron’s “Sennacherib.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

76:1-6 Happy people are those who have their land filled with the knowledge of God! happy persons that have their hearts filled with that knowledge! It is the glory and happiness of a people to have God among them by his ordinances. Wherein the enemies of the church deal proudly, it will appear that God is above them. See the power of God's rebukes. With pleasure may Christians apply this to the advantages bestowed by the Redeemer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob - At thy word; thy bidding; or, when God rebuked them for their attempt to attack the city. The idea is, that they were discomfited by a word spoken by God.

Both the chariot and horse ... - The Septuagint renders this, "They who are mounted on horses." The word rendered "chariot" here - רכב rekeb - may mean "riders, cavalry," as well as chariot. See the notes at Isaiah 21:7. Hence, there would be less incongruity in the Hebrew than in our translation, where it is said that the "chariots" have fallen into a deep sleep. The idea may be either that horsemen and horses had fallen into a deep slumber, or that the rumbling of the chariot-wheels had ceased, and that there was a profound silence, like a deep sleep.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. chariot and horse—for those fighting on them (compare Ps 68:17).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The chariot and horse; the men who rode upon and fought from chariots and horses, who fight with most advantage, and usually have most courage; and much more unable were their footmen to resist or avoid the stroke.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,.... The God of Jacob personally, and of his posterity, the children of Israel, and of the church, often so called who rebukes his people in love, but his enemies with furious rebukes, with rebukes in flames of fire; with such he rebukes the Heathen, destroys the wicked, and puts out their name for ever:

both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep; that is, the riders in chariots and on horses; such there were doubtless in the Assyrian army, it being usual to have such in great armies. Kimchi observes, that the word translated "cast into a dead sleep", is in the singular number, and interprets it of the king, the head of the men of might: but Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was not slain, he departed to his own country; wherefore he applies it to Gog and Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, Ezekiel 39:1 and may very well be understood of the head of the apostasy, the king of the bottomless pit, the beast or false prophet, who being destroyed, the flesh of his captains and horsemen shall be the food of the fowls of the air, at the supper of the great God, Revelation 19:17.

Geneva Study Bible

At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. At thy rebuke] Cp. Psalm 9:5; Psalm 18:15; Isaiah 17:13.

are cast into a dead sleep] A word which denotes a deep, supernaturally caused slumber. It is usual to say that ‘chariot and horse’ stand by metonymy for charioteers and horsemen: but surely poetry imagines chariots as well as horses to be alive. The “pransing horses” and the “bounding chariots” (Nahum 2:3-4; Nahum 3:2), all the rush and roar of the battle, are still and silent as the grave. Cp. Isaiah 43:17.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob. The catastrophe has been God's doing; man has had no part in it (comp. 2 Kings 19:28, 35). Both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep. Metonymy for the charioteers and the horsemen (comp. Isaiah 43:17). These were the two chief arms of the military service with the Assyrians. Psalm 76:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The "mountains of prey," for which the lxx has ὀρέων αἰωνίων (טרם?), is an emblematical appellation for the haughty possessors of power who also plunder every one that comes near them,

(Note: One verse of a beautiful poem of the Muḥammel which Ibn Dûchı̂, the phylarch of the Beni Zumeir, an honoured poet of the steppe, dictated to Consul Wetzstein runs thus: The noble are like a very lofty hill-side upon which, when thou comest to it, thou findest an evening meal and protection (Arab. 'l-‛š' w-ḏry).)

or the proud and despoiling worldly powers. Far aloft beyond these towers the glory of God. He is נאור, illustris, prop. illumined; said of God: light-encircled, fortified in light, in the sense of Daniel 2:22; 1 Timothy 6:16. He is the אדּיר, to whom the Lebanon of the hostile army of the nations must succumb (Isaiah 10:34) According to Solinus (ed. Mommsen, p. 124) the Moors call Atlas Addirim. This succumbing is described in Psalm 76:6. The strong of heart or stout-hearted, the lion-hearted, have been despoiled, disarmed, exuti; אשׁתּוללוּ

(Note: With orthophonic Gaja, vid., Baer's Metheg-Setzung, 45.)

is an Aramaizing praet. Hithpo. (like אתחבּר, 2 Chronicles 20:35, cf. Daniel 4:16; Isaiah 63:3) with a passive signification. From Psalm 76:6 we see that the beginning of the catastrophe is described, and therefore נמוּ (perhaps on that account accented on the ult.) is meant inchoatively: they have fallen into their sleep, viz., the eternal sleep (Jeremiah 51:39, Jeremiah 51:57), as Nahum says (Nahum 3:18): thy shepherds sleep, O king of Assyria, thy valiant ones rest. In Psalm 76:6 we see them lying in the last throes of death, and making a last effort to spring up again. But they cannot find their hands, which they have lifted up threateningly against Jerusalem: these are lamed, motionless, rigid and dead; cf. the phrases in Joshua 8:20; 2 Samuel 7:27, and the Talmudic phrase, "he did not find his hands and feet in the school-house," i.e., he was entirely disconcerted and stupefied.

(Note: Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, S. 191.)

This field of corpses is the effect of the omnipotent energy of the word of the God of Jacob; cf. וגער בּו, Isaiah 17:13. Before His threatening both war-chariot and horse (ו - ו) are sunk into motionlessness and unconsciousness - an allusion to Exodus 15, as in Isaiah 43:17 : who bringeth out chariot and horse, army and heroes - together they faint away, they shall never rise; they have flickered out, like a wick they are extinguished.