Psalm 76:1 In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel. In Judah is God known. This is a fitting psalm to be sung after any great national victory, any Divine deliverance. It may be associated with the victory of Jehoshaphat, or with the discomfiture of Sennacherib (2 Chronicles 20:28; Isaiah 37:36). If we associate it with Hezekiah's times, it should be noticed that the triumph over Sennacherib was, in a very special sense, a Divine triumph, and so an extraordinary revelation of God, through which he ought to have been better known by his people. Man had nothing to do with that defeat of Assyria. God's working in it man might study. One hundred and eighty-five thousand men are said to have been miraculously destroyed in one night, without the operation of any military agencies. Judah and Israel are mentioned together as thus coming to know God, because the two nations, which had been separated from the days of Rehoboam, were united again under Hezekiah. Here God is revealed, and so known and apprehended, by the judgments which he executes. But God's judgments are always two-sided - they relate to those who suffer under them; and they relate to those who are delivered through them. I. THEY KNOW GOD WHO SUFFER UNDER HIS JUDGMENTS. Illustrate from the Assyrians. It is quite clear that the Assyrian general, Rabsbakeh, did not know Jehovah, or he never would have put him into comparison with the gods of the nations as he did (Isaiah 37:10-13). The Assyrians had to be taught that Jehovah was God alone; and that lesson they could only learn through such a manifestation of Jehovah's power as would declare him to stand alone. See the effect of Divine manifestation on Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:28, 29; Daniel 4:37); Darius (Daniel 6:26, 27). But God is known through his judgments even by his own people. Illustrative cases may be taken from the wilderness experiences, the times of Joshua, David, etc. And it is still true for the godly individual; he has sometimes to learn to know God fully by coming under Divine judgments. "Judgments" may, for the present purpose, be distinguished from "afflictions" or "chastisements," as meaning "irremediable calamities," such as this plague on the Assyrians. The point is an important one. The "irremediable" is more or less in every man's life; and the "irremediable" is a help to the fall knowledge of God. II. THEY KNOW GOD WHO ARE DELIVERED THROUGH HIS JUDGMENTS. This leads us along more familiar and easy lines. Israel learned to know God through deliverances and redemptions. Those political and social difficulties of Hezekiah's time, which had their true rootage in mistaken views of Jehovah's relation to his people, were in part removed by the knowledge gained of God through this deliverance. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song of Asaph.} In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel. |
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