Psalms 74:13

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. THOU ... THOU. The seven-fold repetition of the emphatic "thou" stand in majestic contrast to the powerless 'I.' Human feebleness sinks into the arms of Divine Omnipotence, and feels safe. THOU DIDST DIVIDE THE SEA ... THOU BREAKEST THE HEADS OF THE DRAGONS IN THE WATERS. "The sea" is the Red Sea (Psalms 66:6). The "dragons" (Hebrew, taniyniym (H8577)), or crocodiles, poetically represent the ruling powers of Egypt, Pharaoh and his princes (Ezekiel 29:3), even as the crocodile is monarch in the waters of the Nile. Compare also, in the same connection,...

13._Thou hast divided the sea by thy power. _The prophet now collects together certain kinds of deliverances highly worthy of remembrance; all of them, however, belonging to the first deliverance by which God emancipated his people from the tyranny of Egypt. We will find him afterwards descending to the general commendation of the goodness of God which is diffused through the whole world. Thus from the special grace which God vouchsafes to his Church, he passes on to speak of the good-will which he displays towards all mankind. In the first place, he says, _Thou hast divided, _or _cleaved, the sea. _Some think that the following clause is subjoined as an effect of what is stated in the first clause, — God, by drying up the sea, having caused the whales and other great fishes to die. I am, however, of opinion, that it is to be taken metaphorically for Pharaoh and his army; this mode of ex...

12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes....

Verse Psalms 74:13. _THOU DIDST DIVIDE THE SEA_] When our fathers came from Egypt. _THOU BRAKEST THE HEADS OF THE DRAGONS IN THE WATERS._] Pharaoh, his captains, and all his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, when attempting to pursue them....

THOU DIDST DIVIDE THE SEA BY THY STRENGTH - Margin, as in Hebrew, “break.” That is, he had by his power “broken up” the strength of the sea so that it offered no resistance to their passing through it. The allusion is evidently to the passage through the Red Sea, Exodus 14:21. THOU BRAKEST THE HEADS OF THE DRAGONS - Margin, “whales.” On the meaning of the word used here - תנין _tannı̂yn_ - see the notes at Isaiah 13:22; notes at Job 30:29. It refers here, undoubtedly, to crocodiles or sea monsters. The language here is used to denote the absolute power of God as manifested over the sea when the people of Israel passed throu

EXPOSITION "THE misery of the Jews is here at its deepest". The psalmist describes Jerusalem as fallen into "perpetual ruins" (Psalms 74:3). The temple is violated (Psalms 74:3); its carved work is ruthlessly cut down (Psalms 74:6); the aid of fire has been called in to destroy it, and its walls are cast down to the ground (Psalms 74:7). Nor has Jerusalem alone suffered. The object has been to "make havoc" of Israel "altogether;" and the enemy have spread themselves, and "burnt up all the houses of God in the land" (Psalms 74:8). The pr

THOU DIDST DIVIDE THE SEA BY THY STRENGTH,.... This and the following instances from hence to Psalms 74:18 are proofs of God's working salvation in the midst of the earth; some of them seem peculiar to the people of Israel, and others are benefits common to mankind in general; which the church makes use of to encourage her faith and hope, in expectation of salvation, and deliverance out of her present distressed and melancholy circumstances. This seems to refer to the Lord's dividing of the Red sea into parts by a strong east wind, while Moses lifted up his rod and stretched out his hand as he was ordered, as a token of the divine power, and so the children of Israel passed through it as on dry land, Exodus 14:21, and he that did this can make way for his redeemed ones to return to Zion with everlasting joy,

Psalms 74 The Enemy in the Sanctuary _ 1. The Prayer on account of the enemy (Psalms 74:1)_ 2. The work of the enemy (Psalms 74:4) 3. Intercession for intervention (Psalms 74:10) This is a Psalm for instruction, a Maschil Psalm. The enemy is seen in the sanctuary. This has been applied to the defilement of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, but prophetically it rather refers to that end-time, when the enemy will defile the temple with the abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15). Then the remnant loving the sanctuary tell

LXXIV. The date may be fixed with certainty and that within narrow limits. The Jews are suffering extreme distress, but apparently by no fault of their own, for there is no confession of sin. The persecution is a religious one, since we are told repeatedly (Psalms 74:10; Psalms 74:18; Psalms 74:22) that their foes blaspheme God. Synagogues, unknown in pre-exilic times, exist throughout the land. Calamities, to some extent similar, existed in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians took Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. But if the writer had lived in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he could not have complained that no prophet had arisen (Psalms 74:9

DIVIDE. cleave. Compare Exodus 14:21, describing. sudden vehement act. Hebrew. _parar._ DRAGONS. crocodiles. (No Art.) Symbolical of Egypt....