Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/810

No Psalm has a greater right to follow Psa 75:1-10 than this, which is inscribed To the Precentor, with accompaniment of stringed instruments (vid., Psa 4:1), a Psalm by Asaph, a song. Similar expressions (God of Jacob, Psa 75:10; Psa 76:7; saints, wicked of the earth, Psa 75:9; Psa 76:10) and the same impress throughout speak in favour of unity of authorship. In other respects, too, they form a pair: Psa 75:1-10 prepares the way for the divine deed of judgment as imminent, which Psa 76:1-12 celebrates as having taken place. For it is hardly possible for there to be a Psalm the contents of which so exactly coincide with an historical situation of which more is known from other sources, as the contents of this Psalm confessedly (lxx πρὸς τὸν Ἀσσύριον) does with the overthrow of the army of Assyria before Jerusalem and its results. The Psalter contains very similar Psalms which refer to a similar event in the reign of Jehoshaphat, viz., to the defeat at that time of the allied neighbouring peoples by a mutual massacre, which was predicted by the Asaphite Jahaziel (vid., on Psa 46:1-11 and Ps 83). Moreover in Psa 76:1-12 the “mountains of prey,” understood of the mountains of Seir with their mounted robbers, would point to this incident. But just as in Psa 75:1-10 the reference to the catastrophe of Assyria in the reign of Hezekiah was indicated by the absence of any mention of the north, so in Psa 76:1-12 both the שׁמּה in Psa 76:4 and the description of the catastrophe itself make this reference and no other natural. The points of contact with Isaiah, and in part with Hosea (cf. Psa 76:4 with Hos 2:20) and Nahum, are explicable from the fact that the lyric went hand in hand with the prophecy of that period, as Isaiah predicts for the time when Jahve shall discharge His fury over Assyria, Isa 30:29, “Your song shall re-echo as in the night, in which the feast is celebrated.”