The Terrible Meekness of God Text: Psalm 76:4-6
Introduction: A God to be Feared
We live in an age that has tried to domesticate God. Modern evangelicals, in a misguided attempt to make God palatable to a rebellious world, have sanded off all His sharp edges. They have presented us with a God who is more of a celestial therapist than the sovereign Lord of Hosts, a God who is endlessly affirming and never, ever terrifying. He is a God you can put on a coffee mug, but not a God who breaks the bow, the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war.
But the God of the Bible, the God who is our Father, is a consuming fire. This is not a contradiction to His love; it is a necessary component of it. A God who does not hate evil with a perfect and holy hatred is not a God who loves righteousness with a perfect and holy love. A God who is not terrifying to His enemies is no comfort to His friends. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which means that a theology that begins anywhere else is the beginning of folly.
Psalm 76 is a psalm of Asaph, and it is a victory song. It is a psalm celebrating a great deliverance, likely the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's army outside the walls of Jerusalem, as recorded in 2 Kings 19. An army of 185,000 Assyrians, the global superpower of their day, were struck dead in the night by the angel of the Lord. This was not a close-run thing. It was a unilateral, sovereign, and devastating act of divine judgment. This psalm, then, is a theological reflection on that event. It teaches us what kind of God we serve. He is known in Judah, His name is great in Israel, and as we come to our text, we see that His majesty is a terrible thing for those who set themselves against Him.
The Text
You are shining,
Majestic from the mountains of prey.
The stouthearted were plundered,
They sank into sleep;
And none of the warriors could use his hands.
At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
Both chariot rider and horse slumbered into a deep sleep.
(Psalm 76:4-6 LSB)
The Radiance of the Warrior King (v. 4)
The psalmist now turns his address directly to God, and the tone is one of awe-struck worship.
"You are shining, Majestic from the mountains of prey." (Psalm 76:4)
The first thing to notice is the direct address. "You are." This is not abstract theology; this is worship born from experience. They have seen His salvation, and now they are describing Him. He is "shining," or glorious, resplendent. This is the light of His manifest presence, the Shekinah glory that is utterly overwhelming. This is not the gentle glow of a nightlight; it is the blinding flash of divine power unleashed.
And where does this majesty come from? "From the mountains of prey." This is a striking and intentionally jarring image. Our God is a mighty hunter. The mountains are the high places, the places of strength and dominion. And from these heights, God descends upon His prey. The "prey" here are the proud and arrogant nations, the Assyrians who thought themselves to be the lions, the predators of the world. They came to devour Judah, but they found that Judah's God was the true predator, and they were merely the quarry.
This is a polemic against the warrior-gods of the pagans. They were depicted as mighty hunters, as gods of conquest. But the psalmist declares that our God is more majestic, more glorious, more lethal than all of them combined. He is not one king among many; He is the King who hunts other kings. This imagery should recalibrate our understanding of God's relationship to the wicked. He is not a frantic governor trying to keep up with a rebellion. He is the sovereign hunter, and the wicked are utterly at His mercy. He is glorious from the mountains where He has secured His spoil.
The Paralysis of the Proud (v. 5)
Verse 5 describes the state of the mighty warriors when they encountered this majestic God.
"The stouthearted were plundered, They sank into sleep; And none of the warriors could use his hands." (Psalm 76:5 LSB)
The "stouthearted" refers to the proud, the courageous, the elite soldiers of the Assyrian army. These were the Navy SEALs of their day, men who knew no fear. But their courage was no match for the fear of the Lord. They were "plundered," or stripped of their spoil. They came to plunder Jerusalem, but in a great reversal, they themselves were plundered. Their weapons, their armor, their very lives were stripped from them.
How did this happen? "They sank into sleep." This is not the peaceful rest of a weary soldier. This is a euphemism for death, a sleep from which there is no waking in this life. It was a sudden, supernatural stupor. One moment they were a mighty army, breathing threats against God's people, and the next, they were corpses. Their strength, their skill, their bravado, all of it was rendered utterly useless.
"And none of the warriors could use his hands." This is a picture of total helplessness. The hands that gripped the sword, the hands that drew the bow, were limp and powerless. God did not defeat them in a fair fight. He simply switched them off. This is what divine judgment looks like. It is not a contest; it is a decree. God does not need to arm-wrestle with his enemies. He can simply will them to be still, and their hearts stop beating. All the military might of man, all the Pentagon's budgets, all the strategic planning, is a ridiculous child's game before the God who can command the very hands of warriors to forget their function.
The Rebuke that Silences Armies (v. 6)
The cause of this sudden and total devastation is made explicit in the final verse of our text.
"At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both chariot rider and horse slumbered into a deep sleep." (Psalm 76:6 LSB)
What weapon did God use to accomplish this? A word. A "rebuke." Just as He spoke and light came into being, He speaks a rebuke and an army ceases to be. His word is performative. It does what it says. He rebuked the sea and it was calm. He rebukes an army and it is dead. This is the raw, unmediated power of the sovereign God.
Notice he is called the "God of Jacob." This is covenant language. He is not a generic deity; He is the God who made promises to a schemer like Jacob. He is the God who is faithful to His undeserving people. His terrifying power is not free-floating; it is tethered to His covenant love for His church. This is why the terror of God is a comfort to the believer. The same rebuke that brings a deep sleep upon the chariot and horse is the word that secures our peace.
The "chariot rider and horse" represent the pinnacle of ancient military technology. They were the tanks, the fighter jets of their time. They represented speed, power, and shock and awe. But before the rebuke of God, the most advanced military hardware is as useless as a pile of scrap metal. The rider and his mount fall into the same deep sleep of death. God's judgment is comprehensive. It makes no distinction between the technology and the man who wields it. Both are creatures, and both are subject to the Creator's word.
The Slumber of the Cross
As Christians, we must read this psalm through the lens of the cross. Where do we see this terrifying power most clearly? We see it at Calvary. The stouthearted men of Rome and the religious leaders of Israel thought they had won. They had the Son of God on a cross. Their hands were strong, their plans were successful.
But at the cross, a greater victory was being won. God the Father was hunting a greater prey. He was plundering the principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in Christ (Colossians 2:15). The stouthearted one, Satan himself, was stripped of his power. The sin that gave him power was being atoned for.
And what happened to the warrior king, Jesus? He "sank into sleep." He slumbered into the deep sleep of death. He, the majestic one, allowed Himself to be made prey. But His sleep was not the end. It was the precursor to the greatest display of power the world has ever seen. At His resurrection, the God of Jacob issued a rebuke to death itself. And on the last day, that same voice will speak a rebuke that will cause all His enemies to slumber in the second death, and will awaken all His people to everlasting life.
Therefore, we should not be afraid of the stouthearted of our age. We should not fear the sneering academics, the powerful politicians, or the cultural warriors who set themselves against Christ and His church. Their hands are already useless, they just don't know it yet. They are breathing, but they are already under a sentence of death. Our God has rebuked them at the cross, and their final, deep slumber is appointed. Our job is not to fear them, but to fear the One who can rebuke them, and in that holy fear, to worship Him, the majestic one from the mountains of prey.