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PSALM 76

To him that presides on Neginoth, a Psalm or Song of Asaph.

1. In Judah is god known, his name is great in Israel.
2. In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion.
3. There has he broken the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. Selah.
4. You are more glorious and magnificent than the mountains of prey.
5. The stout-hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep, and none of the men of might have found their hands.
6. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse have fallen into deep sleep.
7. You are to be feared, even you! yea, who can stand before you when you are angry?
8. You do cause judgement to be heard from heaven; and the earth fears and is still.
9. When god arises to judgement, to save all the afflicted of the earth. Selah.
10. For the anger of man shall praise you, with the remainder of anger you will gird yourself.
11. Vow and pay to jehovah your god, let all that be round about him bring presents to him that ought to be feared.
12. He shall cut off the spirit of princes; he is to be feared by the kings of the earth.

Verses 2, 3. In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion; there has he broken the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle. Jerusalem is here called Salem, because by Salem is signified peace, from which also it derived its name of Jerusalem; by the tabernacle of God which is there, is signified the church; and by his habitation in Zion, is signified the good of love, inasmuch as the lord dwells in that good, and thence gives truths, and fructifies and multiplies them; and since by peace is also signified that there are no longer any combats of what is evil and false against what is good and true, or no longer any disagreement or war in a spiritual sense, therefore it is said, he has there broken the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle, by which is signified the dissipation of all combat of the doctrine of falses against good and truth, and in general the dissipation of all disagreement. AE 365. See also AC 1726.

That battle [or war] in the Word signifies spiritual battle [or war], which is that of the false grounded in evil against truth grounded in good, is manifest from various passages of the Word. AE 734.

Verses 5, 6. The stout-hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep; at your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse have fallen into a deep sleep. By the stout-hearted are signified those who are in truths grounded in good; by their being spoiled and sleeping their sleep, is signified that they have lapsed from evils into falses; by the rebuke of the god of Jacob is signified the inversion of their state of themselves; and that both the chariot and the horse have fallen into deep sleep is signified that their intellectual principle is disposed to sleep because it is become merely natural. AE 355.

Chariot and horse signify the doctrine of the church and its intellect, which are said to be asleep when they are without truths, and hence the man of the church is without spiritual life. AE 187.