Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey.
-The Lord is mightier than all the mighty conquerors of the earth; because he has caused the stout-hearted to sleep in death, and so has stilled the agitation of the earth.
Verse 4. Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey - i:e., than the great plundering world-kingdoms. Compare Psalms 46:2-3; Nahum 2:11, Nineveh, "the dwelling of the lions, etc.;" Nahum 3:1. So in Psalms 68:16, the world-kingdoms are compared to towering "hills" (Song of Solomon 4:8).
Verse 5. The stout-hearted are spoiled - (Job 12:17; Job 12:19,) They who thought to make a spoil of Jerusalem are spoiled themselves (Ezekiel 38:12-13; Ezekiel 39:4).
They have slept their sleep - the death-sleep (Psalms 13:3; Jeremiah 51:39; Jeremiah 51:57; especially Nahum 3:18; 2 Kings 19:35).
And none of the men of might have found their hands contemptuously said of the self-vaunting "men of might." Whereas they sought to turn their hands against the holy city, they could not find their hands; because death had paralyzed them.
Verse 6. At thy rebuke . . . both the chariot and horse are east into a dead sleep. The chariot seems asleep, its rattling having ceased. 'The poet deserves the scene as if we were walking through the camp, which such a short while ago was so full of life. but is now silent as death' (Tholuck).
Verse 8. Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still. The agitations of the earth, caused by the invasions of the world-power, ceased (Psalms 76:3; Psalms 46:6; Psalms 46:9-10). Also Isaiah 14:7, as to the consequences of the fall of Babylon, the successor of Assyria, "The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet." "The earth" stands opposed to "heaven." The earth, in respect to its tumultuous elements, is through fear reduced to silence by the word of divine power spoken from heaven.
Verse 9. When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. The meek so saved are not only Judah and Jerusalem, but also the Gentile nations, which, by fellowship in suffering, through the world-power's oppression, had common cause with the elect nation. So, in the ulterior fulfillment at Christ's coming again, the elect Judeo-Gentile Church and Israel's elect remnant shall be saved, by His special interposition, from the last and worst assault of the adversary (cf. Matthew 5:5; Psalms 22:26; Revelation 14:4-5).
Verse 10. Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. Praise results to thee from thy having tamed the rebellious fury of the Assyrian enemy. Even the wicked, in spite of themselves, are constrained to subserve thy glory (Exodus 9:16; Exodus 18:11). So in the case of Gog, the last foe of Israel (Ezekiel 38:16; cf. Proverbs 16:4; Romans 9:17).
The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain - so that whatever anger remains in the enemy can no more break out against thy people. Thus, when Sennacherib, after his hasty retreat to his own land, vented his fury on any of the Jews whom he could find there (Tob 1:17-18), he was at last restrained by God, being put to death by his sons (2 Kings 19:37). But the Hebrew ( tachªgor (H2296)) commonly means to gird (Judges 18:11; 1 Kings 20:11), though the cognate Arabic word favours the English version, and the Mishna and Rabbi Solomon. 'The first part is the anger of man, provoking God and oppressing His people; the "remainder," or second part of it, is that which is left for God, wherewith He girds Himself, manifesting Himself, gloriously before the eyes of all' (Hammond), (Isaiah 59:17.) The wrath of the enemies must, even to its last remnants (Psalms 75:8), serve thee as a weapon wherewith thou girdest thyself to accomplish their destruction (Hengstenberg). Those left of the enemy who vented their wrath against thee, thou girdest thyself with, making them to acknowledge and praise thy power (Maurer). Compare Psalms 76:11; Isaiah 49:18. Probably it is meant that God girds Himself with the praise to which the wrath of the enemy, even to its last remnant, is constrained to minister both in the case of reprobates and in that of those at last brought to 'submit themselves to Him' (Psalms 68:30).