Devotionial Short Note of Psalm 76: Asaph was a lover of eschatology and if he was a theologian in our days, he would have been a Systematic Theologian specializing on eschatology. That said, we need to take Koester seriously when he says that there is no occasion in the history of mankind that we can connect this Psalm’s description to. Hengstenberg, and other preterists all opt for the destruction of Sennacherib’s army in 689 BCE outside the gates of Jerusalem. Well, one first have to prove that Salem is Jerusalem (76:3a). Judges 19:10 says that Jerusalem’s name was Jebus before. Does the God of the Old Testament, the God that we worship, live in Palestine or Israel in Jerusalem that is called Zion, since there is today a Zion’s gate? Absolutely not. Nations are as a speck of dust in a bucket for the Lord (says Isaiah). Whether the USA, Russia, China, Iran or Israel. If you know the prophetic charts very well the way Adventists know it and summaries of it can be seen online in the work of Collier’s maps of Endtime events based on the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy descriptions of Ellen White, you are on the right track. The Psalm makes absolutely sense from verse 1 to 13.

There is a word that is used frequently throughout the Psalm which Hengstenberg should have used for starting the exegesis of the Psalm. It is the word nora’ (2x in 76:8a and 76:13b) or one time used as naor (76:5a). This word is well-known in the prophetic genre as the Second Coming event. In Maleachi 3:23 “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and bright [nora’] day of the Lord”. This is the Second Advent and before that the Third Elijah spirit will have the Advent movement over the globe working and when the fourth Elijah comes, he will be the alarmist that will wake up the church of Laodicea or ten virgins sleeping as the late night caller announces the Coming of the Bridegroom (to put Jesus’ words in practice). Preterists missed all this. The nora’ brightness of the Lord has not come yet. Christ came as King of Righteousness before He will come as King of Glory or Brigthness (nora’) at the end of time.  

Asaph used the present form of the verb which we call in Semitic grammars “perfect form”. Perfect means past translation. It sounds like it happened already. Right? Well, there is a “prophetic perfect” also. Scholars who do not like eschatology since it reveals their church as part of the antichrist machines or tools of Satan, will deny the prophetic perfect or prophetic past description mode in eschatological genres. They also try to make eschatology late as if it never existed before but only came after the Bible was finished, too late to be used and thus not relevant to be considered. Wrong. Just because future description visions are common in some periods does not mean that they were absent in other or previous periods. Absence of data does not mean absence of knowledge about that data. Because in a certain period people forgot the data, God through the Holy Spirit made it alive and supplied detailed descriptions. No developmental theory here. That is artificial Hegelianism. “A fear of making the future inheritance seem too material has led many to spiritualize away the very truths which lead us to look upon it as our home” (Ellen White, Great Controversy, 674, 675).

At the Eschaton, says Asaph 76:2 in what is now known as Judah near current Jerusalem God will be known. It literally reads: “God is [niphal mode of the perfect form of the verb] known”. The whole context will soon indicate that Asaph is no longer in his own time, so we may as well turn the “is” into “will” = prophetic past. His name is great in Israel, not of his own time but spiritual Israel throughout the ages.

Salem is not Jerusalem and Hengstenberg had to hesitantly admit: “In all the Old Testament, there is no such thing as Salem near Jerusalem” (437). Hengstenberg can be downloaded for free from archive.org. It is volume 2 of his English translation of his Psalms by Fairbairn and Thompson and digitized by Hildebrandt 2007. It appears in Genesis 14:18 but the use of it in Genesis 33:18 is not about a city but about a condition which Jacob was in “[in] peace/safe”. Hengstenberg is also correct saying that Zion has no connection “whatsoever with any thing that occurred in David’s time” (437). Zion is not on earth. It is the name of the New Jerusalem in Heaven, it is the current dwelling place of God where His heavenly sanctuary is, it is the “Mount of God” where His throne is that Satan wished to attach during the Rebellion in Heaven motif as one can see in Isaiah 14:12-14. Thus, getting back to Salem. Salem is Zion and Zion is the Heavenly Sanctuary and Zion will be the New Jerusalem or “Mighty Fortress is our God” in Psalm 46 and the seven Zions used by the prophet Joel in his book. Stop playing any geomorphological games searching on earth for this place or that with any of the above names. Eschatology is not an imagination of the poet or prophet getting entangled in a series of hyperbolies. It is real and coming and in fact from our point of view, almost happening. At the Second Coming a shophar will be sounded from the Sanctuary in Heaven says Joel 2:1. When the fire of Joel 2 comes there is no remnant. Why? They are save in heavenly Zion which is the New Jerusalem. According to Joel 2:5 it is not people or earthly soldiers here but the angels are “like a mighty people arrayed for battle”. Chariots cannot ride on mountains as is portrayed here in Joel 2.

The Warrior Messiah is cited (Selah) (76:4) as breaking bows. Isaiah 14:5 is relevant for this war with the evil by God. This battle will not happen in history but outside of it after the Second Coming. Of course at the Second Coming the remnant will be rescued “during a time of Trouble” Daniel 12:1-2. Hengstenberg wanted to spiritualize Psalm 76:4 making God fighting every day on every front with the evil in our lives. We call this hermeneutics style “Idealism”. It is making the Bible similar as William Shakespear’s works. Not so at all. Shakespear et al created with human mind gymnastics tapped into a mixture of human (also pagan) and divine (also the Bible) sources but the Holy Spirit enlightened the biblical writers with realities certainly to come.

God will be glorious “from the mountains of prey” (76:5). In Joel 2:5 the angels at the Second Coming will leap on the mountains “like horsemen so do they run”. Habakkuk 3 the chariots of angels at the Second Coming are rolling over the mountains.

The evil will “sleep their sleep” (76:6a). This is death as a sleep. The Old Testament knew nothing of an immortality inside humans and death outside. It knew of death inside humans and immortality options outside of the body in Christ only. Isaiah spoke about the same as Asaph in Isaiah 14:8-9 that at the eschaton the evil will be in Sheol “Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come” and later in verse 11 “have been brought down to Sheol”. This is a song that the resurrected is going to sing at the Second Coming as they go to heaven which is described by Isaiah 14 and there is later also a side-reference to Satan who will also stay in the pit. Revelation says that Satan will be bound at the Second Coming for a millennium or a 1000 years in a state of loneliness. Also 76:7 says the “coma” (nirdam, the sleep Adam slept when Christ the Surgeon did His surgery on him creating Eve) will be on the riders and horses, the military hardware at the End Time.

As was well-known by the prophets like Joel 2:11 “The Lord gave forth His voice before His army for His Camp is great for the Lord is great and very awesome, who can abide?” so also Asaph in 76:8b is asking at the Second Coming “who may stand before You when thus is Your anger?”

There will be a voice from Heaven at the Second Coming. The earth will fear and be still/quiet (76:9b). In Revelation 8:1 when the Second Coming takes place just before Christ comes, there will be a silence for half an hour which is 360 days in a year, 360 divided by 24 hours equals 15 days per hour, thus 7 and a half day silence in heaven. The trumpets from Revelation 8:2ff. should not confuse the reader since it is the nature of prophetic description to describe periods and then stop, go for a lunch and come back starting all over with another description after a new vision from 8:2ff. In Revelation 6:12 it is the Second Coming and notice that 6:17 used the same language as here in Psalm 76 “great day of their wrath has come…” See 76:11 speaking of the wrath of Second Coming.

God will rise for Judgment just as Christ will rise after the Investigative Judgment to come at the Second Coming to Resurrect in Daniel 12:1. Get the order of events straight: Defection, Latter Rain, Small time of Trouble, Mercy Door closes in heaven, Sealing completed, Time of Trouble, Michael stands up/rise , Second Coming, Resurrection, Translation to Heaven, 1000 years in heaven, Hell or Executive Judgment. “In the standing up of God to Judge to save all the humble of the earth” Selah. (76:10). Christ sit during the Investigative Judgment or the Judging God, in which only the saints are judged since 1844 until the close of the Door of Mercy. When Christ or Michael will stand up to Resurrect on earth (Daniel 12:1), He will come with His angels at the Second Coming “to save all the humble of the earth” (Psalm 76:10b). Isaiah 2:21b and 2:19e as well as 2:21c says that Christ “arises to make the earth tremble”. Also Habakkuk in “…with wrath You trample nations” (Habakkuk 3:12).

At the Second Coming people will bring presents to Christ (76:12). Asaph is using an Akkadian relative pronoun in 76:12b “that is…”. Asaph is not hinting to Sennacherib using his relative pronoun that God will be the same as he always was to other nations. This is cosmic. “All people around Him” (76:12b) will bring presents. Isaiah 18 explains that at the Second Coming the people “from beyond the rivers of Kush” (Isaiah 18:1) thus people below the Kushite empire of Isaiah’s day that spread over current Sudan, Ethiopia including Somalia, people south of this, will bring presents to the Lord “a gift to the Lord of Hosts” (Isaiah 18:7a). Why hosts? His angels are with Him at the Second Coming. Choirs may be their gift they want to bring to Christ because every bird on earth was given by the Creator a special musical instrument in the throat and the Southern Africans was given by their Creator also an exceptional musical instrument! Choir music will sing to the Lord of Hosts (Isaiah 18:7b-e) because Christ will be now in their midst in the New Jerusalem (Isaiah 18:7f).

Asaph ended this glorious description with a smile on his face and joy in his heart. No matter how life is in his own day, that day, the Second Coming day, “He will cut the spirit of princes. He is bright (nora’) to the kings of the earth”. Revelation 14:18-19 speaks the same referring to the Second Harvest (of the evil weeds to be destroyed) and Hengstenberg 441 also connected the two references.