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II

12 [a]Yet you, God, are my king from of old,
    winning victories throughout the earth.
13 You stirred up the sea by your might;(A)
    you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters.(B)
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan,(C)
    gave him as food to the sharks.
15 You opened up springs and torrents,
    brought dry land out of the primeval waters.[b]
16 Yours the day and yours the night too;
    you set the moon and sun in place.
17 You fixed all the limits of the earth;
    summer and winter you made.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. 74:12–17 Comparable Canaanite literature describes the storm-god’s victory over all-encompassing Sea and its allies (dragons and Leviathan) and the subsequent peaceful arrangement of the universe, sometimes through the placement of paired cosmic elements (day and night, sun and moon), cf. Ps 89:12–13. The Psalm apparently equates the enemies attacking the Temple with the destructive cosmic forces already tamed by God. Why then are those forces now raging untamed against your own people?
  2. 74:15 Waters: lit., “rivers” (cf. Ps 24:7; Isa 50:2) upon which, or from which, in primordial times the earth is created.