Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 74:6
But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.
But now they break down the carved work thereof … – literally, But now the carvings of it together, at once, with sledge and hammers they beat down. The carved work refers evidently to the ornaments of the temple. The word used here – pittuach – is rendered engraving, carved work, or carving; Exo 28:11, Exo 28:21, Exo 28:36; Exo 39:6, Exo 39:14, Exo 39:30; Zec 3:9; 2Ch 2:14. It is the very word which in 1Ki 6:29 is applied to the ornaments around the walls of the temple – the carved figures of cherubim, and palm trees, and open flowers, and there can be no doubt that the allusion here is to those ornaments. These were rudely cut down, or knocked off, with axes and hammers, as a man lays low the trees of the wood. The phrase at once means that they drove forward the work with all despatch. They spared none of them. They treated them all alike as an axeman does the trees of a forest when his object is to clear the land.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
See Poole “Psa 74:5“.
Axes and hammers: it hath been ingeniously observed that these two words are not Hebrew, but Chaldee or Syriac words, to point out the time when this was done, even when the Chaldeans brought in their language together with their arms among the Israelites.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. carved work (1Ki6:29).
thereofthat is, of thetemple, in the writer’s mind, though not expressed till Ps74:7, in which its utter destruction by fire is mentioned(2Ki 25:9; Isa 64:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. Formerly it was an honour to be employed in cutting down a tree for the building of the temple; but now so little regard was paid to it, that all its fine carved work, which Solomon made, 1Ki 6:18, was demolished at once in a rude and furious manner with axes and hammers; which was done either by the Chaldeans in Nebuchadnezzar’s time, or by the Syrians in the times of Antiochus, or by the Romans in the times of Vespasian; the first seems intended; see
Jer 46:22.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Psa 74:6 But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.
Ver. 6. But now they break down the carved work thereof ] The Chaldeans did with military violence, and afterwards the Romans under Titus, who could not preserve it from the soldiers’ fury, though he desired so to have done, as some historians have told us. Now, if the enemies’ rage were so great as is here described against the outward marks of religion, how much more should our zeal kindle against the most costly or curious monuments of idolatry and superstition? Zisca, the valiant Bohemian, overthrew three hundred monasteries with their idols, and among the rest the famous monastery called the king’s court, a mile from Prague, in the walls whereof the whole Bible was most exquisitely written in letters of gold.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Ki 6:18, 1Ki 6:29, 1Ki 6:32, 1Ki 6:35
Reciprocal: Jer 7:14 – as Jer 52:13 – burned