(6) Are cast into a deep sleep.--The same Hebrew expression is used of Sisera's profound slumber (Judges 4:21). Deborah's Song and Exodus 15 are in the poet's mind, as they were to the author of Isaiah 43:17, and as they have inspired the well-known lines of Byron's "Sennacherib."

Verse 6. - At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob. The catastrophe has been God's doing; man has had no part in it (comp. 2 Kings 19:28, 35). Both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep. Metonymy for the charioteers and the horsemen (comp. Isaiah 43:17). These were the two chief arms of the military service with the Assyrians.

76:1-6 Happy people are those who have their land filled with the knowledge of God! happy persons that have their hearts filled with that knowledge! It is the glory and happiness of a people to have God among them by his ordinances. Wherein the enemies of the church deal proudly, it will appear that God is above them. See the power of God's rebukes. With pleasure may Christians apply this to the advantages bestowed by the Redeemer.At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,.... The God of Jacob personally, and of his posterity, the children of Israel, and of the church, often so called who rebukes his people in love, but his enemies with furious rebukes, with rebukes in flames of fire; with such he rebukes the Heathen, destroys the wicked, and puts out their name for ever:

both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep; that is, the riders in chariots and on horses; such there were doubtless in the Assyrian army, it being usual to have such in great armies. Kimchi observes, that the word translated "cast into a dead sleep", is in the singular number, and interprets it of the king, the head of the men of might: but Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was not slain, he departed to his own country; wherefore he applies it to Gog and Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, Ezekiel 39:1 and may very well be understood of the head of the apostasy, the king of the bottomless pit, the beast or false prophet, who being destroyed, the flesh of his captains and horsemen shall be the food of the fowls of the air, at the supper of the great God, Revelation 19:17.