Why do You withdraw Your strong right hand? Stretch it out to destroy them!
Parallel translations
- WEB Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? Take it out of your pocket and consume them!
- KJV Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? pluck it out of thy bosom.
- NKJV Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? Take it out of Your bosom and destroy them.
- NASB Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? Extend it from Your chest and destroy them!
- NLT Why do you hold back your strong right hand? Unleash your powerful fist and destroy them.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He asks why God holds back his powerful right hand and pleads with him to act and destroy the enemy.
Overview
Asaph boldly urges God to no longer restrain his power but to intervene on behalf of his people. The prayer assumes God is fully able to deliver and only seems to delay. Such fervent appeal for God's mighty hand expresses faith that he will rise to judge and save, as he supremely does in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Lam 2:3In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it.
- Isa 64:12After all this, O LORD, will You restrain Yourself? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?
- Ps 78:65–66Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.
- Ps 44:23Wake up, O Lord! Why are You sleeping? Arise! Do not reject us forever.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 74:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.