Ps. 74.21-22 (the reversal)

Let not / the oppressed / sit humiliated
Let the poor / and needy / praise your name.
Arise / O God/ defend your cause
remember / that you are taunted / all day long by fools. 

These two verses serve to complement each other in several ways. On one level they serve to mirror each other: Let not the oppressed sit humiliated (mirrors) Arise O God, defend your cause; Let the poor and needy praise your name (mirrors) remember that you are taunted all day long by fools. What I find most interesting in this comparison are the final lines of the verses wherein the “poor and needy praise” is mirrored by the “all day long taunt of fools”. In the present, the liturgy offered to God is one of a “taunt”. It ascends to him “all day long” and its priest-celebrants are “fools”. By contrast, following the “arising” of God, the liturgy that will be offered will be the ‘praise of your name” and it will be offered by the “poor and needy”. Further, they will no longer be “sitting in humility” but, presumably, “standing in glory”. As indicated, the “hinge” that re-orients both the nature of the liturgy offered and the participants is the “arising of God” to “defends his cause” and to redeem the oppressed. Because God’s “cause” is his covenantal fidelity (vs. 20), this liturgical change involves both actions simultaneously: God’s honor and the redemption of his “poor ones”. The point of these lines seems to lie in the ‘great reversal’ from “humiliation” to “liturgy”, from “oppression” to “freedom”. The “arising” of God redeems these “poor and needy” and places them in the context not merely of ‘liturgy’ but, specifically, of praising “your name”. This particular act of liturgy is instructive in that the psalmist has already related the fact that the place wherein God’s name dwells has been destroyed (vs. 7). Hence, letting the ‘poor and needy’ praise God’s name implies the rebuilding of the place where his name dwells. Their liturgy will, in this way, replace the “liturgy of mockery” that is currently being enacted in the Temple precincts.