Ps. 78.65 (the warrior has awoken)

And then Yhwh / awoke as from sleep
like a strong man / shouting from wine. 

Something new. If we have been attuned to the rhythm of this psalm we would have expected this verse, in some manner. In the wilderness section of the psalm, when God’s wrath (as here) consumed Israel, it reached a fever pitch only to be suddenly reversed (or, quenched). Utter destruction was not allowed. There, however, the change in God’s mind was described as a ‘remembering’. The content was of the ephemeral nature of man as such. As we saw, the enactment of mercy did not originate from an historical event but was premised on an abiding reality. For that reason the change was not dramatic. It seemed to occur rather abruptly, of course, but within God the sense was more of a acquiescence and a dissipation of anger. Here, that is not the case. Things are different in this verse and it points to something important. God is not going to be responding to Israel-in-the-Land, at this point, the same way he responded to them in the wilderness. Rather than a ‘remembering’ we have Yhwh ‘waking up’. There is in this the sense that God’s past dealings were those of ‘sleep’, a type of inattention, of Yhwh not being fully responsive to Israel. Immediately, of course, this refers to their suffering attack in the previous four verses. However, it does not stop there but reaches all the way back to very beginning of the psalm’s historical recounting (all the way back to the ‘sons of Eprhaim…’). In other words, the entire history of Israel has been in some way shrouded in God’s sleep and it is only now that Yhwh will become ‘fully awake’. In contrast to his previous ‘remembering’ this change will result in specific, concrete acts that will be a permanent change (or, development) past his previous dealings with them (it will be, in short, the rejection of some (‘tent of Joseph’ and Ephraim) and the choice of others (Zion and David)). Yhwh’s will deal with Israel not according to an abiding truth of man (his ephemeral nature) but according to specific acts of election and establishment. The period of ‘sleep and drunkenness’ are over. The warrior has awoken.