Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 74:6

"And now all the carved work thereof They break down with hatchet and hammers." — Psalms 74:6 (ASV)

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 evidently refers to the ornaments of the temple. The word used here, פתוח pittûach, is rendered engraving, carved work, or carving (Exodus 28:11; Exodus 28:21; Exodus 28:36; Exodus 39:6; Exodus 39:14; Exodus 39:30; Zechariah 3:9; 2 Chronicles 2:14).

It is the very word which in 1 Kings 6:29 is applied to the ornaments around the walls of the temple—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 fells the trees of the forest. The phrase “at once” means that they pushed forward the work with all dispatch. 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.