Biblion Bible Commentary
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God Is the Judge
Psalms 75:1-10
1 For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A Psalm by Asaph. A song. We give thanks to you, God. We give thanks, for your Name is near. Men tell about your wondrous works. · WEB
Promotion does not come from any direction on the compass, and there is a cup that has to be drunk to the bottom.
We give thanks to you, God. We give thanks, for your Name is near Psalms 75:1.
After the previous psalm's burned sanctuary, this one opens with the name being near, which is the thing the earlier psalm said had been profaned.
When I choose the appointed time, I will judge blamelessly Psalms 75:2.
God speaks, and the first thing said concerns timing. The delay that the seventy-fourth psalm could not measure is here described as a chosen appointment — not an absence of judgment but a date, and the date is his.
The earth and all its inhabitants quake. I firmly hold its pillars Psalms 75:3.
While everything shakes, someone is holding the supports. It is the answer to the seventy-fourth psalm's question about the withdrawn hand: the hand is occupied.
I said to the arrogant, "Don't boast!" I said to the wicked, "Don't lift up the horn" Psalms 75:4.
The horn is an animal's weapon and the standard image of strength displayed. What is forbidden is not having strength but raising it — and the next line adds don't speak with a stiff neck Psalms 75:5, which is the posture of someone who will not look up.
For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south, comes exaltation. But God is the judge. He puts down one, and lifts up another Psalms 75:6–7.
Three directions are named and the fourth is missing. North is left out, and in the geography of this book the north is where God's mountain is Psalms 48:2. Promotion does not come from anywhere on the horizon; the psalm leaves one direction unmentioned and then names who does the lifting.
For in Yahweh's hand there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs Psalms 75:8.
The cup of wrath, one of the most persistent images in Scripture. It appears in the prophets Isaiah 51:17 Jeremiah 25:15, and in Gethsemane, where one man asks whether it can pass and then drinks it Matthew 26:39.
The detail that matters here is to its very dregs. The cup is not sipped; it is finished, sediment and all. Whatever this psalm says about judgment, it says that it is not partial.
I will cut off all the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up Psalms 75:10.
The psalm ends where it began, with horns, and the difference between the two groups is not whether they have strength but whose hand is on it.
settled What this mark means