Psalm 75

Psalms 75:1

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads To the chief Musician, Altaschith, A Psalm or Song of Asaph, Altaschith meaning Destroy not, a tune direction this psalm shares with Psalms 57, 58 and 59. Asaph was David's chief musician and a prophetic singer in his own right (1 Chronicles 25:1-2), and this psalm opens where thanksgiving is stated before any request is made. Thy name is near sets the ground for what follows: God's wondrous works are declared because his presence is already close, not because the psalmist has argued him near.

Psalms 75:2-3

The voice changes here from the psalmist to God himself: When I shall receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly is the Lord's own answer to the thanksgiving just offered. The earth and its inhabitants are dissolved, on the edge of collapse, yet the same speaker bears up the pillars of it, the psalm's picture of a moral order held together only by the God who will one day judge it. Selah marks a pause before the address turns from God's own word to the psalmist's word to the proud, the device the Psalter uses for a breath between movements.

Psalms 75:4-5

The psalmist turns to address the arrogant directly, Deal not foolishly to the fools and Lift not up the horn to the wicked, the horn across the Psalter the standing picture of strength displayed and pride asserted (compare 1 Samuel 2:1, Hannah's own horn exalted by the Lord rather than by herself). Speak not with a stiff neck repeats the warning in a second image, the neck that will not bow. Gill reads the double warning as aimed less at outright rebellion than at quiet self-congratulation, the assumption that one's own strength secures one's own standing.

Psalms 75:6-8

Promotion, literally a lifting up, comes from none of the compass points named, for God is the judge who alone puts down one and sets up another, the verse the older commentators read as this psalm's thesis stated plainly. The cup in God's hand carries the same authority forward: red wine, full of mixture, poured out until only the wicked are left to wring out and drink the dregs. The image becomes one of the prophets' recurring pictures of judgment, the same cup Isaiah and Jeremiah later hand to the nations (Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15) and the same figure John sees filled again at Revelation 14:10.

Psalms 75:9-10

The psalmist answers his own opening thanksgiving with a vow to keep declaring and singing to the God of Jacob without end. The horn language returns from verses 4 and 5 to close the psalm: the wicked who were warned not to lift up their horn now have it cut off outright, while the horn of the righteous, once told to speak without a stiff neck, is exalted instead. The two warnings and the two outcomes answer each other exactly, pride brought down and humility raised up, which is the psalm's whole argument in miniature.