Psalm 75
10 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 145×1Jeremiah 10×1Psalms 138×1Ecclesiastes 3×1Acts 17×1John 7×1
Summary
Chapter summary
'We give thanks unto thee, O God… men tell of thy wondrous works.' God himself speaks: 'When I shall find the set time, I will judge uprightly. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I have set up the pillars of it.' Lift not up the horn; 'for neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south, cometh lifting up; but God is the judge: he putteth down one, and lifteth up another.' In Jehovah's hand is a cup foaming with mixture, all the wicked of the earth shall drain its dregs.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 75The history
The cup in God's hand is full of red wine, well mixed, and he pours it out for the wicked of the earth to drink down to the dregs. Wine was normally cut with water; drinking it full strength, and then drinking the sediment at the bottom, was punishment, not pleasure. The prophets picked this image up and made it standard — a cup handed round to the nations, and each one drinks in turn.
The horn that runs through the psalm is an animal's horn — an ox's or a ram's — and it stood for strength and for royal rank. Horned headdresses mark gods and kings on carvings from Mesopotamia. Lift not up your horn on high means stop parading your power, and the answer at the end is that God cuts off the horns of the wicked and raises the horns of the righteous.
Speaking with a stiff neck comes from the ox again: an animal that will not bend its neck into the yoke. The same phrase runs through Israel's own story, which keeps the rebuke from being only about foreigners.
The pillars of the earth picture the world as a building on foundations. When the psalm says the earth and all its inhabitants are dissolved and God bears up its pillars, it is saying the structure is not self-supporting; someone is holding it while it shakes.
What it meant to them
God says he will judge uprightly when he receives the congregation — at a set time he has already chosen. To people watching an empire do as it liked, that meant judgment was on a calendar, not left to chance or mood.
And promotion, the psalm says, comes neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south. The one who sets men up and puts them down is the one holding the cup.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 75. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.