Psalms 75: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The psalm opens with thanks to God because his name is near, and his wonderful works are told. God then speaks: at the time he chooses he will judge fairly, he holds up the earth's pillars when it shakes, and he warns the proud and the wicked to stop boasting. The psalmist says that being lifted up does not come from any direction on earth but from God, who brings one person down and raises another, and that the wicked will drink the cup in the LORD's hand down to the last drop. It closes with a promise to keep praising the God of Jacob, and with words about cutting off the strength of the wicked and lifting up the strength of those who do right.

Claim by Claim

1. 75:1
   • We give thanks to God.
   • The giving of thanks is repeated a second time.
   • God's name is near.
   • God's wondrous works are recounted.
   • The text leaves it open whether the wondrous works are what declares that the name is near, or whether it simply says that people recount the wondrous works.
2. 75:2
   • The speaker says that he will take an appointed thing.
   • What is taken is either an appointed time or an appointed assembly; the word can mean either.
   • The speaker says he will judge with equity.
3. 75:3
   • The earth and all who dwell in it melt away.
   • The speaker himself holds firm the pillars of the earth.
   • The earth has pillars.
   • Selah.
4. 75:4
   • The speaker said something to the boastful and arrogant.
   • He told them not to act arrogantly.
   • He said something to the wicked.
   • He told the wicked not to lift up the horn.
5. 75:5
   • He told them not to lift their horn up on high.
   • He told them not to speak with an insolent, outstretched neck.
6. 75:6
   • Exaltation does not come from the east.
   • Exaltation does not come from the west.
   • Exaltation does not come from the wilderness, which the King James renders as the south.
7. 75:7
   • God is the one who judges.
   • God brings one person down.
   • God raises another person up.
8. 75:8
   • There is a cup in the LORD's hand.
   • The wine in it foams and ferments, which the King James renders as red.
   • The cup is full of mixed and spiced wine.
   • He pours out from that cup.
   • All the wicked of the earth will drain its dregs.
   • All the wicked of the earth will drink the dregs.
9. 75:9
   • The speaker will declare forever.
   • The speaker will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
10. 75:10
    • The speaker will cut off all the horns of the wicked.
    • The horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

75:1

"Your name is near": in Hebrew usage a person's name stands for the person himself, his presence, character and reputation. To say God's name is near is to say God himself is close at hand. The Hebrew of the second half of the verse is uncertain; it can also be read as "those who call on your name recount your wonders."

75:2

The King James "when I shall receive the congregation" translates a Hebrew phrase that more literally means "when I take the appointed time." The word behind "congregation" is the same root as "appointed meeting" or "set time," which is why modern translations read it as God choosing the moment rather than receiving an assembly.

75:3

Ancient Near Eastern writers pictured the earth as a fixed structure resting on pillars or foundations, the way a building rests on columns. An earthquake was the pillars shaking. "Selah" is a Hebrew term that appears throughout the Psalms and is left untranslated because nobody knows for certain what it meant; it is generally taken as a musical or liturgical direction, perhaps a pause, a lift in volume, or an instrumental break.

75:4

In the King James, "fools" does not mean people who are stupid. The Hebrew word describes people who are boastful and arrogant, which is why the rendering has "those who brag.", A "horn" is the horn of a bull or ram, the animal's weapon and the visible sign of its strength. Throughout the Hebrew Bible a raised horn means power on display; to "lift up your horn" is to swagger, to make a show of your own strength.

75:5

"A stiff neck" and "an outstretched neck" both describe the same posture: the head thrown back, the chin up, the neck rigid. It was the recognized body language of insolence and refusal to submit, the physical picture behind the English phrase "stiff-necked."

75:6

"Promotion" in the King James means being raised to a high position or rank, not a job promotion in the modern office sense. The list of directions is odd: east, west, and then a Hebrew word meaning wilderness or desert, the country lying to the south. North is missing from the list, and the omission has been much discussed, since in the poem's geography that is the direction of the mountain where God is imagined to sit.

75:8

A cup handed to someone to drink is a standard Hebrew image for the portion assigned to that person by a superior, here, a sentence handed down. Wine was commonly mixed with spices or herbs to make it stronger; the King James "red" translates a word that can also mean foaming or fermenting. The "dregs" are the sediment of yeast and grape solids at the bottom of the jar, bitter and thick; to be made to drain a cup down to the dregs means to receive the whole of what has been measured out, with nothing left undrunk.

75:9

"The God of Jacob" identifies God by his connection to Jacob, the ancestor of the nation, later renamed Israel. The phrase is a standard way of naming the God who bound himself to that family line, as opposed to the gods of other peoples.

75:10

Breaking off an animal's horns leaves it unable to fight; cutting off the horns of the wicked means stripping them of the power they were making a show of in verses 4 and 5. It is not clear in the Hebrew whether God is still speaking here or whether the poet has resumed, and translations differ on where the quotation ends.