Psalms 75

We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks to you, because your name is near. People tell about the wonderful things you have done.

1Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare.

Note"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."

2God says: "At the time I choose, I will judge fairly.

2When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.

NoteThe 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.

3When the earth shakes, and everyone living on it shakes with it, I am the one who holds its pillars steady." Selah.

3The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.

NoteAncient 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.

4"I say to those who brag, 'Stop bragging,' and to the wicked, 'Do not lift up your horn.

4I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn:

NoteIn 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.

5Do not lift your horn up high. Do not speak with your neck stretched out in pride.'"

5Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck.

Note"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."

6Being lifted up to a high place does not come from the east, or from the west, or from the desert in the south.

6For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.

Note"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.

7It is God who judges. He brings one person down, and he raises another one up.

7But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

8The LORD holds a cup in his hand. It is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out, and all the wicked people of the earth will drink it down to the very last drop.

8For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.

NoteA 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.

9But I will keep telling about him forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

9But I will declare for ever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

Note"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.

10I will cut off all the horns of the wicked, but the horns of those who do right will be lifted high.

10All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

NoteBreaking 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.