Psalm 75:5

Psalm 75 is a psalm of Asaph, the Levitical musician and seer of King David’s time, and it stands among his psalms (Psalms 73–83) that wrestle with God’s justice and the prosperity of the wicked. It opens with thanks to God for his wondrous works (Psalm 75:1). Then God himself speaks. When the time he has appointed comes, he will judge uprightly, and he holds the foundations of the earth steady (Psalm 75:2–3). The “I said” of verse 4 carries on in that voice. God, speaking through the psalmist, turns to everyone who defies his rule and warns them now, before the judgment the following verses describe. His warning is a call to stop and turn while there is still time.

Two kinds of people hear it. The KJV calls the first “the fools”, and the word, hâlal, is associated with being clamorously foolish, even raving. In the wisdom of Scripture this folly is a moral and spiritual fault, a stubborn resistance to God’s instruction and a refusal to learn or be corrected, and it comes out in loud and boastful living. The second group are “the wicked”, rāšâʻ, people who are morally wrong and actively bad, guilty of injustice and in deliberate rebellion against God. The fool lives in disregard of God’s wisdom, and the wicked set themselves against his ways and pursue evil. God gives both the same command, and in doing so he holds every person accountable to him. Hannah’s prayer, in which God humbles the proud, carries the same warning (1 Samuel 2:3).

The horn, qeren, is literally the horn of an animal. A bull or a ram uses its horns to defend itself and to assert its strength, so the horn stood for strength, power, dignity and authority, and kings and powerful men were pictured with it. To lift up the horn was to put that strength on show in arrogant self-exaltation, often in open defiance of God’s rule or of rightful human rule. The picture carried weight in a world where kings and armies displayed their might openly, and God’s people knew it from the arrogant rulers and nations who oppressed them as if they had to answer to nobody.

Verse 5 repeats the command and sharpens it: “Lift not up your horn on high.” The word mârôwm means height or elevation, from a root meaning “to be high”. A horn raised on high is a lofty, haughty posture, a reach for the height that belongs to God alone, who is the Most High.

The second half of the verse moves from display to speech: “speak not with a stiff neck.” The verb dâbar is the ordinary word for speaking (Strong’s also gives “to arrange”), and here the pride of the heart comes out in boasting and in words that refuse to listen. The word behind “stiff”, ʻâthâq, means impudent or arrogant, with a sense of presumption, and joined with “neck” the KJV renders it “a stiff neck”. The picture comes from working animals. An ox that resists the yoke holds its neck rigid and refuses to be turned, and a person with a stiff neck refuses to bend, to listen or to yield to God’s commands. Scripture uses the same English picture for Israel’s stubbornness in Exodus 32:9, in Moses’ warning of Deuteronomy 31:27, and in Stephen’s rebuke of his hearers in Acts 7:51.

Verses 4 and 5 together take in the outward show of pride and the inward stubbornness behind it. Scripture’s verdict on both is the same: “Pride goeth before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), and “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). Peter calls believers to the same humility toward one another (1 Peter 5:5).

Verse 6 begins with “For”, and it gives the reason the proud should lay their horns down. “Promotion” is rûwm, to be high, to rise, to raise up or exalt. It covers every kind of lifting up, in standing, dignity, influence and honour, whether of a person, a nation or a cause. The KJV supplies the verb “cometh”, which the Hebrew leaves to be understood, and the statement stands bare and forceful.

The verse then goes round the compass. The east is môwtsâʼ, “a going forth”, here the place where the sun goes forth at its rising. The west is where it sets. The south is midbâr, the word for wilderness or desert, used here for the desert lands to the south. In that world people sought power through conquest, through alliances with neighbouring kingdoms and through control of trade routes. The east could call to mind empires such as Assyria and Babylon, and the south Egypt. The psalmist names the directions only to close them, so that empire, alliance and the wealth of distant lands all fall short of lifting anyone up. Verse 7 then names the source.

“But God is the judge” turns from every earthly source to the one who holds all power. The verb shâphaṭ means to judge, to decide and to govern, to pronounce sentence and to rule. God weighs the case and he also carries out his decision, vindicating the oppressed and punishing the wicked, and what he decides is righteous and final.

“He putteth down one” uses shâphêl, to be or become low, to bring low or humble. God lowers the proud and the unjust, and he removes people from places of power when their appointed time is over. “And setteth up another” uses rûwm, the same verb as “promotion” in verse 6. So the lifting up that verse 6 looked for around the compass comes from God’s own hand. Because he is the judge, his lowering and lifting rest on his justice and wisdom, and he often lifts up the humble and those he has chosen for his purposes, whatever their earthly standing. “One” and “another” reach every person and every outcome.

His bringing low can also be reversed by him, and Hannah’s song sets the two acts side by side: “The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’S, and he hath set the world upon them” (1 Samuel 2:7–8). Daniel praises the God who “removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21), and the decree of Daniel 4:17 is given so “that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men”. Mary sings, “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:52–53). Jesus gives the rule in plain words: “whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

This truth brings comfort and caution together. Those who are despised, oppressed or overlooked have a judge who sees injustice and will bring down the proud and lift up the humble. Those who hold power hold it from him, to be used with humility and with an account to give. Through every political upheaval and change of leaders, the rise and fall of nations stays in his hands.

Verse 8 begins with “For” again and shows what God’s judging means for the wicked. “In the hand of the LORD” uses yâd, the hand, which stands for power, means and control. This judgment is God’s own deliberate act, carried out by his power. The cup, kôwç, often stands in Scripture for a person’s lot or portion, whether blessing or suffering. At a banquet the cup could stand for joy or sorrow, and this one is a cup of wrath.

“The wine is red”, a strong wine whose colour may also call blood to mind. “It is full of mixture”: the word meçek means wine mixed with spices or other ingredients, which were sometimes added to make it stronger. A cup mixed for judgment is a strong and bitter draught, prepared on purpose, so that God’s judgment comes in full measure and undiluted. “He poureth out of the same”: God gives it out himself, with intent and with perfect justice, at the time he has appointed (Psalm 75:2–3).

The dregs, shemer, are the settlings or lees, the sediment at the bottom of the vessel, the most bitter part, which was usually thrown away. “All the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.” Every one of the wicked who persist in opposing God drains the cup to its last bitter drop, unwillingly, and the judgment is complete. The same cup appears across Scripture. The LORD sends the cup of his fury to the nations (Jeremiah 25:15), Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem’s cup of trembling (Isaiah 51:17), and Revelation speaks of drinking the wine of God’s wrath (Revelation 14:10). The psalm ends by returning to the horns of verse 4: God cuts off the horns of the wicked, and the righteous are lifted up.

God’s patience is also in this picture. The warning of verse 4 comes before the cup is poured, and his judgment falls when his long forbearance with persistent wickedness is at an end.

Jesus is the opposite of everyone who lifts up the horn. He held all divine power and authority, and he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men”. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name”, so that every knee should bow to him (Philippians 2:5–11). Here verse 7 is seen at its fullest. The one who went lowest was set up highest, and it was God who set him up. In Gethsemane he yielded his will wholly to the Father (Luke 22:42), the very reverse of a stiff neck, and of his kingdom he said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

Where the fools of verse 4 despise wisdom, Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and God has made him our wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30). Where the wicked lift up their own horns, which God will break, God has raised up “an horn of salvation” for his people (Luke 1:69).

The judge of verse 7 has given his judging to the Son: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), and God has appointed Jesus to judge the world (Acts 17:31). He is the ruler of the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:5), and God gave him to be head over all things for the church (Ephesians 1:22). In his kingdom the rule of verse 7 holds, the one who exalts himself is humbled and the humble are exalted (Matthew 23:12). He puts down the proud powers of evil, Satan himself among them, and sets up his humble followers to reign with him (Revelation 20:4).

The cup of verse 8 is the cup Jesus spoke of in the garden: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). It held the full weight of God’s judgment against the sins of the world, and he drank it to the dregs on the cross. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God made the sinless one to be sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Those who trust in him are spared that cup because he drank it in their place, and this is the love of the God who gave his Son so that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life (John 3:16).

These verses tell us where power and honour lie. Every horn lifted on high is lifted within reach of God’s judgment, and every rise in the world, of a person or of a nation, comes from his hand. Since promotion comes from him, the anxious striving for recognition, the bitterness of being passed over and the emptiness of worldly praise lose their hold, and we can rest in his timing and his will. The God who puts down one and sets up another sees every injustice, and the oppressed can wait for him.

The passage also shows us God’s judgment and his mercy together. He warns before he pours. He holds a cup that the wicked of the earth will drain to its dregs, and his own Son took that cup into his hands in our place. In Christ we see both the truth of verse 7 and its fulfilment, because the one who humbled himself most has been lifted highest.