For God is the judge; he putteth down one and exalteth another.
In Psalm 75 God announces that He has a set time to judge. This verse names the one hand that brings a person down or raises a person up.
One writer traces how the psalm moves, and shows verse 7 standing inside a warning to the proud.
In Psalm 75 Messiah speaks, though the psalm begins with the remnant thanking God for wonderful works He has already done. Then God's judgments bring Messiah into the kingdom. He receives the congregation of Israel, and then comes upright judgment. The earth is dissolved in guilt and confusion, and Messiah upholds its pillars. In the verses that follow He warns the wicked and the despisers of God not to exalt themselves, for God is the Judge; He puts up and puts down.
Why does evil run on so long? The answer is the time God has fixed.
It is the announcement by God Himself that, in His set time, God will judge uprightly. We are often impatient for God to deal with evil. God, however, has His set time — when evil is ripe, and His people have learned their lesson — for stepping in with judgment.
The older word "promotion" in verse 6 can mislead. The picture is not a career ladder but a rescue.
"Promotion" is a poor and misleading translation. The word is 'lifting up,' and continues the thought of verses 4 and 5. It is not the idea of raising a person to a place of prominence. It is the deliverance of the crushed by lifting them up out of the dust. The same expression appears again in verse 10, where the word 'exalted' should be translated 'lifted up.' This thought of lifting up runs through verses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10. The north is not mentioned. One suggestion is that the enemy who attacks the land of Israel comes from that direction, so no help would be looked for from the north. The people of God have to learn that help does not come from any quarter of the earth. It comes from God: it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
So the missing compass point is deliberate. Every direction has been searched, and the search comes back empty.
In other directions help might possibly be found; but in fact it is not coming from any point of the compass. God is coming in: "for God it is that judges; He abases one and exalts another."
The putting down and the lifting up are not random. One writer names this Judge as Christ, and shows which people each one falls on.
Verse 7 says that "it is God who executes judgment," and this God, their King, is of course Christ. He knows how to put one down and lift another up. His judgment will sort people exactly. He brings down those who exalt themselves and lifts up those who have been humbled.
The one who judges is also God's witness on earth.
In the second half of the psalm we find Him as the "faithful Witness," the Representative of God on earth, testifying for God. As Judge He lifts up and brings down, in keeping with grace and holiness alike.
What holds for one person holds for empires.
He rules or over-rules the hearts of all people. He rules the whole realm of human thought and action. He rules public opinion in all its forms, at all times, with all the characters great and small who appear in it. So He orders the rise and fall of nations, the course of their histories and the size of their territories. The way human history unfolds proves that God governs it, in events and in morals, as clearly as the heavens prove His power and glory. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will." (Prov. 21:1.)
If God alone lifts a person up, does character count for anything? One writer answers directly.
Let us remember what Scripture says: "For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another" (Ps. 75:6-7). Yet He does not do it at random, or without regard to fitness or merit. No, His sovereignty does not set aside the question of moral fitness or proper preparation in those He is pleased to advance in His service.
- Set time — God has fixed the hour when He will judge. Our impatience does not move it. Ripe evil does not escape it.
- Set direction — Help is not in the east, the west or the south. The north is left out because that is where the enemy comes from. No direction on earth holds the answer.
- Set hand — Only God's hand is left. The word is "lifting up": He raises the crushed out of the dust rather than handing out prominence.
- Set standard — The lifting and the lowering sort people. He brings down those who exalt themselves and lifts up those who have been humbled, and grace and holiness both show in it.
- Set scope — The same hand turns the king's heart and orders the rise and fall of nations. Yet when He advances someone in His service, fitness and preparation still count.
For in the hand of Jehovah there is a cup, and it foameth with wine, it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same; yea, the dregs thereof shall all the wicked of the earth drain off, [and] drink.
Psalm 75 shows God settling accounts with a proud world. Verse 8 puts a cup in His hand, and it raises three questions: what is in the cup, who must drink it, and how much of it they must swallow.
In the ancient world, a cup handed to a person could be a sentence. One writer explains the custom:
The cup stands for a verdict. The ruler of the feast sent the cup to whomever he chose, in whatever order, and with whatever contents he judged best. So Psalm 75:7-8: "It is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup." A judging or "divining cup" was common among ancient peoples; Joseph refers to the idea in Genesis 44:15. Now this cup may contain either happiness or condemnation.
The verse opens with "For," tying it back to the verses just before. Those verses look in every direction for help:
Deliverance comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. The north is not mentioned. One suggestion is that the enemy attacking the land of Israel comes from that direction, so no one would look for help from the north. The people of God have to learn that help does not come from any quarter of the earth. It comes from God: God is the Judge; He puts down one and lifts up another.
What is the "well mixed" wine of the verse? One writer explains what was added, and why:
In the hand of the Lord there is a cup of judgment. This cup is full of mixture, a reference to the aromatic herbs mixed with wine to add to its intoxicating power. God will make the wicked drink this cup down to its dregs.
One writer follows an older translation that reads "the wine is red" where the ESV has "foaming wine." He takes the colour as a warning of what is coming:
The wine being red symbolises the dreadful bloodshed that will take place at that time — in fact blood up to the horses' bridles through the whole land of Israel (Revelation 14:20). The bridle is what controls the war horse, and the bloodshed will be so dreadful as to be beyond man's control.
The dregs are not the leftovers nobody wants. They are the part that has been settling the longest:
But who will be able to stand when God comes in? The fire of His jealousy will consume all the earth: "For a cup is in Jehovah's hand... surely the dregs of it" — that which remains for the last, and is the strongest part — "all the wicked of the earth shall drain off and drink." It is the day of wrath and of the curse upon iniquity — the day that brings down all the pride of man.
Revelation 14 shows this same cup poured out. One writer joins the two passages:
The nations had drunk out of the prostitute's cup (Revelation 14:8); now in fair repayment they shall drink out of God's cup (Revelation 14:10). In this cup there are no ingredients that soften it (Psalm 75:8). It is pure, unmixed wrath.
The psalm holds two cups side by side, and the one handed round in verse 8 never reaches the King who is speaking:
The wine cup, the cup of trembling, the cup of His fury, the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath — these are various names for the same cup. It is the emblem of divine judgments... Here is a striking and beautiful point in this Psalm. The cup drunk here by the people of the earth does not pass on to Messiah. He takes the other cup instead, and at once calls on the name of the Lord... The cup of anger is for their hand, the cup of salvation for His. He once took, indeed, the cup of sorrows, the cup of Gethsemane, for us poor sinners.
- Whose cup — The cup pictures a ruler passing sentence, deciding who gets what. Here it is in God's hand, because God is the Judge.
- What's in it — Aromatic herbs went into the wine to make it stronger. Nothing in this cup softens it.
- How deep — The dregs are the settled part at the bottom, the strongest of all. They are not spilled out; they are drained.
- Who drinks — Not a few ringleaders, but "all the wicked of the earth." Revelation shows the same cup, with nothing in it to take the edge off.
- Which cup is yours — Two cups run through Scripture. Messiah drank the cup of sorrows in Gethsemane for sinners. He takes the cup of salvation. The cup of anger stays in the hand of the wicked of the earth.