1 We give thanks to Thee, O God, we give thanks;
And [that] Thy name is near, Thy wondrous works declare
2 "When I seize the set time,
I, I judge [in] equity.
3 Dissolved [in fear] are earth and its inhabitants:
I, I set firm its pillars. Selah.
4 I say to the fools, be not foolish:
And to the wicked, Lift not up the horn:
5 Lift not up your horn on high;
Speak not with stiff neck."
6 For not from east, nor from west,
And not from the wilderness is lifting up.
7 For God is judge:
This one He abases, and that one He lifts up.
8 For a cup is in the hands of Jehovah,
And it foams with wine; it is full of mixture,
And He pours out from it:
Yea, its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth gulp down and
drink.
9 And as for me, I will declare [it] for ever,
I will harp to the God of Jacob.
10 And all the horns of the wicked will I cut off:
Exalted shall be the horns of the righteous.
This psalm deals with the general thought of God's judgment in
history, especially on heathen nations. It has no clear marks of
connection with any particular instance of that judgment. The
prevalent opinion has been that it refers, like the next psalm, to the
destruction of Sennacherib's army. There are in it slight resemblances
to psalm xlvi., and to Isaiah's prophecies regarding that event,
which support the conjecture. Cheyne seems to waver, as on page 148
of "Orig. of Psalt." he speaks of "the two Maccabean psalms, lxxiv.
and lxxv.," and on page 166 concludes that they "may be Maccabean, ...
but we cannot claim for this view the highest degree of probability,
especially as neither psalm refers to any warlike deeds of Israelites.
It is safer, I think, to ... assign them at the earliest to one of the
happier parts of the Persian age." It is apparently still safer to
refrain from assigning them to any precise period.
The kernel of the psalm is a majestic Divine utterance, proclaiming
God's judgment as at hand. The limits of that Divine word are doubtful,
but it is best taken as occupying two pairs of verses (2-5). It is
preceded by one verse of praise, and followed by three (6-8) of warning
spoken by the psalmist, and by two (9, 10,) in which he again praises
God the Judge, and stands forth as an instrument of His judicial acts.
In ver. 1, which is as a prelude to the great Voice from heaven, we hear
the nation giving thanks beforehand for the judgment which is about to
fall. The second part of the verse is doubtful. It may be taken thus:
"And Thy name is near; they (_i.e._, men) declare Thy wondrous works."
So Delitzsch, who comments: The Church "welcomes the future acts of God
with fervent thanks, and all they that belong to it declare beforehand
God's wondrous works." Several modern scholars, among whom are Grätz,
Baethgen, and Cheyne, adopt a textual alteration which gives the
reading, "They who call upon Thy name declare," etc. But the rendering
of the A.V., which is also that of Hupfeld and Perowne, gives a good
meaning. All God's deeds in history proclaim that He is ever at hand to
help. His name is His character as revealed by His self-manifestation;
and this is the glad thanks-evoking lesson, taught by all the past and
by the judicial act of which the psalm is the precursor--that He is near
to deliver His people. As Deut. iv. 7 has it, "What nation is there that
hath God so near unto them?"
The Divine voice breaks in with majestic abruptness, as in Psalm xlvi.
10. It proclaims impending judgment, which will restore society,
dissolving in dread or moral corruption, and will abase insolent
wickedness, which is therefore exhorted to submission. In ver. 2 two
great principles are declared--one in regard to the time and the other
in regard to the animating spirit of God's judgment. Literally, the
first words of the verse run, "When I lay hold of the appointed time."
The thought is that He has His own appointed time at which His power
will flash forth into act, and that till that moment arrives evil is
permitted to run its course, and insolent men to play their "fantastic
tricks" before an apparently indifferent or unobserving God. His
servants are tempted to think that He delays too long; His enemies, that
He will never break His silence. But the slow hand traverses the dial
in time, and at last the hour strikes and the crash comes punctually
at the moment. The purposes of delay are presented in Scripture as
twofold: on the one hand, "that the long-suffering of God may lead to
repentance"; and on the other, that evil may work itself out and show
its true character. To learn the lesson that, "when the set time is
come," judgment will fall, would save the oppressed from impatience
and despondency and the oppressor from dreams of impunity. It is a
law fruitful for the interpretation of the world's history. The other
fundamental truth in this verse is that the principle of God's judgment
is equity, rigid adherence to justice, so that every act of man's shall
receive accurately "its just recompense of reward." The "I" of ver. 2
_b_ is emphatic. It brings to view the lofty personality of the Judge,
and asserts the operation of a Divine hand in human affairs, while it
also lays the basis for the assurance that, the judgment being His, and
He being what He is, it must be "according to truth."
Such a "set time" has arrived, as ver. 3 proceeds to declare. Oppression
and corruption have gone so far that "the earth and its inhabitants" are
as if "dissolved." All things are rushing to ruin. The psalmist does
not distinguish between the physical and the moral here. His figure is
employed in reference to both orders, which he regards as indissolubly
connected. Possibly he is echoing Psalm xlvi. 6, "The earth melted,"
though there the "melting" is an expression for dread occasioned by
God's voice, and here rather refers to the results of "the proud man's
wrong." At such a supreme moment, when the solid framework of society
and of the world itself seems to be on the point of dissolution, the
mighty Divine Personality intervenes; that strong hand is thrust forth
to grasp the tottering pillars and stay their fall; or, in plain words,
God Himself then intervenes to re-establish the moral order of society,
and thus to save the sufferers. (Comp. Hannah's song in 1 Sam. ii. 8.)
That intervention has necessarily two aspects, being on the one hand
restorative, and on the other punitive. Therefore in vv. 4 and 5 follow
Divine warnings to the "fools" and "wicked," whose insolent boasting and
tyranny have provoked it. The word rendered "fools" seems to include
the idea of boastfulness as well as folly in the Biblical sense of
that word, which points to moral rather than to merely intellectual
aberration. "Lifting up the horn" is a symbol of arrogance. According to
the accents, the word rendered "stiff" is not to be taken as attached to
"neck", but as the object of the verb "speak," the resulting translation
being, "Speak not arrogance with a [stretched out] neck"; and thus
Delitzsch would render. But it is more natural to take the word in its
usual construction as an epithet of "neck", expressive of superciliously
holding a high head. Cheyne follows Baethgen in altering the text so as
to read "rock" for "neck"--a slight change which is supported by the
LXX. rendering ("Speak not unrighteousness against God")--and renders
"nor speak arrogantly of the rock." Like the other advocates of a
Maccabean date, he finds here a reference to the mad blasphemies of
Antiochus Epiphanes; but the words would suit Rabshakeh's railings quite
as well.
The exact point where the Divine oracle passes into the psalmist's own
words is doubtful. Ver. 7 is evidently his; and that verse is so closely
connected with ver. 6 that it is best to make the break at the end of
ver. 5, and to suppose that what follows is the singer's application
of the truths which he has heard. Two renderings of ver. 6 _b_ are
possible, which, though very different in English, turn on the minute
difference in the Hebrew of one vowel sign. The same letters spell the
Hebrew word meaning _mountains_ and that meaning _lifting up_. With
one punctuation of the preceding word "wilderness," we must translate
"from the wilderness of mountains"; with another, the two words are less
closely connected, and we must render, "from the wilderness is lifting
up." If the former rendering is adopted, the verse is incomplete, and
some phrase like "help comes" must be supplied, as Delitzsch suggests.
But "lifting up" occurs so often in this psalm, that it is more natural
to take the word in that meaning here, especially as the next verse ends
with it, in a different tense, and thus makes a sort of rhyme with this
verse. "The wilderness of mountains," too, is a singular designation,
either for the Sinaitic peninsula or for Egypt, or for the wilderness of
Judah, which have all been suggested as intended here. "The wilderness"
stands for the south, and thus three cardinal points are named. Why is
the north omitted? If "lifting up" means deliverance, the omission may
be due to the fact that Assyria (from which the danger came, if we adopt
the usual view of the occasion of the psalm) lay to the north. But the
meaning in the rest of the psalm is not _deliverance_, and the psalmist
is addressing the "foolish boasters" here and that consideration takes
away the force of such an explanation of the omission. Probably no
significance attaches to it. The general idea is simply that "lifting
up" does not come from any quarter of earth, but, as the next verse goes
on to say, solely from God. How absurd, then, is the self-sufficient
loftiness of godless men! How vain to look along the low levels of
earth, when all true elevation and dignity come from God! The very
purpose of His judicial energy is to abase the lofty and raise the low.
His hand lifts up, and there is no secure or lasting elevation but that
which He effects. His hand casts down, and that which attracts His
lightnings is "the haughtiness of man." The outburst of His judgment
works like a volcanic eruption, which flings up elevations in valleys
and shatters lofty peaks. The features of the country are changed after
it, and the world looks new. The metaphor of ver. 8, in which judgment
is represented as a cup of foaming wine, which God puts to the lips of
the nations, receives great expansion in the prophets, especially in
Jeremiah, and recurs in the Apocalypse. There is a grim contrast between
the images of festivity and hospitality called up by the picture of a
host presenting the wine cup to his guests, and the stern compulsion
which makes the "wicked" gulp down the nauseous draught held by God to
their reluctant lips. The utmost extremity of punitive inflictions,
unflinchingly inflicted, is suggested by the terrible imagery. And the
judgment is to be world-wide; for "all the wicked of the earth" are to
drink, and that to the dregs.
And how does the prospect affect the psalmist? It moves him, first,
to solemn praise--not only because God has proved Himself by these
terrible things in righteousness to be the God of His people, but
also because He has thereby manifested His own character as righteous
and hating evil. It is no selfish nor cruel joy which stirs in
devout hearts, when God comes forth in history and smites oppressing
insolence. It is but a spurious benevolence which affects to recoil
from the conception of a God who judges and, when needful, smites.
This psalmist not only praised, but in his degree vowed to imitate.
The last verse is best understood as his declaration of his own
purpose, though some commentators have proposed to transfer it to the
earlier part of the psalm, regarding it as part of the Divine oracle.
But it is in its right place where it stands. God's servants are His
instruments in carrying out His judgments; and there is a very real
sense in which all of them should seek to fight against dominant evil
and to cripple the power of tyrannous godlessness.