Embrace the Word for Wednesday, June 10, 2026

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Psalm 75 expresses deep gratitude to the LORD for His just judgments. The superscription to this Psalm of Asaph does not offer any historical details: “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Psalm of Asaph. A Song.” The phrase “Do Not Destroy” most likely pertains to the musical style or tune arrangement. Psalm 75 promises that the wicked will be judged and the righteous will be exalted. These assurances invoke the response of praise and thanksgiving. Psalm 75 shares several links with Psalm 74. Each Psalm talks about “the earth” (74:12,17; 75:3,8), and the stability that the LORD gives to the earth (74:15-16; 75:3). Both Psalms highlight the “name” of God (74:10,18,21; 75:1), and use the same term even though it is translated differently as “meeting place” and “set time” (74:4,8; 75:2). Perhaps an even more significant connection between Psalms 74 and 75 is that Psalm 75 serves as the answer to the prayers of Psalm 74:18-23 and the assurances that God will judge justly. Psalm 75 consists of two segments that express thanksgiving to the LORD (75:1,6-9), and two segments in which God speaks promising judgment (75:2-5,10).

Psalm 75 opens with thankful praise to the LORD: "We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds” (75:1). “We” suggests that Asaph as well as the community of the righteous are collectively rendering gratitude to the LORD. The repetition is for emphasis—the congregation is emphatically praising God because He is near to them, but also because, in being near to them, the LORD is displaying before them wonderful actions. As they describe what the LORD is doing in their midst, their descriptions of the LORD’s acts are coupled with responses that are simply worship. While verse 1 does not give any specific details of what “wondrous deeds” they are recounting, it is clear that when God’s people extol the abilities and actions of the LORD, we are extolling the God who performs such deeds.

Asaph now introduces some particulars that are involved in the response of grateful praise: “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity. When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah” (75:2-3). Verse 2 begins with God’s announcement of the judgment that He has purposed. God’s judgment and everything about God’s judgment is always in accordance with His righteousness. God’s judgments are always fair and just; the standard by which God’s judgment unfolds is upright, the measure of God’s judgment is fitting, the administration of God’s judgment is appropriate, and the timing of God’s judgment is perfect. Everything about the LORD’s judgment is unimpeachable; there is never need for an appeal, there is never a chance of a mistrial, and there is never a possibility for corruption.

Asaph asked “How long?” in Psalm 74:9-10, as he struggled with the timing of the LORD’s response to the Babylonians for destroying the Temple. Now the LORD declares to Asaph, “At the set time.” What is powerfully ironic is that the term translated “set time” here in Psalm 75 is the same term translated as “meeting place” in Psalm 74. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple, Israel’s meeting place. It is as though the LORD is saying that since my enemies have destroyed the place and times in which I meet with my people, I will established a time and place in which I will destroy my enemies in judgment. And when that judgment unfolds, the effect is described as though the earth and its inhabitants “totters.” This same word is used during the Exodus as well as Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land but is translated as “melts” (See Exodus 15:15; Joshua 2:9). Just as the Canaanites melted or tottered before Israel as the LORD gave his people victory over their foes, so too will the experience of melting or tottering return as the LORD sets the time for the unleashing of His justice. As Asaph continues recording, the LORD issues a severe warning: “I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast,’ and to the wicked, Do not lift up your horn; do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with haughty neck” (75:4-5). The LORD’s warning goes straight to the root of the enemies’ wickedness: pride. The LORD warns the boastful to “not lift up your horn on high.” The meaning behind this expression has correspondence to a horned animal, such as a ram, who after having subdued the other males in the herd, raises his horn in triumph. The dominant ram seeks to boast in his own strength. The LORD also warns the boastful to not “speak with a haughty neck.” The meaning behind this expression seems to refer to strutting with a posture that displays an arrogant swagger. That LORD pinpoints wickedness at its essence—proud speech, proud actions, proud posturing, all of which reflect a proud heart.

Asaph responds to the LORD’s Words by adding his own words concerning God’s judgment as well as his response. Complementary to the LORD’s warning, Asaph warns: “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” (75:6-7). Asaph explains that the problem with human boasting is that any and all human ascension to greatness is never sourced in anything on earth. No human, independent of the LORD, can ever arrive at a sound reason to boast in themselves. The LORD alone lifts up; and the LORD alone brings down. Boasting has no place, for we have nothing that we have not received (See 1 Corinthians 4:7). The only kind of boasting that is rooted in reality is boasting in the LORD (See 1 Corinthians 1:31). Building on the notion that “it is God who executes justice,” Asaph adds a further dimension to his warning: “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs” (75:8). The imagery of a “cup of foaming wine” depicts a cup of wrath that the LORD makes the wicked drink to the last drop, even the sediment at the bottom of the cup. What Asaph is explaining is that the arrogant actions of the wicked are like a fruit that get harvested. God harvests the “grapes” that the wicked produce, and he treads it out on winepress, ferments the drink to full strength, pours it all into a cup, and requires the wicked to drink it up. In other words, the wicked will experience the full measure of the consequences of their wicked actions. The wicked fully reap everything that they sow. This imagery is a terrible imagery; but remember, it is a warning. Therefore, we should think of the kindness that is contained in the advanced warning before the implementation of what this terrible imagery represents.

Asaph ends his words along the same lines that he began in verse 1. Asaph responds to the the LORD’s promise of judgment with grateful praise: “But I will declare it forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob” (75:9). Asaph undertakes to declare everything God has said in this Psalm. Asaph’s generic resolve to “recount your wondrous deeds” (75:1), is now a more narrowly defined resolve. Asaph will tell that the LORD has set a time to judge the wicked; that it is the wicked who will melt when the LORD implements His judgment; that the LORD especially targets the sin of pride for judgment—for it is the LORD who lifts up and takes down; and that the LORD has issued in advance this warning to the wicked. As Asaph declares the certainty of the LORD’s actions, he does so with grateful praise before the LORD. With thankful praise, Aspah will declare that the horns of the wicked will be cut off. With thankful praise Asaph will declare that the wicked will drink down their cup of God’s wrath to the very last drop.

Aspah records that the LORD gets the last Word: “All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up” (75:10). The LORD lifts up His people and he cuts off the wicked. But what is interesting with verse 10 is that “the righteous” is singular. While I suggest that this promise ultimately pertains to all of God’s people, in stating it in the singular, perhaps we are being taught the righteousness that God’s people possess is a derived righteousness from the Righteous One whom the LORD will lift up. As the LORD answered Hannah’s prayer, He promised that He would lift up His anointed: “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed” (See 1 Samuel 2:10). As the LORD lifts up His Righteous King, all who are joined to this King will be lifted up as well. All who are not joined to this King will be cut off.

As we reflect on Psalm 75, we should consider how the imagery of the “cup of foaming wine” is fully developed and how it points us to Jesus. The LORD will drain the full force and fury of His wrath upon all the wicked. The prophets, after Asaph’s time, used the same imagery to warn of the coming judgment: “Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them” (See Jeremiah 25:15-16; also consider Isaiah 51:17; Ezekiel 23:31-34; and Habakkuk 2:15-16). But what is most important is how Jesus speaks of the cup: “And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (See Mark 14:36; also consider Matthew 20:22; and John 18:11). Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath on behalf of His people. What this imagery translates into is that Jesus was condemned in our place so that we are no longer under the condemnation of God because of our sin: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (See Romans 8:1,3). But for those who do not trust in Jesus, there remains a cup to drink: “he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb” (See Revelation 14:10).

That’s all for Embrace the Word for Wednesday, June 10, 2026. I look forward to being back with you for the Friday, June 12, 2026 episode of Embrace the Word as we take a look at Psalm 76.