Psalms 75:8

On Neginoth--(See on Psa 4:1, title). This Psalm commemorates what the preceding anticipates: God's deliverance of His people by a signal interposition of power against their enemies. The occasion was probably the events narrated in Kg2 19:35; Isa. 37:1-28. (Compare Psa 46:1-11). (Psa 76:1-12) These well-known terms denote God's people and Church and His intimate and glorious relations to them.

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup,.... Another reason why men should not act haughtily and arrogantly; for by the cup are meant afflictions, calamities, and judgments, which are measured out in proportion to men's sins, and are of God's appointing, and in his hands, and at his disposal and the wine is red; an emblem of the wrath of God this cup is full of, as it is explained, Rev 14:10, where there is a reference to this passage; for it is a cup of fury, of trembling, and of indignation: Isa 51:17, it is full of mixture; has many ingredients in it, dreadful and shocking ones, though it is sometimes said to be without mixture, Rev 14:10, without any allay, alluding to the mixing of wine with water in the eastern countries; see Pro 9:2, and he poureth out of the same; his judgments upon men in this world, in all ages; on some more, others less, as their sins call for, or his infinite wisdom judges meet and proper: but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them; the whole cup that God has measured out and filled up shall be poured out at last, and all be drank up; the very dregs of it by the wicked of the world, when they shall be punished with everlasting destruction in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: this will be the portion of their cup, Psa 11:6.

Though this psalm is attributed to Asaph in the title, yet it does so exactly agree with David's circumstances, at his coming to the crown after the death of Saul, that most interpreters apply it to that juncture, and suppose that either Asaph penned it, in the person of David, as his poet-laureat (probably the substance of the psalm was some speech which David made to a convention of the states, at his accession to the government, and Asaph turned it into verse, and published it in a poem, for the better spreading of it among the people), or that David penned it, and delivered it to Asaph as precentor of the temple. In this psalm, I. David returns God thanks for bringing him to the throne (Psa 75:1, Psa 75:9). II. He promises to lay out himself for the public good, in the use of the power God had given him (Psa 75:2, Psa 75:3, Psa 75:10). III. He checks the insolence of those that opposed his coming to the throne (Psa 75:4, Psa 75:5). IV. He fetches a reason for all this from God's sovereign dominion in the affairs of the children of men (Psa 75:6-8). In singing this psalm we must give to God the glory of all the revolutions of states and kingdoms, believing that they are all according to his counsel and that he will make them all to work for the good of his church. To the chief musician, Al-taschith. A psalm or song of Asaph.