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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 75:6 - 75:6
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The church here takes up the words of God, again beginning with the כִּי of Psa 75:3 (cf. the כִּי in 1Sa 2:3). A passage of the Midrash says הרים חוץ מזה כל הרים שׁבמקרא (everywhere where harim is found in Scripture it signifies harim, mountains, with the exception of this passage), and accordingly it is explained by Rashi, Kimchi, Alshêch, and others, that man, whithersoever he may turn, cannot by strength and skill attain great exaltation and prosperity.
(Note: E.g., Bamidbar Rabba ch. xxii.; whereas according to Berêshı̂th Rabba ch. lii. הָרִים is equivalent to דָּרֹום.)
Thus it is according to the reading מִמִּדְבָּר, although Kimchi maintains that it can also be so explained with the reading מִמִּדְבַּר, by pointing to מִרְמַס (Isa 10:6) and the like. It is, however, difficult to see why, in order to express the idea “from anywhere,” three quarters of the heavens should be used and the north left out. These three quarters of the heavens which are said to represent the earthly sources of power (Hupfeld), are a frame without the picture, and the thought, “from no side (viz., of the earth) cometh promotion” - in itself whimsical in expression - offers a wrong confirmation for the dissuasive that has gone before. That, however, which the church longs for is first of all not promotion, but redemption. On the other hand, the lxx, Targum, Syriac, and Vulgate render: a deserto montium (desertis montibus); and even Aben-Ezra rightly takes it as a Palestinian designation of the south, when he supplements the aposiopesis by means of מי שׁיושׁיעם (more biblically יָבֹע עֶזְרֵנוּ, cf. Psa 121:1.). The fact that the north is not mentioned at all shows that it is a northern power which arrogantly, even to blasphemy, threatens the small Israelitish nation with destruction, and against which it looks for help neither from the east and west, nor from the reed-staff of Egypt (Isa 36:6) beyond the desert of the mountains of Arabia Petraea, but from Jahve alone, according to the watchword of Isaiah: שֹֽׁפְטֵנוּ ה (Isa 33:22). The negative thought is left unfinished, the discourse hurrying on to the opposite affirmative thought. The close connection of the two thoughts is strikingly expressed by the rhymes הָרִים and יָדִים. The כִּי of Psa 75:8 gives the confirmation of the negation from the opposite, that which is denied; the כִּי of Psa 75:9 confirms this confirmation. If it were to be rendered, “and the wine foams,” it would then have been הַיַּיִן; מֶסֶךְ, which is undoubtedly accusative, also shows that yayin is also not considered as anything else: and it (the cup) foams (חָמַר like Arab. 'chtmr, to ferment, effervesce) with wine, is full of mixture. According to the ancient usage of the language, which is also followed by the Arabic, this is wine mixed with water in distinction from merum, Arabic chamr memzûg'e. Wine was mixed with water not merely to dilute it, but also to make it more pleasant; hence מָסַךְ signifies directly as much as to pour out (vid., Hitzig on Isa 5:22). It is therefore unnecessary to understand spiced wine (Talmudic קונדיטון, conditum), since the collateral idea of weakening is also not necessarily associated with the admixture of water. מִזֶּה refers to כֹּוס, which is used as masculine, as in Jer 25:15; the word is feminine elsewhere, and changes its gender even here in שְׁמָרֶיהָ (cf. Eze 23:34). In the fut. consec. וַיַּגֵּר the historical signification of the consecutive is softened down, as is frequently the case. אַךְ affirms the whole assertion that follows. The dregs of the cup - a dira necessitas - all the wicked of the earth shall be compelled to sip (Isa 51:17), to drink out: they shall not be allowed to drink and make a pause, but, compelled by Jahve, who has appeared as Judge, they shall be obliged to drink it out with involuntary eagerness even to the very last (Eze 23:34). We have here the primary passage of a figure, which has been already hinted at in Psa 60:5, and is filled in on a more and more magnificent and terrible scale in the prophets. Whilst Obadiah (Oba 1:16, cf. Job 21:20) contents himself with a mere outline sketch, it is found again, in manifold applications, in Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, and most frequently in Jeremiah (Jer 25:27., Jer 48:26; Jer 49:12), where in Psa 25:15. it is embodied into a symbolical act. Jahve's cup of intoxication (inasmuch as חֵמָה and חֶמֶר, the burning of anger and intoxicating, fiery wine, are put on an equality) is the judgment of wrath which is meted out to sinners and given them to endure to the end.