▼75:1 Verses 1 and 9: All the people thank God for what he has done. Because he has given them help, it tells them that God is with them. The Hebrew Bible says, ‘Your name is near to us.’ This is one way that the Israelites said ‘You are near to us.’ God was where his name was! In verse 9, only the psalmist speaks. He will always talk about what God has done. The ‘God of Jacob’ means ‘God of the Israelites.’

▼75:2 Verses 2, 6 and 7: Only God will be the judge, and he will be a fair judge. ‘At the time’, in verse 2, means ‘when God decides to be judge.’ This may be in the lives of people, or at the end when they die. If the psalm is about Sennacherib, then it was while he was alive. Later, when he died, God judged him again. In verse 6, we could translate ‘the mountains’ as ‘will lift up.’ They are the same word in Hebrew. Both are true. Nobody is a more important judge than God. It does not matter what direction they come from. And as verse 7 tells us, God ‘puts one person down and he lifts up another.’ This means that he says that one person is wrong (‘puts down’) and another person right (‘lifts up’).

▼75:3 Verse 3: Earthquakes. An earthquake is when the ground moves. Buildings and trees fall over. Big holes appear in the ground. People and animals become very frightened. When Sennacherib came, the people felt as if they were in an earthquake. They were very much afraid. It was not a real earthquake, but they were just as frightened. God is speaking in verses 2-5 (and also verse 10). God says in verse 3 ‘In an earthquake I can stop the ground moving.’ This is a picture that tells us this. In a war, God can stop the fighting. The word SELAH maybe means ‘stop and think and pray about it.’

▼75:4 Verses 4, 5 and 10: Horns. Many animals have horns on their heads. Cows, goats and deer are examples. The horns are bones that they fight with. The horns make them strong and powerful. So, in this psalm, horns are just a picture. The godless people (like Sennacherib) did not have horns on their heads! ‘Do not lift up your horn’ in verse 4 means ‘Do not show how strong you are.’ Maybe it also means ‘Do not fight.’ In verse 10 God says, ‘I will cut off the horns of the godless.’ This means that they will not be strong and powerful again. They will be like animals that have lost their horns. They cannot fight. But God’s people, the righteous, will be strong and powerful. But they must wait for ‘the time that God will choose’, verse 1. ‘Push your neck up high’ in verse 5 means ‘Think you are more important.’

▼75:8 Verse 8: A cup of wine. Wine is a drink with alcohol in it. This wine has spices in it. They make it taste different. The wine is a picture of God punishing the godless. ‘Punish’ means ‘hurt someone because they have done wrong things.’ Drinking the wine, then, means ‘punishing people.’ ‘Drink the last bit’ means that God will punish these people completely. This verse is a picture of God judging his enemies.