The psalmist Asaph sings out, “We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks; your name is near. People tell of your wondrous deeds” (Psalm 75:1). That might lead us to expect that this will be another of the many psalms that are about praise. Yet this one turns out to be about justice, because God responds with the promise that the time is coming when justice will be served. “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity” (75:2).

God warns the boastful, the wicked, the arrogant: “do not boast” and “do not lift up your horn” (75:4). A “horn” represents power here; we are to picture a strong and angry bull, neck muscles flexing from side to side, ready to drive the point of that horn right through someone. But no matter how powerful you think you are, you need to know that there is a foaming cup of judgment in the hand of the Almighty, and those who imagine they can scoff at God because they are strong and mighty “all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs” (75:8).

Throughout scripture a “cup” stands as a symbol of your lot in life or your fate: in the Psalms, for example, “the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot” (16:5), and famously “my cup runneth over” (23:5). Jesus prays, “If it be your will, take this cup from me” (Luke 22:42), and asks James and John, “Are you able to drink the cup I drink?” (Matthew 20:22, Mark 10:38).

What it means is that God is in charge of the fate of the wicked, holding a cup of judgment for them. Asaph can propose that he himself volunteers to be in charge of cutting the wicked down to size (Psalm 75:10); I sometimes volunteer for that job, too. But really Asaph knows that God is the one who does it (75:7), and I need to know that as well. At his best, Asaph trusts that God is the one who will take care of it; and in that assurance, he can just go on praising the Lord: “I will rejoice forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob” (75:9).

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Give us this confidence, O Lord, that you are the one who has judgment well in hand, and so we are free from this concern: give us hearts ready to praise you, knowing that you know all the details that we do not know, and will make it all come out in the end.

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