Psalm 75:2

When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) When I.—Rather, When I have chosen my time, I will judge uprightly. This sense: “my time” being shown by the emphatic “I” of the Hebrew. (Comp. Acts 17:31.) The word rendered in the Authorised Version “congregation” (moed), has plainly here its first derivative sense of a set time, or “occasion.” (Comp. Psalm 102:13; Habakkuk 2:3.) So LXX. and Vulg. here; but Symmachus gives “synagogue.”

It is quite clear that the speaker of these words is God Himself, who suddenly, as in Psalm 46:10, breaks in with the announcement of judgment. But how far the Divine utterance extends in the psalm is not quite clear. Some end it with Psalm 75:3; others with Psalm 75:5.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 75:2. When I shall receive the congregation — The first verse was spoken by many persons, We give thanks, &c.; here the speaker is one, and that one is plainly a ruler, who promises that when he shall have received the congregation, or, as מועדmay be properly rendered, an appointed, or fit time, or season; that is, when he shall be established in power and authority, at a fit time and place, he will judge uprightly, and introduce a thorough reformation into a kingdom which, as the following verse makes manifest, stood greatly in need of it. From these circumstances Dr. Horne, with several other commentators, thinks it probable “David is speaking here of his advancement to the throne of Israel, and the intended rectitude of his administration when he should be settled thereon.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

75:1-5 We often pray for mercy, when in pursuit of it; and shall we only once or twice give thanks, when we obtain it? God shows that he is nigh to us in what we call upon him for. Public trusts are to be managed uprightly. This may well be applied to Christ and his government. Man's sin threatened to destroy the whole creation; but Christ saved the world from utter ruin. He who is made of God to us wisdom, bids us be wise. To the proud, daring sinners he says, Boast not of your power, persist not in contempt. All the present hopes and future happiness of the human race spring from the Son of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

When I shall receive the congregation - The marginal rendering is, "Take a set time." The phrase is thus rendered in most of the versions. So the Septuagint, "When I take the time" - ὅταν λάβω καιρὸν hotan labō kairon. So the Vulgate, "When I accept the time." So Luther, "When in its own time." So De Wette, "When I take the time." According to this interpretation, this is the language of God, as if implying that, although "the earth" was then "dissolved," or although disorders were allowed to exist, yet he would take a set time, or take the appointed time for judgment, and would pronounce a sentence on the conduct of people, and deal with them in a righteous manner, punishing the rebellious, and vindicating his own cause. The proper interpretation of the passage turns on the meaning of the Hebrew word rendered in the text "congregation" - מועד mô‛êd. See the word explained in the notes at Psalm 74:8. It may mean a set time, an appointed season, 1 Samuel 13:8, 1 Samuel 13:11; or a coming together, an assembly, Job 30:23; or a place of assemblage, as the tabernacle, etc.; Exodus 27:21; Exodus 40:22; Psalm 74:8. It may, therefore, be applied to the congregation of the Jewish people - the nation considered as an assemblage for the worship of God; and the idea of taking this, or receiving this, may be applied to the act of assuming authority or sovereignty over the people, and hence, the language may be used to denote the entrance on the discharge of the duties of such sovereignty. The language would be ap plicable to one who had the right of such an elevation to power - a prince - an heir apparent - in a time when his right was disputed; when there was an organized opposition to him; or when the nation was in a state of anarchy and confusion. It seems to me that this supposition best accords with the proper meaning of the language, and with the scope of the psalm.

I will judge uprightly - I will put down all this opposition to law. I will deal with exact justice between man and man. I will restore order, and the supremacy of law, to the state. The language, therefore, according to this interpretation, is not the language of God, but that of a prince having a right to the throne, and about to ascend it in a time of great misrule and disorder.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2, 3. These verses express the purpose of God to administer a just government, and in a time of anarchy that He sustains the nation. Some apply the words to the Psalmist.

receive the congregation—literally, "take a set time" (Ps 102:13; Ho 2:3), or an assembly at a set time—that is, for judging.

The Treasury of David

2 When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.

3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.

4 I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn.

5 Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck.

Psalm 75:2

"When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly." This is generally believed to be the voice of God, who will, when he accepts his people, mount his judgment seat and avenge their cause in righteousness. It is rendered by some, "I will take a set time;" and by others, "I will seize the moment."

"God never is before his time,

He never is too late."

He determines the period of interposition, and when that arrives swift are his blows and sure are his deliverances. God sends no delegated judge, but sits himself upon the throne. O Lord, let thy set time come for grace. Tarry no longer, but for the truth and the throne of Jesus be thou speedily at work. Let the appointed assize come, O Jesus, and sit thou on thy throne to judge the world in equity.

Psalm 75:3

"The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved." When anarchy is abroad, and tyrants are in power, everything is unloosed, dissolution threatens all things, the solid mountains of government melt as wax; but even then the Lord upholds and sustains the right. "I bear up the pillars of it." Hence, there is no real cause for fear. While the pillars stand, and stand they must for God upholds them, the house will brave out the storm in the day of the Lord's appearing a general melting will take place, but in that day our covenant God will be the sure support of our confidence.

"How can I sink with such a prop

As my eternal God,

Who bears the earth's huge pillars up,

continued...

Matthew Poole's Commentary

When I shall receive the congregation, to wit, the whole congregation, or body of thy people, to wit, all the tribes; which are now distracted and disordered by a civil war, which is a great hinderance to the administration of justice. Or, when I shall receive or obtain the appointment, i.e. what God hath appointed and promised to me, to wit, the full and firm possession of the kingdom; or, the time or place appointed by God for that work. Some make these and the following passages the words of God concerning his church or people; which seems not probable; partly because he speaks of God in the third person, as one distinct from him that speaks these words, Psalm 75:7,8; and partly because it is evident that one and the same person speaks from hence to the end of the Psalm, and the ninth verse cannot be spoken by God.

I will judge uprightly; I will not use my power tyrannically and wickedly, as Saul did, and as most other princes do; but holily and righteously, for the good of my people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

When I shall receive the congregation,.... Some render it, from the Arabic signification of the word, "the promise" (o); the Spirit promised, the gifts of the Spirit, which Christ received for men, and gave to men, whereby he executes the judgment or government of the church committed to him: others the time, so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic versions, to which agrees the Targum, the word signifying a set appointed time, Psalm 102:14, and so may respect the time appointed for the judgment of the world, which when come, Christ will execute in a most righteous manner, as follows; see Acts 17:31, but whereas the people of Israel met at the door of the tabernacle, which from thence was called "Ohel Moed", the tabernacle of the congregation; hence the word is used for a congregation, and here designs the general assembly and church of the firstborn written in heaven, even all the elect of God; these were received by Christ of his Father in eternity, when he espoused them to himself, and undertook the care of them; and they are received by him, one by one, in effectual calling; and in like manner are they received by him into glory at death; but when they are all gathered in, and are prepared for him as a bride for her husband, then will he receive them all in a body, and present them to himself a glorious church during the thousand years' reign; upon which will proceed the judgment of the wicked; see Revelation 20:5,

I will judge uprightly; in equity, in strict justice, in the most righteous manner, rendering to every man according to his works; hence the future judgment is called a righteous one, and so is the Judge; no injustice will be done to men, but the strictest integrity, uprightness, and impartiality, will be observed in pronouncing the several sentences on the righteous and on the wicked, and in adjudging them to their several places and states.

(o) "promissa", Schultens animadv. p. 174. "festi dona", Gusset. p. 334.

Geneva Study Bible

{c} When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.

(c) When I see my time (says God) to help your miseries, I will come and set all things in good order.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. When I reach the appointed time,

I Judge uprightly.

The ‘appointed time’ (Psalm 102:13; Habakkuk 2:3; Acts 17:31) is the proper moment foreordained in the Divine counsels and known to God. The intervention of Jehovah at the moment when the Assyrians are ripe for judgement is a favourite thought with Isaiah (Isaiah 10:32-33; Isaiah 18:4-5).

The second I is emphatic: I, whatever men may do; I, whatever men may think.

2, 3. God speaks, as in Psalm 46:10, and His words are virtually an answer to men’s thoughts. Men may have thought that He had abdicated His function as Judge of all the earth: not so: He was only waiting for the fitting moment for action.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - When I shall receive the congregation; rather, when I shall have appointed a set time. It is agreed that the speaker, in this verse and the next, is God, who announces that he is about to descend in judgment. This, however, he will do "at his own set time," for which men must wait patiently (comp. Habakkuk 2:3). I will judge uprightly; or, "with uprightness" (comp. Psalm 58:1). Psalm 75:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The church in anticipation gives thanks for the judicial revelation of its God, the near approach of which He Himself asserts to it. The connection with ו in וקרוב שׁמך presents a difficulty. Neither here nor anywhere else is it to be supposed that ו is synonymous with כּי; but at any rate even כי might stand instead of it. For Hupfeld's attempt to explain it: and "near is Thy name" Thy wonders have declared; and Hitzig's: and Thou whose Name is near, they declare Thy wondrous works - are past remedy. Such a personification of wonders does not belong to the spirit of Hebrew poetry, and such a relative clause lies altogether beyond the bounds of syntax. If we would, however, take וקרוב שׁמך, after Psalm 50:23, as a result of the thanksgiving (Campensis), then that for which thanks are rendered would remain undefined; neither will it do to take קרוב as referring to the being inwardly present (Hengstenberg), since this, according to Jeremiah 12:2 (cf. Deuteronomy 30:14), would require some addition, which should give to the nearness this reference to the mouth or to the heart. Thus, therefore, nothing remains for us but to connect the nearness of the Name of God as an outward fact with the earnest giving of thanks. The church has received the promise of an approaching judicial, redemptive revelation of God, and now says, "We give Thee thanks, we give thanks and near is Thy Name;" it welcomes the future act of God with heartfelt thanksgiving, all those who belong to it declare beforehand the wonders of God. Such was really the position of matters when in Hezekiah's time the oppression of the Assyrians had reached its highest point - Isaiah's promises of a miraculous divine deliverance were at that time before them, and the believing ones saluted beforehand, with thanksgiving, the "coming Name of Jahve" (Isaiah 30:27). The כּי which was to be expected after הודינו (cf. e.g., Psalm 100:4.) does not follow until Psalm 75:3. God Himself undertakes the confirmation of the forthcoming thanksgiving and praise by a direct announcement of the help that is hailed and near at hand (Psalm 85:10). It is not to be rendered, "when I shall seize," etc., for Psalm 75:3 has not the structure of an apodosis. כּי is confirmatory, and whatever interpretation we may give to it, the words of the church suddenly change into the words of God. מועד in the language of prophecy, more especially of the apocalyptic character, is a standing expression fore the appointed time of the final judgment (vid., on Habakkuk 2:3). When this moment or juncture in the lapse of time shall have arrived, then God will seize or take possession of it (לקח in the unweakened original sense of taking hold of with energy, cf. Psalm 18:17; Genesis 2:15): He Himself will then interpose and hold judgment according to the strictly observed rule of right (מישׁרים, adverbial accusative, cf. במישׁרים, Psalm 9:9, and frequently). If it even should come to pass that the earth and all its inhabitants are melting away (cf. Isaiah 14:31; Exodus 15:15; Joshua 2:9), i.e., under the pressure of injustice (as is to be inferred from Psalm 75:3), are disheartened, scattered asunder, and are as it were in the act of dissolution, then He (the absolute I, אנכי) will restrain this melting away: He setteth in their places the pillars, i.e., the internal shafts (Job 9:6), of the earth, or without any figure: He again asserts the laws which lie at the foundation of its stability. תכּנתּי is a mood of certainty, and Psalm 75:4 is a circumstantial clause placed first, after the manner of the Latin ablative absolute. Hitzig appropriately compares Proverbs 29:9; Isaiah 23:15 may also be understood according to this bearing of the case.

The utterance of God is also continued after the Sela. It is not the people of God who turn to the enemies with the language of warning on the ground of the divine promise (Hengstenberg); the poet would then have said אמרנוּ, or must at least have said על־כּן אמרתּי. God Himself speaks, and His words are not yet peremptorily condemning, as in Psalm 50:16., cf. Psalm 46:11, but admonitory and threatening, because it is not He who has already appeared for the final judgment who speaks, but He who announces His appearing. With אמרתּי He tells the braggarts who are captivated with the madness of supposed greatness, and the evil-doers who lift up the horn or the head,

(Note: The head is called in Sanscrit iras, in Zend aranh, equals κάρα; the horn in Sanscrit, ringa, i.e., (according to Burnlouf, Etudes, p. 19) that which proceeds from and projects out of the head (iras), Zend rva equals κέρας, קרן (ḳarn).)

hat He will have once for all said to them, and what they are to suffer to be said to them for the short space of time till the judgment. The poet, if we have assigned the right date to the Psalm, has Rabshakeh and his colleagues before his mind, cf. Isaiah 37:23. The ל, as in that passage, and like אל in Zechariah 2:4 (vid., Khler), has the idea of a hostile tendency. אל rules also over Psalm 75:6: "speak not insolence with a raised neck." It is not to be construed עתק בצוּאר, with a stiff neck. Parallel passages like Psalm 31:19; Psalm 94:4, and more especially the primary passage 1 Samuel 5:3, show that עתק is an object-notion, and that בצוּאר by itself (with which, too, the accentuation harmonizes, since Munach here is the vicarius of a distinctive), according to Job 15:26, has the sense of τραχηλιῶτες or ὑπεραυχοῦντες.