¹We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks, For Your name is near; Men declare Your wondrous works … ¹⁰And all the horns of the wicked He will cut off, But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

Pride is ubiquitous in this fallen world and it comes up in Scripture often. This psalm puts the teaching about it in song form: “For the choir director; set to Al-tashheth” (found in the inscription, which I call verse 0—this is part of the inspired text). Educators have long understood the value of music in the retention of their teaching. A song about the contrast between pride and righteousness would leave the congregants humming as they left the corporate worship. Witness the many hymns of the faith with deep biblical truth we have today.

The ancient Jews put this collection of songs into poetical and musical form and collected them in the Book of Psalms. This particular psalm was to be sung to the tune of “Al-tashheth,” which is translated, “Do not destroy” (as some English versions translate it). Of course, we don’t have the musical score or audio recording to know what that sounded like, but it would have been well-known to the people of that day.

The first verse starts with gratitude to God for His “wondrous works” and then immediately adds a quote from God. Since the ancient Hebrew language did not use punctuation like quotation marks, the change of person must be determined from the context. Verse one shows the psalm writer speaking on behalf of the congregation, using the first-person plural “we.” But in verse two, the speaker is quoted in the first-person singular, “I.” The content would indicate that God judges with equity and sets the pillars firmly. All the earth will melt (or tremble, as some translations put it), but God’s truth remains unassailed, like pillars holding up the universe (vs. 3).

God, the maker and sustainer of all, warns those who are proud and boastful, self-promoting and insolent, that such attitudes are like the earth that trembles and will be short-lived compared to eternity (vss. 4-5). No one can distort reality by defining the pillars of truth concerning themselves. No, God is the judge. He is the one who puts some people down and exalts others—there is no other objective, sovereign judge (vs. 7).

The judgment of the Lord is pictured as a cup of wine. (vs. 8). God used similar imagery through the prophet Jeremiah to warn those who rebelled against God:

For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me, “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.” (Jer. 25:15–16, emphasis added)

In this psalm, those proud and boastful, termed “the wicked,” will have judgment poured down their throats as they gag on the Lord’s wrath. Harsh sounding, to be sure, but that is what God thinks of the arrogant pride of putting oneself over everyone else, including God!

The psalm writer implies that he is in the camp of the righteous and not the camp of the wicked. Of course, he is not suggesting he is perfect, but he does put God first in his life, as evidenced by his declaring and singing God’s praises.

The antidote to pride is praise. We cannot praise God and at the same time praise ourselves. Even on the practical level, we would be foolish to live pridefully when we read of the end result: we will be cut down and reduced to powerlessness like a bull that has its horns cut off. Better to live humbly and righteously before God and allow Him to exalt us in His timing (vs. 9-10).

Lord, I confess my pride and desire to exalt myself, both in large ways and also in small, subtle ways. My desire is to move away from the dregs of Your wrath and dwell in the camp of the righteous and humble.