I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn:
-In reliance on God's promise (Psalms 75:2-3), Israel warns the haughty foe no more to lift up the neck in pride, for Israel's Helper, God, has a cup of wrath which her enemy must drink.
Verse 4. I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly - Hebrew, laholedim tahollu, 'the insolent (vain glorious) ... insolently' (vain-gloriously) (Psalms 5:5, note; 73:3).
Lift not up the horn - to strike furiously in the pride of your strength. The image is from beasts whose strength is in their horn. Compare the same symbol of the world-powers (Daniel 7:7); Revelation 13:1). The original passage is Deuteronomy 33:17; cf. 1 Samuel 2:1; 1 Samuel 2:10).
Verse 5. Speak (not) with a stiff neck - as the Assyrian did, Isaiah 37:26; Isaiah 23:1-18, "Against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine, eyes on high?" Or construe, 'speak not stiff' or, wanton things with the neck (proudly lifted up).' The Hebrew accusative and the parallels (Psalms 31:18; Psalms 94:4; 1 Samuel 2:3) favour this translation. The neck uplifted is the emblem of overweening pride (Job 15:26).
Verse 6. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south - Hebrew, midbar: the desert-namely, that south of Palestine. But the Septuagint, Chaldaic, Syriac, etc., take the Hebrew for "promotion" х haariym (H7311)] as meaning 'mountains,' and join it with 'the desert.' So Hestenberg, 'For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert of the mountains (the southern desert, in which were the three mountains, Horeb, Sinai, and the modern Catharine, Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:4); but God is Judge:' supply thus to Psalms 75:6, 'the decision whereby the foe shall be put down, and we set up, cometh neither from the east,' etc. The present construct Hebrew form of 'the desert' in the Masoretic text requires this translation. But several manuscripts read the absolute form as the English version, which obviates the need of ellipsis: this is confirmed by the cognate, forms of the same Hebrew ( haariym (H7311)), in Psalms 75:4-5, 'lift up' ( tariymuw (H7311), and Psalms 75:7, "setteth up" ( yaariym (H7311)). 'Lifting up,' or promotion, 'comes neither from the east, the west, nor the south' (the quarter to which Judah at this very time was looking for help from Egypt, Isaiah 36:4-6); but God is the judge.
God is the Judge: he putteth down one, and setteth (lifteth) up another - (1 Samuel 2:7.) Promotion or lifting up is last in the Hebrew sentence, in order to mark it as the emphatic word.
Verse 8. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red - or else, 'fermenting.' '(The cup) is foaming with wine' (Hengstenberg).
It is full of mixture - i:e., the cup is full of wine mixed with spices, which increase its intoxicating power (Isaiah 5:22; Song of Solomon 8:2; Proverbs 23:30). The image expresses the stupifying effects of God's judgments (Psalms 60:3; Jeremiah 13:12).
But the dregs thereof, all the wicked ... shall wring them out. "But" - literally, only; i:e., they can do nothing else but (they cannot help themselves, but must) drain out the whole cup of wrath to the dregs.