"He Raiseth Up the Poor": The Biblical Verse on the Seventh Jupiter Pentacle
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Every pentacle in the Key of Solomon carries a border — and that border is never merely decorative. The scriptural verses inscribed around the edges of Solomon's seals are understood in the grimoire tradition as active magical components: divine words that encode the seal's purpose, invoke the authority of the divine name, and anchor the talisman's power in sacred text.
The verse on the Seventh Pentacle of Jupiter is one of the most striking in the entire grimoire. It comes from Psalm 113, verse 7: "He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes."
Understanding this verse — its source, its context, its theological meaning, and its magical application — deepens your relationship with the seal and amplifies the power of your working.
Psalm 113: The Hallel of Reversal
Psalm 113 is the opening psalm of the Hallel — a collection of six psalms (113–118) sung at major Jewish festivals including Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, and Hanukkah. The word Hallel means praise, and these psalms are among the most joyful and exuberant in the entire Psalter.
Psalm 113 opens with an extended call to praise: "Praise ye the Lord. Praise, O ye servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord." It then moves into a description of God's transcendence — "Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high" — before pivoting to the verse that appears on the Seventh Pentacle.
The pivot is theologically significant. The psalm moves from God's transcendence (dwelling on high, above all nations) to God's immanence (stooping down to look at the earth) to God's action (raising the poor from the dust). The theological point is that the same God who transcends all creation is the God who intervenes in the most desperate human circumstances — who reaches down from the highest heights to lift the lowest of the low.
The Imagery of Dust and Dunghill
The verse's imagery is deliberately extreme. "The dust" and "the dunghill" are not merely metaphors for poverty — they are images of the absolute bottom of the social and material order. In the ancient Near Eastern context, to be in the dust was to be prostrate, defeated, humiliated. The dunghill (or ash heap, as some translations render it) was the place where the destitute gathered — outside the city, among the refuse, with no shelter and no resources.
The contrast with "among princes" is equally extreme. This is not a verse about modest improvement or gradual recovery. It is a verse about categorical reversal — about being taken from the very bottom and placed at the very top. From the ash heap to the throne room. From the refuse pile to the royal court.
This is the magical intention encoded in the Seventh Pentacle: not incremental progress, but radical elevation. The verse does not say "he helps the poor improve their circumstances." It says he raises them up — active, decisive, complete.
The Verse in Jewish Magical Tradition
The use of Psalm verses in magical practice has a long history in Jewish tradition. The Shimmush Tehillim — a medieval Jewish text on the magical uses of the Psalms — assigns specific psalms to specific purposes, and Psalm 113 appears in contexts related to divine intervention and the reversal of misfortune.
The broader tradition of using divine names and scriptural verses as magical instruments reflects the Jewish understanding that the words of Torah and Psalms carry inherent power — that the divine names embedded in scripture are not merely references to God but actual conduits of divine energy that can be invoked and directed.
When the compilers of the Key of Solomon placed this verse on the border of the Seventh Pentacle, they were drawing on this tradition — using the divine authority encoded in Psalm 113 to anchor and amplify the seal's magical purpose.
The Verse as Magical Affirmation
In working with the Seventh Pentacle, the border verse can be used as a spoken affirmation during charging rituals and daily practice. Speaking the verse aloud — particularly during the hour of Jupiter on Thursday — activates the divine authority it carries and aligns your intention with the seal's purpose.
Some practitioners speak the verse in its original Hebrew for maximum potency:
"Meqimi me'afar dal, me'ashpot yarim evyon, lehoshivi im-nedivim, im nedivei ammo."
Others work with the English translation, finding that the clarity of the meaning in their native language produces a stronger personal resonance. Both approaches are valid — what matters is the genuine engagement with the verse's meaning and the intention behind it.
The Verse and Your Working
When you wear the Seventh Pentacle of Jupiter, you are carrying this verse with you — a continuous invocation of the divine power that raises the poor from the dust. Let it inform how you hold your situation: not as a permanent condition, but as a temporary state that divine power is actively working to reverse.
The verse does not say "he might raise up the poor" or "he raises up the poor who deserve it." It says he raises them up — present tense, active, unconditional. This is the promise encoded in the seal. This is what you are invoking when you wear it.
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"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes." Carry this promise with you.
