Psalms 58:11

So that a man shall say,.... Any man, and every man, especially, that is observing, wise, and knowing; he shall conclude, from such a dispensation of things, from God's dealing with the wicked after

So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth. So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous.

And these administrations of God’ s providence shall be so evident and convincing, that not only good men shall be sensible thereof, but any man that sees them, yea, even such as were apt to dispute or doubt of God’ s providence, shall upon this eminent occasion break forth into such exclamations as this: Now I see that religion is not a vain and unprofitable thing, and that there is a God who doth now observe and govern, and, when he sees fit, judgeth the inhabitants of the earth, and will hereafter judge the whole world in righteousness, and recompense every man according to his works.

Psalms 58:11 So that a man shall say, Verily [there is] a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.Ver. 11. So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward] Not the religious only, but the rational, Passim et palam haec duo profitebuntur, shall everywhere, and all abroad, say, as here, There is a reward] See my Righteous Man’ s Recompense. Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth] Sitteth not idle in heaven, letting things run here at sixes and sevens, as fate or blind fortune will. Curiosus est, plenusque negotii Deus, saith Cicero.

Verse 11. So that a man shall say] That is, people, seeing these just judgments of God, shall say, There is a reward (פרי peri, fruit) to the righteous man. He has not sown his seed in vain; he has not planted and watered in vain: he has the fruit of his labours, he eats the fruit of his doings. But wo to the wicked, it is ill with him; for the reward of his hands has been given him. He is a God that judgeth in the earth] There is a God who does not entirely defer judgment till the judgment-day; but executes judgment now, even in this earth; and thus continues to give such a proof of his hatred to sin and love to his followers that every considerate mind is convinced of it. And hence arise the indisputable maxims: "There is, even here, a reward for the righteous;" "There is a God who, even now, judgeth in the earth." I have seen Indian priests who professed to charm, not only serpents, but the most ferocious wild beasts; even the enraged elephant, and the royal tiger! Two priests of Budhoo, educated under my own care, repeated the Sanscrit incantations to me, and solemnly asserted that they had seen the power of them repeatedly and successfully put to the test. I have mislaid these incantations, else I should insert them as a curiosity; for to charms of the same nature the psalmist most undoubtedly alludes. The term חובר chober, which we translate charmer, comes from חבד to join, or put together; i.e., certain unintelligible words or sentences, which formed the spell. I once met with a man who professed to remove diseases by pronouncing an unintelligible jingling jargon of words oddly tacked together. I met with him one morning proceeding to the cure of a horse affected with the farcin. With a very grave countenance he stood before the diseased animal, and, taking off his hat, devoutly muttered the following words; which, as a matter of peculiar favour, he afterwards taught me, well knowing that I could never use them successfully, because not taught me by a woman; "for," said he, "to use them with success, a man must be taught them by a woman, and a woman by a man." What the genuine orthography may be I cannot pretend to say, as I am entirely ignorant of the language, if the words belong to any language: but the following words exactly express his sounds: - Murry fin a liff cree Murry fin a liss cree Ard fin deriv dhoo Murry fin firey fu Murry fin elph yew. When he had repeated these words nine times, he put on his hat and walked off, but he was to return the next morning, and so on for nine mornings successively, always before he had broken his fast.

11. So that a man shall say] Rather, So that men shall say: the mass of men, who are neither ‘righteous’ nor ‘wicked,’ but as it were spectators of the conflict between the righteous and the wicked. Verily] This particle expresses the recognition of a truth which has been obscured or questioned: ‘after all,’ ‘surely.’ Cp. Psalms 73:1. a reward] Lit. fruit. Cf. Isaiah 3:10. Their patient continuance in well-doing bears its harvest in due time (Galatians 6:9). verily he is a God] Better, Verily there is a God (R.V.). Contrary however to the general usage when God is spoken of, the predicate is in the plural: and perhaps Elτhξm is meant to be taken somewhat more vaguely, in parallelism and contrast to the judges of Psa 58:1-2—the contrast holds whether ηlξm, ‘gods,’ is read in Psalms 58:1 or not—as Divine Powers. But the reading is not above suspicion. The LXX and Syr. have that judgeth them, i.e. does the righteous justice (Psalms 43:1), the final m being read as the pronominal suffix, not as the sign of the plural[27]. [27] They must have found ωׁ ?τθν written defectively and read shτph’tβm not shτph’tξm.For like confidence in the final manifestation of God’s judgement see Psalms 7:11 ff.; Psalms 9:7 ff., Psalms 9:19; Psalms 11:4 ff.; and cp. Luke 18:7 ff.

So that a man shall say - That is, every man shall say, or people everywhere shall see this. This expresses the result of a close observation of the divine dealings among people.

10, 11. These verses present the acquiescence of the righteous in the just judgment of the wicked, and the happy deliverance of the godly. Vengeance—Judicial justice.