Psalms 10

Higgaion, meditation. Selah, pause. God has revealed Himself as present and attentive, notwithstanding His apparent oblivion and inaction, by doing justice on His enemies, or rather by making them do justice on themselves, converting their devices against others into means of self-destruction. In view of this most striking attestation of God’s providential government, the reader is summoned to reflect, and enabled so to do by a significant and solemn pause. The sense of meditation or reflection is clear from Psalm 19 : 14 and Lam. 3 : 62. The addition of Higgaion to Selah here confirms the explanation already given of the latter word. With this understanding of the terms, we may well say, to ourselves or others, in view of every signal providential retribution, especially where sin is conspicuously made its own avenger, Higgaion Selah! A.

18. For the needy shall not always be forgotten.** This is a sweet promise for a thousand occasions, and when pleaded before the throne in His name who comprehends in Himself every promise and is indeed Himself the great promise of the Bible, it would be found like all others, yea and amen. R. Hawker.—The needy may think themselves and others may think them forgotten for a while; their expectation of help from God may seem to have perished, and to have been forever frustrated; but he that believes does not make haste; the vision is for an appointed time, and at the end it shall speak; we may build upon it as undoubtedly true that God’s people shall not always be forgotten, nor shall they be disappointed of their hopes from the promise. God will not only remember them at last, but will make it appear that He never did forget them. H.—God causeth us by delay to make the more prayers; and the more we pray, the longer we stay, the more comfort we shall have, and the more sure we are that we shall have it in the latter end. Distinguish between denying and delaying. In God our Father are all dimensions of love and that in an infinite degree; infinitely infinite: what if He defer us? so do we our children, albeit we mean no other but to give them, yet we love to see them wait, that so they may have from us the best things, when they are at the best, in the best time, and in the best manner; if a mother should forget her only boy, yet God hath an infinite memory; He nor can nor will forget us; the expectation of the waiter shall not fail forever—that is, never. R. Capel.

19,20. To be judged, in the case of the wicked, is of course to be condemned. To be judged in God’s presence, or at His tribunal, is of course to be condemned without appeal. A.—Put them in fear, O Lord (v. 20); strike a terror upon them, make them afraid with Thy judgments. God knows how to make the strongest and stoutest of men to tremble and to flee when none pursues; and thereby He makes them know and own that they are but men; they are but weak men, unable to stand before the holy God; sinful men, the guilt of whose consciences makes them subject to alarms. It is much for the glory of God, and the peace and welfare of the universe, that men should know and consider themselves to be but men, depending creatures, mutable, mortal, and accountable. H.—Crowns leave their wearers but men, degrees of eminent learning make their owners not more than men, valor and conquest cannot elevate beyond the dead level of “but men;” and all the wealth of Cressus, the wisdom of Solon, the power of Alexander, the eloquence of Demosthenes, if added together, would leave the possessor but a man. S.

1. 1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? 2. 2 In the pride of the wicked the poor is hotly pursued; Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.

2. 3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, And the covetous renounceth, yea, contemneth the LORD. 4. 4 The wicked, in the pride of his countenance, saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.

5. His ways are firm at all times ; Thy judgments are far above out of his sight : As for all his adversaries, he puffeth at them. 6 He saith in his heart, I shall not be moved : To all generations I shall not be in adversity. 7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression : Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity. 8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages : In the covert places doth he murder the innocent : His eyes are privily set against the helpless. 9 He lurketh in the covert as a lion in his den : He lieth in wait to catch the poor : He doth catch the poor, when he draweth him in his net. 10 He croucheth, he boweth down, And the helpless fall by his strong ones. 11 He saith in his heart, God hath forgotten : He hideth his face ; he will never see it.

12. Arise, O LORD ; O God, lift up thine hand : Forget not the poor. 13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God, And say in his heart, Thou wilt not require it? 14 Thou hast seen it ; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to take it into thy hand : The helpless committeth himself unto thee ; Thou hast been the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break thou the arm of the wicked ; And as for the evil man, seek out his wickedness till thou find none. 16 The LORD is King for ever and ever : The nations are perished out of his land. 17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the meek : Thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear : 18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, That man which is of the earth may be terrible no more.

THE Psalmist calls upon God to chastise the unbridled insolence and scorn of the wicked. These have reached such a pitch that it seems as if God winked at evil. Men are not only doing wickedness, but boasting of their wickedness ; and, finding that justice does not overtake them, are acting as if in the conviction that there is no God. The prosperity (v. 5), security (v. 6), insolence (vs. 4, 11), deceit (v. 7), and violence (vs. 8-10) of these despisers of God is vividly portrayed. The Psalm concludes with the triumphant assertion of faith, that despite all seeming disorders, Jehovah is King, and that He does hear and answer the cry of the oppressed. It is impossible to say to what period of Jewish history the Psalm is to be referred. The state of society which it supposes is peculiar. The violent oppressors belonged apparently to heathen nations, who had not yet been finally driven out of the land, but whose speedy destruction the poet anticipates (v. 16). P.

1. The Psalm begins with the plaintive inquiry, why Jehovah delays to deliver His oppressed ones. It is not captious murmuring that is expressed in the question, but an earnest longing that God would not delay to act in such a manner as His nature and His promise demand. D.—This expostulation betrays no defect either of reverence or faith, but, on the contrary, indicates a firm belief that God is able, and must be willing, to deliver His own people. Such demands are never uttered either by scepticism or despair. A.

3,4. Quite a new turn has been given by the Revisers to the thought in this difficult Psalm, in a number of instances, and greatly to its advantage in clearness and force. The necessity for such changes had long been felt by scholars, and now that they are made, they will commend themselves to all as at least suitable to their connection. It is not said of the wicked that he “blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth ;” but as the parallelism requires, he is put on a level with the covetous, and it is declared of him that he “renounceth, yea, contemneth the Lord.” And so in the following verse, which carries on the same thought, we read in the Revision, “The wicked in the pride of his countenance saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.” E. C. B.

3. Boasteth of his heart’s desire. Every Christless life, whatsoever the superficial differences in it, is really a life shaped according to and under the influence of passionate desires.—Given the immense varieties of tastes and likings and desires which men have, the point and characteristic feature of every godless life is that, be these what they may, they become the dominant power in that life. The sway and tyranny of such lusts and desires may be sometimes broken by remonstrances of conscience ; sometimes suppressed by considerations of prudence ; sometimes by habit, by business, by circumstances that force people into channels into which they would not naturally let their lives run. And often and often in such a life there may be a dim desire for something better. But apart from Christ it is not conscience that rules our lives; apart from Christ it is not sense of duty that is strongest; apart from Christ the real directing impulse to which the inward proclivities, if not the outward activities, do yield in the main and on the whole, is the things that we like, the passionate desires of nature, the sensuous and godless heart. A. M.

In themselves, impulsion, desire, appetite, have no moral character, but the man who gives himself up to the control of any one of these has a moral character. He lays aside his true manhood. He debases himself. Outwardly he may do nothing unseemly, but he permits that to rule which ought to serve. He falls into bondage, and nothing but favoring outward circumstances, or an amiable temper, or a selfish prudence, can stand between him and any crime. This bondage may assume a great variety of forms, and be more or less inveterate and debasing, but in every form it is bondage, and more to be dreaded than that which is physical. We call it bondage, and it is so. It is an unnatural position, a degradation. Let the spiritual nature with its powers of comprehension abdicate its seat and work in subjection to the lower and blind nature of apperency and impulsion, and the broad wisdom appropriate to that nature degenerates into the cunning of the serpent. Intellectual power becomes a curse, and instead of holding his erect position and communing with the heavens, the man, that which is distinctively so, goes upon his belly and eats dust. In this bondage there is no trouble or sacrifice of self-denial, for the higher nature, in whose behalf alone self-denial is possible, is set aside. If we add to this the blindness and paralysis that come upon the spiritual powers when they are thus ignored and abused, the light that is within us becoming darkness, we shall not wonder that it is so seldom, if ever, that any one who has come under the power of this bondage breaks away from it of his own accord, or by his own strength. M. H.

The desires are meant to be impelling powers. It is absurdity and the destruction of true manhood to make them, as we so often do, directing powers, and to put the reins into their hand. They are the wind, not the helm; the steam, not the driver. Let us keep things in their right places. Remember that the constitution of human nature, as God has meant it, is this: down there, under hatches, under control, the strong impulses; above them, the enlightened understanding: above that, the conscience—that has a loftier region than that of thought to move in, the moral region; and above that, the God, whose face, shining down upon the apex of the nature thus constituted, irradiates it with light which filters through all the darkness, down to the very base of the being; and sanctifies the animal, and subdues the impulses, and enlightens the understandings, and calms and quickens the conscience, and makes ductile and pliable the will, and fills the heart with fruition and tranquillity, and orders the life after the image of Him that created it. A. M.

4. The pride of his countenance.** Pride is the undermost and original vice of all. It is base because at its best it cannot but imply that the eyes look downward only and have never been raised above their own measure; for there is not a man so lofty in his standing or capacity but he must be humble in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know, nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether understand not one; not to speak of that wicked and fond attributing of such excellency as he may have to himself and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminality of pride; nor of those viler forms of it founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irrational contempt of them. Ruskin.

Thoughts. The noun properly means schemes, devices, rather than thoughts. The whole of his conduct, all his purposes and plans are carried on as if there were no God—in a practical denial of His existence. P.—A personal God would disturb the ungodly in his doings; he therefore prefers to deny His existence, and thinks: there is only a fate, and that is blind; an absolute, and that has no eyes; an idea, and that cannot intervene in the affairs of men. D.

Among a numerous and increasing class of the higher and middle ranks there is an inward withdrawing from the life and personal being of God, a turning of the thoughts exclusively to the so-called physical attributes, to the Omnipresence in the counterfeit form of Ubiquity, to the Immensity, the Infinity, the Immutability, the attributes of space, with a notion of Power as their substratum; a Fate, in short, not a Moral Creator and Governor! Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the conception of God differ essentially from that of gravitation (conceived as the cause of gravity) in the understanding of those who represent the Deity not only as a necessary, but as a necessitated being? those for whom Justice is but a scheme of general laws, and Holiness and the Divine hatred of sin, yea, and Sin itself, are words without meaning, or mere accommodations to a rude and barbarous race! S. T. C.

What a wretched condition hath sin brought man unto, that the great God who “filleth heaven and earth” should yet have no place in the heart which He hath especially made for Himself! The sun is not so clear as this truth, that God is, for all things in the world are because God is. If He were not, nothing could be. It is from Him that wicked men have that strength they have to commit sin, therefore sin proceeds from atheism, especially these plotting sins; for if God were more thought on, He would take off the soul from sinful contrivings, and fix it upon Himself. Sibbes.—All their thought is, that there is no God. This is there made the bottom, the foundation, the groundwork and reason of all their wicked plots and injurious projects, and deceitful carriages and proceedings, that seeing there is no God or power above them to take notice of it, to regard or requite them, therefore they may be bold to go on. T. Goodwin.

5. The Chaldee paraphrase, the cognate dialects, and the analogy of Job 20: 21, are in favor of the rendering, his ways are strong, i.e., his fortunes are secure, his life is prosperous, which moreover agrees best with the remainder of the verse, as a description of the sinner’s outward state. Thus understood, the second clause describes him as untouched or unaffected by God’s providential judgments, and the third as easily ridding himself of all his human adversaries. Both together represent him as impregnable on all sides, in appearance equally beyond the reach of God and man. As this immunity from danger, strictly understood, could exist only in appearance, the whole verse may be regarded as an expression of the sinner’s own opinion rather than his true condition.

6. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved; to generation and generation (I am one) who (shall) not (be) in evil, or in evil case, i.e., in trouble, in distress. This is a natural expression of the proud security engendered in the natural man by great prosperity. He hath said, implying that the cause has already been in operation long enough to show its natural effect. In his heart, to himself, in a spirit of self-gratulation and self-confidence. To age and age, throughout all ages or all generations. The strength of this expression shows that the speaker is not a real person, but the ideal type of a whole class. The sinner who thus says in his heart is not the sinner of one period or country, but the sinner of all times and places. The form of the last clause in Hebrew is peculiar and emphatic. He says, I shall never be in evil or adversity, as if the very supposition of such a contingency would be not only groundless but absurd in his case. There could scarcely be a stronger expression of the self-relying spirit of the sinner, as contrasted with the saints’ implicit confidence in God’s will and power, not only to preserve him from falling, but to raise him when he does fall. A.

6-9. He proudly sets trouble at defiance, and is confident of the continuance of his own prosperity. He had said in his heart, and pleased himself with the thought, I shall not be moved; my goods are laid up for many years, and I shall never be in adversity. Those are nearest ruin who thus set it furthest from them, v. 6. His mouth is full of cursing. Those he cannot do a real mischief to, yet he will spit his venom at, and breathe out the slaughter which he cannot execute. Thus have God’s faithful worshippers been anathematized and cursed with hell, book, and candle. Where there is a heart full of malice, there is commonly a mouth full of curses. He is false and treacherous. He cares not what lies he tells, what oaths he breaks, nor what arts of dissimulation he uses to compass his ends, v. 7. His malice is against the innocent, who never provoked him; against the poor, who cannot resist, and over whom it will be no glory to triumph. Those are perfectly lost to all honesty and honor, against whose mischievous designs neither innocence nor poverty will be any man’s security. Those that have power ought to protect the innocent and provide for the poor, vs. 8, 9. H.

8. “He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.” All this strength of metaphor and imagery is intended to mark the assiduity, the cunning, the artifice, to which the enemies of truth and righteousness will often resort in order to accomplish their corrupt and vicious designs. The great powers which have oppressed the Church of Christ in different ages have answered to this description. They have sat in ambush for the poor of Christ’s flock; they have adopted every stratagem that infernal skill could invent; and all for the vain purpose of attempting to blot out a “name which shall endure forever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun.” Morison.

Consider the persecutions of the good; fires for the saints of all ages, dungeons for the friends of liberty and benefactors of their times. What does it mean? What face shall we put on this outstanding demonstration of the world? No other but this, that cursing and bitterness, the poison even of asps, and more, is entered into the heart of man. He hates with a diabolical hatred. Feeling “how awful goodness is,” the sight of it rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood. And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness, by the spectacle of a good and holy life. The fiercest of animals are capable of no such devilish instigation; because they are too low to be capable of goodness, or even of the thought. But here is a creature who cannot bear the reminder, even of good, or of anything above the ruin where his desolated glory lies. Oh, how great is the nature which is capable of this dire frenzy! H. B.

11. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hath hidden His face, He hath not seen,** doth not see, and will not see, forever. The opening words are the same, and have the same sense, as in v. 6 above. The three parallel clauses which follow all express the same idea—namely, that God takes no note of human offences. This is first expressed by the figure of forgetfulness; then by that of deliberately refusing to see; then by a literal and direct affirmation that He does not see, either the sufferings of His people or the malice of their enemies; and that this is not a transient or occasional neglect, but one likely to continue forever. A.—As God’s foreknowledge extends to all acts that shall be done, so His remembrance extends to all acts that have been done. We may as well say, God foreknows nothing that shall be done to the end of the world, as that He forgets anything that hath been done from the beginning of the world. Charnock.

13. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God, and say in his heart, Thou wilt not require it?** Insensibility to God’s retributive providence leads to a denial of the same; and thence a denial of the truth of a future judgment; and thence a contempt of all human restraints and penalties, if by any act of power or lying they may be evaded. The whole of this Psalm is, in fact, an argument that not mere atheism, but a disbelief in future punishment, would break up all the foundations of social morality, and set men in a wild and savage freedom of “cursing and deceit and fraud.” Take away the idea of a God, whose providence is personal, superintending and retributive, and you leave nothing for restraint but a present low expediency—nothing but self-interest in the present life, which, if there were no God, would be impossible to be demonstrated as on the side of virtue. Cheever.

Because the Lord continues to spare them, therefore they go on to provoke Him. As He adds to their lives, so they add to their lusts. Because justice delays punishment, they imagine she denies to punish them; because she does not always reprove them for their sins, they suppose He always approves of their sins. But let such know that the silent arrow can destroy as well as the roaring cannon. Though the patience of God be lasting, yet it is not ever-lasting. W. Secker.

14. Thou hast seen it.** An emphatic, energetic protest against the words immediately preceding, and also with a reference to the “He will never see” (v. 11), throwing back the word in the mouth of the wicked. There is a time coming, he feels assured, when all this disorder will be set right. God is not the passive spectator of human affairs which these men deem Him. He “considers” (i.e., regards with interest and sympathy) what is going on. The helpless, therefore, may leave all to God—and with the more confidence, because God has been the helper of those who, like the orphan, are deprived of human protectors. This appeal to past experience is always a ground of confidence. The road we are now travelling may be very dark; but let us look back, and on some spot which we have passed we shall see the light shining. P.

“Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand.” God is all-eye to see, and all-hand to punish His enemies. From Divine oversight there is no hiding, and from Divine justice there is no fleeing. Wanton mischief shall meet with woful misery, and those who harbor spite shall inherit sorrow. Verily there is a God which judgeth in the earth. Nor is this the only instance of the presence of God in the world; for while He chastises the oppressor, He befriends the oppressed. S.—Let the persecuted encourage themselves with a well-grounded faith, not only that Thou hast seen it, but that Thou dost behold all the mischief that is done by the hands, and all the spite and malice that lurk in the hearts of these oppressors; it is all known to Thee, and observed by Thee; nay, not only Thou hast seen it, and dost behold it, but Thou wilt requite it, wilt recompense it into their bosoms, by Thy just and avenging hand. H.

“Thou art the helper of the fatherless.” God doth exercise a more special providence over men in miserable circumstances; and therefore among His other titles this is one, to be a “Helper of the fatherless.” It is the argument the Church used to express her return to God; Hos. 14:3, “For in Thee the fatherless find mercy.” What greater comfort is there than this, that there is One presides in the world who is so wise He cannot be mistaken, so faithful He cannot deceive, so pitiful He cannot neglect His people, and so powerful that He can make stones even to be turned into bread if He please! God doth not govern the world only by His will as an absolute monarch, but by His wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not His greatest pleasure to show His sovereign power or His inconceivable wisdom, but His immense goodness, to which He makes the other attributes subservient. Charnock.

16. Jehovah (is) king!** He is not dethroned, as His enemies imagine; He is still king, and will so remain, perpetuity and eternity, forever and ever. Lost, perished, are nations, the heathen, i.e., hostile nations, from, out of His land, the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, the land of which He is the king in a peculiar sense, distinct from that of providential ruler. The Psalmist sees Jehovah still enthroned, not only as the sovereign of the world, but of His people. A.

16-18. The triumph of faith, which, knowing that Jehovah is King, already sees by anticipation His righteous judgment executed. The bold plunderers who have so long infested the land are already swept away, says the singer, so sure is he of the issue. The land, which is Jehovah’s land, must “be purged of all evil-doers,” as once of the Canaanites, who were driven out. Israel may be “mightily oppressed,” as by Sisera of old; but God will hear his cry, and give strength to his trembling heart (v. 17), and so manifest His power that these tyrants who, with all their boasting, are but weak mortal men (v. 18), shall no longer oppress His people. P.

17. The desire of the meek.** Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God in the name of Christ, for such things as are agreeable to His will. It is an offering of our desires. Desires are the soul and life of prayer; words are but the body; now as the body without the soul is dead, so are prayers unless they are animated with our desires: “Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble.” God heareth not words, but desires. T. Watson.

Notice the logic of this verse. It is simple, forcible, accurate logic. It runs thus: “Thou hast,” “Thou wilt.” “Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the meek: Thou wilt prepare their heart.” And the same blessed logic is carried a step further; for you read, “Thou wilt,” and then again, “Thou wilt”: “Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.” Faith first of all concludes that God will bless because of former blessings, and then she is so sure of her conclusion that upon it she is prepared to build up a further confidence. She expects because she has experienced, and experiences already what she expects. Join these two sentences together in your minds: “Thou wilt prepare their heart: Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.” S.—God first prepares the heart of His people, and then gives them an answer of peace; nor may we expect His gracious answer but in this way; so that God’s working upon us is the best earnest of His working for us. He prepares the heart for prayer by kindling holy desires and strenghening our most holy faith, fixing the thoughts, and raising the affections, and then He graciously accepts the prayer; He prepares the heart for the mercy itself that is wanting and prayed for; makes us fit to receive it and use it well, and then gives it unto us. The preparation of the heart is from the Lord, and we must seek unto Him for it (Prov. 16:1). H.

Faith is the very life of prayer, whence springs hope and comfort with it, to uphold the soul and keep it steady under storms with the promises: and, as Aaron and Hur to Moses, keeping it from fainting, strengthening the hands when they would begin to fail. Such is the force of this preparing of the heart, which God gives as an assurance and pledge of His inclining His ear to hear. It signifies the establishing of the heart, as that indeed is a main point of its preparedness for prayer. L.

18. The sense here is, that weak and short-lived man shall not continue to insult and defy Almighty God. It implies a wish or prayer, but is in form a strong expression of the Psalmist’s confident assurance that it will be so, and in connection with the similar expressions of the two preceding verses, forms a worthy and appropriate close of the entire composition. A.