1 God of vengeances, Jehovah,
God of vengeances, shine forth.
2 Lift up Thyself, Judge of the earth,
Return recompense to the proud.
3 For how long, Jehovah, shall the wicked,
For how long shall the wicked exult?
4 They well out, they speak--arrogance,
They give themselves airs like princes--all these workers of
iniquity.
5 Thy people, Jehovah, they crush in pieces,
And Thine inheritance they afflict.
6 Widow and stranger they kill,
And orphans they murder.
7 And they say, "Jah sees [it] not,
And the God of Jacob considers it not."
8 Consider, ye brutish among the people,
And ye fools, when will ye be wise?
9 The Planter of the ear, shall He not hear?
Or the Former of the eye, shall He not see?
10 The Instructor of the nations, shall He not punish,--
The Teacher of knowledge to man?
11 Jehovah knows the thoughts of men,
For they are [but] a breath.
12 Happy the man whom Thou instructest, Jehovah,
And teachest from Thy law,
13 To give him rest from the days of evil,
Till there be digged for the wicked a pit.
14 For Jehovah will not spurn away His people,
And His inheritance He will not forsake.
15 For to righteousness shall judgment return,
And after it shall all the upright in heart [follow].
16 Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers?
Who will set himself for me against the workers of iniquity?
17 Unless Jehovah had been a help for me,
My soul had soon dwelt in silence.
18 When I say, "My foot slips,"
Thy loving-kindness, Jehovah, stays me.
19 In the multitude of my divided thoughts within me,
Thy comforts delight my soul.
20 Can the throne of destruction be confederate with Thee,
Which frameth mischief by statute?
21 They come in troops against the soul of the righteous,
And innocent blood they condemn.
22 But Jehovah is to me a high tower,
And my God the rock of my refuge.
23 And He brings back upon them their iniquities,
And by their own evil will He root them out,
Jehovah our God will root them out.
The theme of God the Judge is closely allied to that of God the King,
as other psalms of this group show, in which His coming to judge the
world is the subject of rapturous praise. This psalm hymns Jehovah's
retributive sway, for which it passionately cries, and in which it
confidently trusts. Israel is oppressed by insolent rulers, who have
poisoned the fountains of justice, condemning the innocent, enacting
unrighteous laws, and making a prey of all the helpless. These
"judges of Sodom" are not foreign oppressors, for they are "among the
people"; and even while they scoff at Jehovah's judgments they call
Him by His covenant names of "Jah" and "God of Jacob." There is no
need, therefore, to look beyond Israel for the originals of the dark
picture, nor does it supply data for fixing the period of the psalm.
The structure and course of thought are transparent. First comes an
invocation to God as the Judge of the earth (vv. 1, 2); then follow
groups of four verses each, subdivided into pairs,--the first of
these (vv. 3-6) pictures the doings of the oppressors; the second
(vv. 7-11) quotes their delusion that their crimes are unseen by
Jehovah, and refutes their dream of impunity, and it is closed by
a verse in excess of the normal number, emphatically asserting
the truth which the mockers denied. The third group declares the
blessedness of the men whom God teaches, and the certainty of His
retribution to vindicate the cause of the righteous (vv. 12-15).
Then follow the singer's own cry for help in his own need, as one
of the oppressed community, and a sweet reminiscence of former aid,
which calms his present anxieties. The concluding group goes back to
description of the lawless law-makers and their doings, and ends with
trust that the retribution prayed for in the first verses will verily
be dealt out to them, and that thereby both the singer, as a member
of the nation, and the community will find Jehovah, who is both "my
God" and "our God," a high tower.
The reiterations in the first two verses are not oratorical
embellishments, but reveal intense feeling and pressing need. It is
a cold prayer which contents itself with one utterance. A man in
straits continues to cry for help till it comes, or till he sees it
coming. To this singer, the one aspect of Jehovah's reign which was
forced on him by Israel's dismal circumstances was the judicial.
There are times when no thought of God is so full of strength as
that He is "the God of recompenses," as Jeremiah calls Him (li.
56), and when the longing of good men is that He would flash forth,
and slay evil by the brightness of His coming. They who have no
profound loathing of sin, or who have never felt the crushing weight
of legalised wickedness, may shrink from such aspirations as the
psalmist's, and brand them as ferocious; but hearts longing for the
triumph of righteousness will not take offence at them.
The first group (vv. 3-6) lifts the cry of suffering Faith, which
has almost become impatience, but turns to, not from, God, and so
checks complaints of His delay, and converts them into prayer. "How
long, O Lord?" is the burden of many a tried heart; and the Seer
heard it from the souls beneath the altar. This psalm passes quickly
to dilate on the crimes of the rulers which forced out that prayer.
The portrait has many points of likeness to that drawn in Psalm
lxxiii. Here, as there, boastful speech and haughty carriage are
made prominent, being put before even cruelty and oppression. "They
well out, they speak--arrogance": both verbs have the same object.
Insolent self-exaltation pours from the fountain of their pride in
copious jets. "They give themselves airs like princes." The verb in
this clause may mean _to say among themselves_ or _to boast_, but is
now usually regarded as meaning _to behave like a prince_--_i.e._,
to carry oneself insolently. Vain-glorious arrogance manifest in
boasting speech and masterful demeanour characterises Eastern rulers,
especially those who have risen from low origin. Every little village
tyrant gave himself airs, as if he were a king; and the lower his
rank, the greater his insolence. These oppressors were grinding the
nation to powder, and what made their crime the darker was that
it was Jehovah's people and inheritance which they thus harassed.
Helplessness should be a passport to a ruler's care, but it had
become a mark for murderous attack. Widow, stranger, and orphan are
named as types of defencelessness.
Nothing in this strophe indicates that these oppressors are
foreigners. Nor does the delusion that Jehovah neither saw nor cared
for their doings, which the next strophe (vv. 7-11) states and
confutes, imply that they were so. Cheyne, indeed, adduces the name
"God of Jacob," which is put into their mouths, as evidence that
they are pictured as knowing Jehovah only as one among many tribal
or national deities; but the name is too familiar upon the lips of
Israelites, and its use by others is too conjectural, to allow of such
a conclusion. Rather, the language derives its darkest shade from
being used by Hebrews, who are thereby declaring themselves apostates
from God as well as oppressors of His people. Their mad, practical
atheism makes the psalmist blaze up in indignant rebuke and impetuous
argumentation. He turns to them, and addresses them in rough, plain
words, strangely contrasted with their arrogant utterances regarding
themselves. They are "brutish" (cf. Psalm lxxiii. 22) and "fools."
The psalmist, in his height of moral indignation, towers above these
petty tyrants, and tells them home truths very profitable for such
people, however dangerous to their utterer. There is no obligation
to speak smooth words to rulers whose rule is injustice and their
religion impiety. Ahab had his Elijah, and Herod his John Baptist. The
succession has been continued through the ages.
Delitzsch and others, who take the oppressors to be foreigners,
are obliged to suppose that the psalmist turns in ver. 8 to those
Israelites who had been led to doubt God by the prosperity of the
wicked; but there is nothing, except the exigencies of that mistaken
supposition, to show that any others than the deniers of God's
providence who have just been quoted are addressed as "among the
people." Their denial was the more inexcusable, because they belonged
to the people whose history was one long proof that Jehovah did see
and recompense evil. Two considerations are urged by the psalmist,
who becomes for the moment a philosophical theologian, in confutation
of the error in question. First, he argues that nothing can be in the
effect which is not in the cause, that the Maker of men's eyes cannot
be blind, nor the Planter of their ears deaf. The thought has wide
applications. It hits the centre, in regard to many modern denials as
well as in regard to these blunt, ancient ones. Can a universe plainly
full of purpose have come from a purposeless source? Can finite persons
have emerged from an impersonal Infinity? Have we not a right to argue
upwards from man's make to God his maker, and to find in Him the
archetype of all human capacity. We may mark that, as has been long ago
observed, the psalm avoids gross anthropomorphism, and infers, not that
the Creator of the ear has ears, but that He hears. As Jerome (quoted
by Delitzsch) says, "Membra sustulit, efficientias dedit."
In ver. 10 a second argument is employed, which turns on the thought
that God is the educator of mankind. That office of instructor cannot
be carried out unless He is also their chastiser, when correction
is needed. The psalmist looks beyond the bounds of Israel, the
recipient of special revelation (cf. ver. 12), and recognises, what
seldom appears in the Old Testament, but is unquestionably there, the
great thought that He is teaching all mankind by manifold ways, and
especially by the law written in their hearts. Jewish particularism,
the exaggeration into a lie of the truth of God's special revelation
to Israel, came to forget or deny God's education of mankind. Alas
that the same mistake was inherited by so many epochs of the Church!
The teaching of the strophe is gathered up in ver. 11, which exceeds
the normal number of four verses in each group, and asserts strongly
the conclusion for which the psalmist has been arguing. The rendering
of _b_ is, "For (not That) they (_i.e._ men) are but a breath." "The
ground of the Omniscience which sees the thoughts of men through and
through is profoundly laid in the vanity, _i.e._ the finiteness, of
men, as the correlative of the Infiniteness of God" (Hupfeld).
In the strophe vv. 12-15, the psalmist turns from the oppressors
to their victims, the meek of the earth, and changes his tone from
fiery remonstrance to gracious consolation. The true point of view
from which to regard the oppressors' wrong is to see in it part of
God's educational processes. Jehovah, who "instructs" all men by
conscience, "instructs" Israel, and by the Law "teaches" the right
interpretation of such afflictive providences. Happy he who accepts
that higher education! A further consolation lies in considering the
purpose of the special revelation to Israel, which will be realised
in patient hearts that are made wise thereby--namely, calm repose of
submission and trust, which are not disturbed by any stormy weather.
There is possible for the harassed man "peace subsisting at the heart
of endless agitation."
If we recognise that life is mainly educational, we shall neither
be astonished nor disturbed by sorrows. It is not to be wondered at
that the schoolmaster has a rod, and uses it sometimes. There is
rest from evil even while in evil, if we understand the purpose of
evil. Yet another consolation lies in the steadfast anticipation of
its transiency and of the retribution measured to its doers. That is
no unworthy source of comfort. And the ground on which it rests is
the impossibility of God's forsaking His people, His inheritance.
These designations of Israel look back to ver. 5, where the crushed
and afflicted are designated by the same words. Israel's relation
to Jehovah made the calamities more startling; but it also makes
their cessation, and retribution for them on their inflicters, more
certain. It is the trial and triumph of Faith to be sure, while
tyrants grind and crush, that Jehovah has not deserted their victims.
He cannot change His purpose; therefore, sorrows and prosperity are
but divergent methods, concurring in carrying out His unalterable
design. The individual sufferer may take comfort from his belonging
to the community to which the presence of Jehovah is guaranteed for
ever. The singer puts his convictions as to what is to be the upshot
of all the perplexed riddles of human affairs into epigrammatic
form, in the obscure, gnome-like saying, "To righteousness shall
judgment return," by which he seems to mean that the administration
of justice, which at present was being trampled under foot, "shall
come back to the eternal principle of all judicial action, namely,
righteousness,"--in shorter words, there shall be no schism between
the judgments of earthly tribunals and justice. The psalmist's hope
is that of all good men and sufferers from unjust rulers. All the
upright in heart long for such a state of things and follow after it,
either in the sense of delight in it ("Dem Recht müssen alle frommen
Herzen zufallen"--Luther), or of seeking to bring it about. The
psalmist's hope is realised in the King of Men, whose own judgments
are truth, and who infuses righteousness and the love of it into all
who trust in Him.
The singer comes closer to his own experience in the next strophe
(vv. 16-19), in which he claims his share in these general sources of
rest and patience, and thankfully thinks of past times, when he found
that they yielded him streams in the desert. He looks out upon the
multitude of "evil-doers," and, for a moment, asks the question which
faithless sense is ever suggesting and pronouncing unanswerable: "Where
shall I find a champion?" As long as our eyes range along the level of
earth, they see none such. But the empty earth should turn our gaze to
the occupied throne. There sits the Answer to our almost despairing
question. Rather, there He stands, as the proto-martyr saw Him,
risen to His feet in swift readiness to help His servant. Experience
confirms the hope of Jehovah's aid; for unless in the past He had been
the singer's help, he could not have lived till this hour, but must
have gone down into the silent land. No man who still draws breath is
without tokens of God's sufficient care and ever-present help. The
mystery of continued life is a witness for God. And not only does
the past thus proclaim where a man's help is, but devout reflection
on it will bring to light many times when doubts and tremors were
disappointed. Conscious weakness appeals to confirming strength. If we
feel our foot giving, and fling up our hands towards Him, He will grasp
them and steady us in the most slippery places. Therefore, when divided
thoughts (for so the picturesque word employed in ver. 19 means)
hesitate between hope and fear, God's consolations steal into agitated
minds, and there is a great calm.
The last strophe (vv. 20-23) weaves together in the finale, as a
musician does in the last bars of his composition, the main themes
of the psalm--the evil deeds of unjust rulers, the trust of the
psalmist, his confidence in the final annihilation of the oppressors,
and the consequent manifestation of God as the God of Israel. The
height of crime is reached when rulers use the forms of justice as
masks for injustice, and give legal sanction to "mischief." The
ancient world groaned under such travesties of the sanctity of Law;
and the modern world is not free from them. The question often
tortures faithful hearts, "Can such doings be sanctioned by God,
or in any way be allied to Him?" To the psalmist the worst part
of these rulers' wickedness was that, in his doubting moments, it
raised the terrible suspicion that God was perhaps on the side of
the oppressors. But when such thoughts came surging on him, he fell
back, as we all have to do, on personal experience and on an act of
renewed trust. He remembered what God had been to him in past moments
of peril, and he claimed Him for the same now, his own refuge and
fortress. Strong in that individual experience and conviction, he
won the confidence that all which Jehovah had to do with the throne
of destruction was, not to connive at its evil, but to overthrow
it and root out the evil-doers, whose own sin will be their ruin.
Then Jehovah will be known, not only for the God who belongs to, and
works for, the single soul, but who is "our God," the refuge of the
community, who will not forsake His inheritance.