The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"to whom vengeance belongeth," Hebrew El-neqamot (אֵל־נְקָמוֹת), God of recompense, to whom requital belongs. The oppressed cry to God as Judge: "O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth." They do not take repayment into their own hands; they name it as God's property and ask Him to exercise it.

"shew thyself," hofia (הוֹפִיעַ), shine forth, appear. The prayer is for God to come out into the open. While He stays unseen the wicked draw their own conclusions, so the plea is that He would appear where they cannot miss Him.

"judge of the earth," shofet ha'aretz (שֹׁפֵט הָאָרֶץ). "Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud." He is addressed by His office, and the office covers the whole earth, so no oppressor stands outside His jurisdiction.

"triumph," ya'alozu (יַעֲלֹזוּ), exult. "LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?" What galls is not merely that they prosper but that they are jubilant about it, exulting openly in the harm they do.

"hard things," atak (עָתָק), arrogant, insolent words. "How long shall they utter and speak hard things?" Their speech matches their conduct; they boast themselves, and end by scoffing, "The LORD shall not see."

"thine heritage," nachalatekha (נַחֲלָתֶךָ). "They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage." The victims are named as God's own possession, so the outrage done to widow, stranger, and fatherless is an outrage against Him.

Explanation

Notice, first, the ground on which the sufferer prays. He does not say, "let me take my revenge," but "O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth... shew thyself." Vengeance is God's alone, His prerogative as "judge of the earth", and that is precisely why the oppressed can lay down their own retaliation and appeal instead to the One whose right it is. The believer does not avenge; he prays for the Judge to act. Second, see who the victims are, for it exposes the cruelty of the wicked: "They break in pieces thy people... They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless." The wicked aim their violence precisely at those least able to defend themselves, the very ones God has always claimed as His special care. And third, and deepest, is the lie that lets them do it. "Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it." Here is the root of all their brutality: a practical atheism, a settled assumption that God is blind, that heaven does not watch, that they will never be called to account. It is not usually a theory they argue; it is a mood they live by, acting as if no one is looking. The whole rest of the psalm will be built to shatter that one false premise, for everything hangs on it. If God truly does not see, the wicked are safe; but if He does, their doom is sure, and the widow's cry is heard.

Gospel Focus

"O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth", the New Testament takes up this very truth to steady suffering saints. "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). Because judgment belongs to God, we are freed from the poison of revenge, and we follow the Lord Jesus, who "when he was reviled, reviled not again... but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter 2:23). The cry "how long?" is still on the lips of God's people, for the souls under the altar cry, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?" (Revelation 6:10). And the Judge will yet "shew himself": Christ will be revealed "in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God." So the oppressed need not take matters into their own hands. Lay your cause before the Judge of all the earth, the Lord Jesus, who sees every wrong and will render every reward, and wait for Him.

Word Study

"brutish," Hebrew bo'arim (בֹּעֲרִים), stupid, senseless. "Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?" Those who said the LORD does not see are addressed as men reasoning at the level of animals.

"he that planted the ear," hanota ozen (הֲנֹטַע אֹזֶן). The psalm demolishes the lie that God does not see, and does it with a question: "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" The Maker of hearing cannot Himself be deaf.

"he that formed the eye," im-yotzer ayin (אִם־יֹצֵר עַיִן). "He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" The argument is repeated for sight, and it is unanswerable: what God gave to His creatures He must first have possessed Himself.

"shall not he correct," halo yokhiach (הֲלֹא יוֹכִיחַ). "He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct?" The God who has disciplined whole nations will hardly overlook the men who break His people in pieces.

"the thoughts of man," machshevot adam (מַחְשְׁבוֹת אָדָם). "The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man." Not their words or deeds only, but the reasoning behind them, including the private conclusion that God takes no notice.

"vanity," hevel (הָבֶל), a breath, emptiness. And His verdict on that reasoning is given: "that they are vanity." All the confident calculation of the wicked amounts to a puff of air.

Explanation

This is one of the most crushing arguments in all of Scripture, and it works by turning the wicked's own bodies against their lie. They had said, "The LORD shall not see." The psalm answers: think about where your own eyes and ears came from. "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?" The reasoning is unanswerable: the God who invented hearing, who designed and gave the ear, cannot Himself be deaf; the God who invented sight, who formed the eye, cannot Himself be blind. It is absurd to imagine that the Source of a faculty lacks that faculty. The Giver of sight sees more perfectly than any eye He made; the Giver of hearing hears every whisper. Whatever excellence exists in the creature came from the Creator and exists in Him supremely. And then the psalm drives even deeper, past deeds to the mind itself: "The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." God does not merely see the outward acts of the wicked; He reads their very thoughts, and knows how empty they are, mere breath. There is no chamber of the heart hidden from Him. So the whole comfortable lie collapses. The wicked said God could not see; the psalm shows He sees the eye that will not look for Him, hears the mouth that boasts against Him, and knows the thought before it is spoken. The "brutish" who think otherwise are the truly senseless ones.

Gospel Focus

"He that formed the eye, shall he not see?", the all-seeing God who formed our senses took our nature in Jesus Christ, and in Him that all-seeing knowledge walked among men. "Jesus knew their thoughts" (Matthew 12:25); He "knew what was in man" (John 2:25) and needed no one to tell Him. Before Him "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:13). Paul takes the very words of this psalm and applies them to the boasting wisdom of the world: "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain" (1 Corinthians 3:20). So there is no hiding from Christ, neither for the wicked who think Him blind, nor for the believer who is tempted to secret sin. The eye that formed our eye beholds us always. To the oppressed that is comfort, for every wrong done to them is seen; to the sinner it is warning, for every secret is open; and to all it is a call to walk before the God who sees, in the Lord Jesus, from whom nothing is hid.

Word Study

"chastenest," Hebrew teyasserennu (תְּיַסְּרֶנּוּ), disciplinest, correctest as a father. The psalm turns to bless the disciplined believer: "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD." The correction is a father's, not a judge's, and that is why it can be called blessing.

"teachest him out of thy law," mittoratekha telammedennu (מִתּוֹרָתְךָ תְלַמְּדֶנּוּ). Discipline and instruction come together: God chastens "and teachest him out of thy law." The hard providence is paired with a word that explains it.

"held me up," yis'adeni (יִסְעָדֵנִי). "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up." He did not catch himself; something outside him took hold at the moment of slipping, and it was God's mercy.

"the multitude of my thoughts," rov sar'appai (רֹב שַׂרְעַפַּי), my crowding, anxious thoughts. "In the multitude of my thoughts within me." The trouble is inward as well as outward, a press of worries jostling one another where no one else can see them.

"thy comforts delight my soul," tanchumekha yesha'ash'u nafshi (תַּנְחוּמֶיךָ יְשַׁעַשְׁעוּ נַפְשִׁי). Into that crowd God's consolations come, and they do more than quiet it: they delight the soul. The comfort is not merely relief from anxiety but positive gladness in the middle of it.

Explanation

Here the psalm makes a turn so unexpected it can catch you off guard. It has been all about God's judgment on the wicked, and suddenly it pronounces a blessing, not on the comfortable, but on the afflicted: "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law." The very same word about God's dealing with men divides into two utterly different things. Upon the wicked God brings vengeance (verse 1), and it is their doom; upon His own children He brings chastening (verse 12), and it is their blessing. The hand is the same hand; the heart behind it is wholly different, a Judge to the one, a Father to the other. And notice that God's discipline never comes alone: it is joined to teaching, "and teachest him out of thy law." Affliction without instruction would only harden; but God turns the hard days into a classroom, using the trouble to drive His word deeper. Then the psalm grows intensely personal, and gives us two of the sweetest lines in the Psalter. "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up", at the very instant of falling, mercy caught him; he did not slip because a stronger hand was under him than his own. And then verse 19: "In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul." When anxious thoughts crowd and multiply in the mind, the remedy is not to empty the head but to meet the multitude of worries with the multitude of God's comforts. The more the cares, the more His comforts, until they do not merely calm the soul but delight it.

Gospel Focus

"Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD", the New Testament unfolds this blessing as the mark of true sonship in Christ. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6); His discipline is not the frown of a Judge but the care of a Father who is training His children, and though "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous," yet "afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11). And the comforts that delight the soul in the multitude of anxious thoughts flow from "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), and from the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent to abide with us. The mercy that "held me up" when the foot slipped is the keeping power of God, who "is able to keep you from falling" (Jude 24). So if you are His and under His chastening rod, do not read it as rejection; read it as love. The same Christ who will cut off the wicked is holding you up, teaching you through the trouble, and delighting your soul with His comforts.