Psalm 59:10-12 – Psalm 59:13-17

Psalm 59:10-12

Psalm 59:10-12

10. The God of my mercy will prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies. 11. Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord! our shield. 12. The sin of their mouth, the words of their lips; let them be taken in their pride: and let them speak of cursing and lying.

10. The God of my mercy will prevent me In the Hebrew, there is the affix of the third person, but we have the point which denotes the first. The Septuagint has adopted the third person, and Augustine too ingeniously, though with a good design, has repeatedly quoted the passage against the Pelagians, in proof that the grace of God is antecedent to all human merit. In the same manner, he has again and again cited the preceding verse, to refute the arrogancy of those who boast of the power of free-will. “I will put in trust my strength with thee,” he says; “that is, men must subject themselves with all modesty and humility to God, as having no strength but that with which he supplies them.” Now, it may be said with great plausibility, that the man puts his strength in trust with God, who declares that he has no strength but what comes from him, and who depends entirely upon his help. The sentiment inculcated is also, without all doubt, a pious and instructive one; but we must be ever on our guard against wresting Scripture from its natural meaning. The Hebrew word קדמ, kidem, means no more than to come forward seasonably; and David simply intimates that the divine assistance would be promptly and opportunely extended. The scope of the words is, that God will interpose at the very moment when it is required, however much he may retard or defer his assistance. Were it not that we are hurried on by the excessive eagerness of our own wishes, we would sufficiently recognize the promptness with which God hastens to our help, but our own precipitance makes us imagine that he is dilatory. To confirm his faith, he calls him the God of his mercy, having often proved him to be merciful; and the experience of the past afforded him good hopes of what he might expect in the future. The idea of some, that David uses the word in an active sense, and praises his own mercy, is poor and unnatural. Its passive use is quite common.

Note 367. “We have חסדו, his mercy, with the points חסדי, my mercy, the keri being for the one, and the kethib for the other. And, accordingly, of the interpreters, some read the one, some the other, both certainly meaning the same thing: the Chaldee, ‘the God of my grace, or goodness, or mercy;’ but the LXX. ‘Ο Θεός μοῦ τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ,’ ‘My God his mercy,’ and so the Latin.” — Hammond Green translates, “My God shall prevent me with his loving-kindness.”

Note 368. Horsley reads, “God shall give me ready help.”

11 Slay them not, lest my people forget David very properly suggests this to his own mind, as a consideration which should produce patience. We are apt to think, when God has not annihilated our enemies at once, that they have escaped out of his hands altogether; and we look upon it as properly no punishment, that they should be gradually and slowly destroyed. Such being the extravagant desire which almost all, without exception, have, to see their enemies at once exterminated, David checks himself, and dwells upon the judgment of God to be seen in the lesser calamities which overtake the wicked. It is true, that were not our eyes blinded, we would behold a more evident display of divine retribution in cases where the destruction of the ungodly is sudden; but these are so apt to fade away from our remembrance, that he had good reason to express his desire that the spectacle might be one constantly renewed, and thus our knowledge of the judgments of God be more deeply graven upon our hearts. He arms and fortifies himself against impatience under delays in the execution of divine judgment, by the consideration that God has an express design in them, as, were the wicked exterminated in a moment, the remembrance of the event might speedily be effaced. There is an indirect censure conveyed to the people of Israel for failing to improve the more striking judgments of God. But the sin is one too prevalent in the world even at this day. Those judgments which are so evident that none can miss to observe them without shutting his eyes, we sinfully allow to pass into oblivion; so that we need to be brought daily into that theater where we are compelled to perceive the divine hand. This we must never forget when we see God subjecting his enemies to a gradual process of destruction, instead of launching his thunders instantly upon their head. He prays that God would make them to wander, as men under poverty and misery, who seek in every direction, but in vain, for a remedy to their misfortunes. The idea is still more forcibly described in the word which follows, make them descend, or, cast them down. He wished that they might be dragged from that position of honor which they had hitherto occupied, and thrown to the ground, so as to present, in their wretchedness and degradation, a constant illustration of the wrath of God. The word בחילך, becheylcha, which we have translated, in thy power, some render, with thy army, understanding the people of God. But it is more probable that David calls to his assistance the power of God for the destruction of his enemies, and this because they deemed themselves invincible through those worldly resources in which they trusted. As a further argument for obtaining his request, he intimates in the close of the verse that he was now pleading the cause of the whole Church, for he uses the plural number, O God our shield Having been chosen king by divine appointment, the safety of the Church stood connected with his person. The assault made upon him by his enemies was not an assault upon himself merely as a private individual, but upon the whole people, whose common welfare God had consulted in making choice of him. And this suggested another reason why he should patiently submit to see the judgments of God measured out in the manner which might best engage their minds in assiduous meditation.

12 The sin of their mouth, the words of their lips Some interpreters read, for, or, on account of the sin of their mouth, supplying the causal particle, that the words may be the better connected with the preceding verse. And there can be no doubt that the reason is stated here why they deserved to be subjected to constant wanderings and disquietude. The words as they stand, however, although abrupt and elliptical, well express the meaning which David would convey; as if he had said, that no lengthened proof was necessary to convict them of sin, which plainly showed itself in the mischievous tendency of their discourse. Wickedness, he tells us, proceeded from their mouth., They vomited out their pride and cruelty. That this is the sense in which we are to understand the words, is confirmed by what immediately follows — Let them be taken in their pride. He here points to the source of that insolence which led them with such proud and contumelious language, and in such a shameless manner, to oppress the innocent. He then specifies the sin of their lips, adding, that they spoke words of cursing and falsehood By this he means that their mouth was continually filled with horrid imprecations, and that they were wholly addicted to deceit and to calumniating. Those have mistaken the meaning of David who give a passive signification to the word which I have translated to speak, and understand him as saying that the wicked would be accounted examples of divine vengeance, the plain and notorious marks of which were written upon them.

Note 369. This is the reading adopted by Jerome, and also by Horsley, who remarks, that in Jerome’s copies the words, “sin” and “discourse,” had certainly the preposition כ prefixed.

Note 370. The Syriac translation of the first part of the verse is, “The discourse of their mouth is the sin of their lips.” That is, whatever their lips speak is sin; so many words, so many sins.

Psalm 59:13-17

Psalm 59:13-17

13. Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be, and let them know unto the ends of the earth that God ruleth in Jacob. Selah. 14. And at evening they will return; they will make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. 15. They will wander up and down to eat; if they be not satisfied, they will even lodge all night long. 16. But I will sing of thy power, I will praise thy mercy in the morning; for thou hast been my fortress and refuge in the day of my trouble. 17. My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms; for God is my defence, the God of my mercy.

Note 371. “The literal translation, to eat, i.e., to devour, may be best.” — Archbishop Secker. From the great attention which is paid to external purity in the East, and in consequence of dogs being reckoned unclean, as they were by the Jews under the law, the inhabitants do not admit them into their houses, and even carefully avoid touching them in their streets, by which they would consider themselves defiled. But though not there domesticated as with us, dogs are to be found in great numbers, and crowd the streets. They are not attached to any particular person or family, nor accounted the property of any one; and though it is not uncommon for some of the inhabitants, from motives of superstition, to give money weekly or monthly to butchers and bakers to feed them at stated times, and though some even leave legacies at their death for the same purpose, yet they must necessarily subsist in a great measure on what they can seize or steal; and, being very numerous, they are perpetually wandering about in large troops seeking for something to devour. — (Harmer’s Observations, volume 1, p. 344.) To these circumstances the Psalmist clearly alludes in the 14th and 15th verses, when he compares the behavior of his enemies to that of dogs. He repeats what he had said in the 5th verse; but here he intends to convey a different idea. “Let them do what they may;” as if he had said, “I am safe under the protection of God.”

Note 372. “C’est, combien qu’ils ne soyent.” — Fr. marg. “That is, though they be not satisfied.”

Note 373. “In the morning. It should seem this hath a relation to Saul’s servants watching for him in the morning to kill him, (1 Samuel 19:11;) meaning, At that time when those people imagine to have me in their hands I shall be in safety, and have cause to praise and bless thee for my deliverance.” — Annotations on the Bible by English Divines.

13 Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be David may seem to contradict himself in praying for the utter destruction of his enemies, when immediately before he had expressed his desire that they might not be exterminated at once. What else could he mean when he asks that God would consume them in wrath, but that he would cut them off suddenly, and not by a gradual and slower process of punishment? But he evidently refers in what he says here to a different point of time, and this removes any apparent inconsistency, for he prays that when they had been set up for a sufficient period as an example, they might eventually be devoted to destruction. It was customary with the victorious Roman generals, first to lead the captives which had been kept for the day of triumph through the city, and afterwards, upon reaching the capital, to give them over to the lictors for execution. Now David prays that when God had, in a similar manner, reserved his enemies for an interval sufficient to illustrate his triumph, he would upon this consign them to summary punishment. The two things are not at all inconsistent; first, that the divine judgments should be lengthened out through a considerable period, to secure their being remembered better, and that then, upon sufficient evidence being given to the world of the certainty with which the wicked are subjected in the displeasure of God to the slower process of destruction, he should in due time bring them forth to final execution, the better to awake, by such a demonstration of his power, the minds of those who may be more secure than others, or less affected by witnessing moderate inflictions of punishment. He adds, accordingly, that they may know, even to the ends of the earth, that God ruleth in Jacob Some would insert the copulative particle, reading, that they may know that God rules in Jacob, and in all the nations of the world, an interpretation which I do not approve, and which does violence to the sense. The allusion is to the condign nature of the judgment, which would be such that the report of it would reach the remotest regions, and strike salutary terror into the minds even of their benighted and godless inhabitants. He was more especially anxious that God should be recognised as ruling in the Church, it being preposterous that the place where his throne was erected should present such an aspect of confusion as converted his temple into a den of thieves.

Note 374. Williams observes, that the Hebrew rendered consume “literally means to finish, bring to an end; namely, the banditti. The Psalmist, verse 11, prays, ‘Slay them not;’ i.e., take not away their lives as individuals, but put an end to the conspiracy.”

14 And at evening they shall return It is of no consequence whether we read the words in the future tense or in the subjunctive, understanding it to be a continuance of the preceding prayer. But it seems more probable that David, after having brought his requests to a close, anticipates the happy issue which he desired. And he makes an apt allusion to what he had already said of their insatiable hunger. The words which he had formerly used he repeats, but with a different application, ironically declaring that they would be ravenous in another sense, and that matters would issue otherwise than they had looked for. Above he had complained that they made a noise like dogs, adverting to the eagerness and fierceness with which they were bent upon mischief; now he derides their malicious efforts, and says, that after wearying themselves with their endless pursuit all day, they would go disappointed of their purpose. He uses no longer the language of complaint, but congratulates himself upon the abortive issue of their activity. The Hebrew word which I have translated, if not, in the close of the fifteenth verse, is by some considered to be the form of an oath. But this is an over-refined interpretation. Others would have the negation repeated, reading, if they shall not have been satisfied, neither shall they lodge for the night But this also is far-fetched. The simple and true meaning suggests itself at once, that, although they might not be satisfied, they would be forced to lay themselves down, and the misery of their hunger would be aggravated, by the circumstance that they had passed the whole day in fruitless application, and must lie down for the night empty, wearied, and unsatisfied.

Note 375. Street translates, “If they be not satisfied, they spend the night in howling;” and observes, that there seems to be a word lost after the original verb לון, lun, which he renders, they spend the night; and he supplies h; by the words, in howling The meaning of the verb לום, lun, is ambiguous. It signifies both to continue all night, and to growl, or murmur Either sense will be appropriate in this passage. The Chaldee and Syriac understand it in the former sense; and the Septuagint in the latter.

16 But I will sing of thy power By this he does not mean merely that he would have occasion to sing at some future period, but prepares himself presently for the exercise of thanksgiving; and he proceeds to acknowledge that his deliverance would be at once an illustrious effect of Divine power, and conferred of mere grace. It may be true, that David escaped at this time from the hands of his enemies without stir, and with secrecy, through the dexterity of his wife; still, by means of this artifice, God disappointed the preparations and forces of Saul, and may, therefore, with propriety be said to have exerted his power. We may suppose, however, that David takes occasion, from this particular instance, to look further back, and embrace, in his view, the various Divine interpositions which he had experienced.

17 My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms He expresses still more explicitly the truth, that he owed his safety entirely to God. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meanings, he elegantly applies to himself in a different sense. God has the strength of the wicked in his hands, to curb and to restrain it, and to show that any power of which they boast is vain and fallacious. His own people, on the other hand, he supports and secures, against the possibility of falling, by supplies of strength from himself. In the preceding part of the psalm, David had congratulated himself upon his safety, by reflecting that Saul was so completely under the secret restraint of God’s providence as to be unable to move a finger without his permission. Now, weak as he was in himself, he maintains that he had strength sufficient in the Lord; and accordingly adds, that he had good reason to engage in praise, as James the inspired apostle exhorts those who are merry to sing psalms, (James 5:13.) As to the reading which some have adopted, I will ascribe my strength with praises unto thee, the reader cannot fail to see that it is forced. It is clear that the two clauses must be taken separately, as I have already observed.

Note 376. “Sed eleganter ambiguam locutionem diverso sensu ponit.” — Lat. In the French version, “Mais c’est une bonne rencontre et qui a grace, quand il met deux fois un propos ambigu, mais en divers sens.”