Vengeance belongeth unto me, said the LORD, and we will rejoice when we see the vengeance, washing our feet in the blood of the wicked. Ps 58:10
Verses 1, 2
Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Nay, in heart ye work wickedness; Ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.
(Psalms 58:1). This is the second clause of verse one; and the parallelism inherent in the poetry here shows that whoever is addressed in the first clause, it must be someone who is also identified by the phrase ye sons of men. The RSV translators, of course, changed this also in order to support their error in the first clause. As someone has said, One poor translation always leads to another.
Now, just 'Who were these `mighty lords,' anyway? They were, in all probability the authorities, deputy rulers, and judges of the court of Israel's King David during the days leading up to the rebellion of his son Absalom. However, there are overtones here of the judgment of God against all wicked men.
Yea, in heart ye work wickedness
(Psalms 58:2). The reign of crooked judges and other evil authorities in high office was confined to no particular period of Israel's history. We might almost say that it was the accepted modus operandi of the vast majority of Israel's rulers that reached some kind of a wicked climax during the personal ministry of Christ. Jeremiah designated the whole nation as a corrupt vine; Isaiah announced their judicial hardening; and Ezekiel solemnly declared that Israel became worse than Sodom and Gomorrah (Ezek. 16).
THE TYRANTS DESCRIBED
The wicked are estranged from the womb:
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent:
They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,
Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers,
Charming never so wisely.'
Verses 7-9
Verses 3-5
The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: [They are] like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, Charming never so wisely.
(Psalms 58:3). Those who see this verse as teaching total hereditary depravity find what is absolutely not in it. The words `total,' `hereditary,' and `depravity' are not in the Bible, not even in one in a place, much less all three together! :
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies
(Psalms 58:3). This, of course, is literally impossible; and those who use this verse to argue for infant depravity surely miss the author's poetic point. :
What is meant here is simply that the total lives of the wicked are evil, their very earliest activities having given evidence of it. 'The most inventive affection and the most untiring patience cannot change the minds of such wicked men. Nothing remains, therefore, for David, except to pray for their removal.' :
Leupold pointed out that there is a close connection between Ps. 58:2 and Ps. 58:3. In Ps. 58:2, he addressed them as men open to reason; but in Ps. 58:3, having recognized their stubborn perversity in evil, he refrains from further reasoning with them, and begins to speak 'Of them, rather than to them.' :
They are like the deaf adder
(Psalms 58:4). The metaphor here is that of a poisonous serpent which cannot be charmed. It pictures an evil person so intent upon wickedness that he cannot be dissuaded. :
The whole point of Ps. 58:3-5 is that the wicked men addressed are already hardened in sin and that the hope of changing them is nil. It is an exercise in futility to pray for the inveterate enemies of God who are intent only upon destruction.
THE TYRANTS PRAYED AGAINST
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth:
Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.
Let them melt away as water that runneth apace:
When he aimeth his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off
Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away
Like the untimely birth of a woman that hath not seen the sun.
Before your pots can feel the thorns,
He will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.'
This prayer against the hardened and unrepentant wicked men of this passage reveals a seven-fold curse upon them.
1. Break their teeth (Psalms 58:6).
2. Break out (pull) the teeth of lions (Psalms 58:6).
3. Let them melt away as water that runs off (Psalms 58:7).
4. His arrows ... let them be cut off (Psalms 58:7).
5. Let them be as a snail that melteth (Psalms 58:8).
6. Let them be like an aborted fetus (Psalms 58:8)
7. Let their `pot' be carried away by a tornado (Psalms 58:9).
We have paraphrased these, but we have retained the meaning. These are some of the boldest and most dramatic statements in the Bible; and they adequately describe the judgment that God will at last execute upon the incorrigibly wicked.
Some have thought the reference to a snail's melting away was due to an ancient mistaken opinion that the snail's slimy trail destroyed him; but we think this might be a reference to the fact that ordinary salt sprinkled upon a snail literally dissolves him; and it is foolish to believe that the ancients did not know this or to think that the psalmist might not here have referred to it.
The metaphor of the 'pot' in Ps. 58:9 is difficult, due to the various translations proposed. 'The `pot' here is the means by which the enemies of the psalmist mature their plans; but Yahweh sweeps it all away with a tempest.' : As we might say, 'They cooked up all kinds of schemes which God frustrated.'
Rawlinson wrote, 'The general meanings seems to be that before the wicked judges can mature their plans the wrath of God will come upon them like a tempest and sweep both them and the product of their villainy away.' :
The other judgmental curses here seem to us as rather obvious. Every one of these metaphors means exactly the same thing. 'All wicked men shall become the objects of God's righteous judgment upon them.' :
THE TYRANTS REJOICED OVER
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance:
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked;
So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous!
Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth.'
Verse 10-11
Verses 10, 11
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked; So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
(Psalms 58:10). Let it be noted who does the rejoicing here. It is the righteous. This indicates that Christian people should not hesitate to pray for the victorious triumph of righteousness and truth over wickedness and falsehood; and that they should rejoice when their prayers are answered.
That it is wrong for righteous people to pray for the victory over evil and evil men is one of the great misunderstandings of our era. The saints in heaven itself are eagerly awaiting the vengeance of God to fall upon human wickedness.
'I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth' (Revelation 6:9,10).
There is no way to escape the conviction that these citizens of heaven itself were eagerly anticipating the vengeance of God upon their enemies and that they would be pleased when it should finally occur. Sinful attitude? Certainly not. Merely an intelligent one.
We are glad that a number of scholars we have consulted have understood this:
'The time must come when God will no longer tolerate evil. A strong moral sense pervades these words. That `God will judge' is a necessary fact in the preservation of society. The joy is not that men will be punished, but that God will be vindicated.' :
'It is a total misunderstanding of these verses to assume that there is some kind of unwholesome `gloating' here, or some kind of an ungodly bloodthirstiness.' :
'These verses express vehemently the profound satisfaction that shall be experienced 'by the righteous,' i.e., the redeemed people of God when they finally see evil visibly crushed and removed.' :
'All the righteous shall at last say, `Amen' to the condemnation of the wicked; and we shall hear no questionings of God's dealings with the impenitent. All the angels of heaven must have shouted with joy at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.' :
'The joy over the destruction of the wicked is because they are God's enemies, and their overthrow shows that God reigneth.' :
Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth
(Psalms 58:11). The terrors of the French Revolution reached their climax under the diabolical leadership of Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre. Thousands of innocent people were mercilessly guillotined, until at last, when he himself was awaiting the guillotine, having sustained a loosened jaw from a gunshot wound, and having it bound with a cloth over the top of his head, one of the citizens of Paris gazed upon him and said, Yes, yes, Robespierre, there is a God! This event is mentioned in the book by Loomis, Paris in the Terror.
Robespierre had denied the existence of any God except his nebulous 'God of Nature,' to which so-called deity he had himself installed as High Priest at the top of a pyramid, clad in a robin's-egg blue shirt and chartreuse britches. His infidelity called for the remark mentioned above. His execution by guillotine in 1794 ended the 'Terror.'
'Yes there is a God'!
